Fowler, Emily Susan c. 1880-1943 AL>GA

Susie Fowler is my great-great-grandmother and the first of a long line of female brick walls in my Miller line. Every wife of a Miller in my line is a brick wall!

She married Thomas R. Miller 7 Sep 1897 in Gordon County, Georgia. Census records show she was born in Alabama but that is all I know about her prior to her marriage.

According to her daughter, she was an orphan and was raised by her sister. Unfortunately, this daughter wasn't able to give very clear details.

From two different conversations with her I was told the sister was named Clara and I was told the sister was named Betty.

My great-aunt thinks the sister never married but I have been unable to identify a potential sister in census records. UPDATE: Turns out my great-aunt had assumed her grandfather's sister was her grandmother's sister---she didn't actually have any information about her great-aunt.

Also, my great-great-aunt (the daughter of Susie) said her oldest brother was named for her grandfather Fowler. Her oldest brother was Wilburn Auburn. Once again, I haven't been able to identify a clear candidate in the census (there is only one potential Wilburn in the 1880 census but his family is not a clear match).

So far I have not been able to identify Susie's death certificate in available indexes. Unfortunatley, Susie supposedly died in Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta so it's not very practical to walk into the local courthouse and ask for a careful search.

The funeral home (Kenemer & Combs) in charge of Susie's burial is no longer in operation, either. I have been working on tracking down possible companies that might have their records, though. If you know where these records are, please let me know.

The obituary above comes from a newspaper clipping index card file found at the Calhoun-Gordon Co. Library in Calhoun, Georgia. UPDATE: These are now available online for free, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/gordonobits/pdfs/gco-lm-00003838.pdf. The above obituary is attributed to the County News, there was also an obit in the Calhoun Times, the information was essentially the same, this one is more specific about her death.

UPDATE: I've been using my great-aunt's autosomal DNA for every family problem I can. There are no clear Fowler leads (there are some vague Fowler leads) but something interesting has happened. My great-aunt has dozens of matches to one Peace family. It appears these matches belong to her maternal side (the Miller-Fowler side).

With so many matches, I've been able to estimate that the Peace ancestor could be Susie's mother or a grandparent. To keep this entry from becoming confusing, read about possible parents for Susie in this post.

If you have any information about Susie please post a comment.