When Fred Miller, a 57-year-old Air Force veteran, purchased the white, Gothic Revival-style house with the green roof near his childhood home in southern Virginia, he wanted a large space to host gatherings for his close extended family. He was not expecting to unlock hidden chapters from his family's past.
Fred Miller's sister Karen Dixon-Rexroth, who initially convinced her older brother to buy the property, and their cousins Dexter Miller and Sonya Womack-Miranda, did most of the research into Sharswood's past. "Since the revelation… I know that when the slaves brought food into the main house, they came up through the basement stairs," Fred Miller told 60 Minutes."And there's a distinct wear on the basement stairs from years and years of traffic, of people walking up those stairs, I'm thinking, 'Wow, these are my people.'"
Probably Indigenous land first…but we don’t talk about that huh?
This is such an old story
What a full circle moment - unknowingly purchasing the property where you ancestors were enslaved, then finding the cemetery where they may be buried, on that property. Sometimes the ancestors guide you.
LeslieMarshall What an amazing story of overcoming adversity.
Old news