Edward Bates Miller and Martha Susannah “Susie” Forgey Marry
About 1875 the Forgey Family settled at Oak Grove not far from the Mountain Ranch of Raleigh Scott in Curry County.
When their daughter Susie’s engagement to Elias Lawrence was ended by his death, she began to attend the local dances with Edward Miller.
Edward Bates Miller was a happy-go-lucky Irishman full of fun and with a large stock of amusing stories. He was well-liked by everyone. A year later he and Susie were married in October 1884. Their first son, Elmer was born June 22, 1885.
The elder Forgey’s (William and Hannah) moved the remaining family (Hannah Michaels Forgey’s parents, Susie’s sisters Rebecca and Ruby, and other family members in the wagon train) to the Preston Place on the Upper Pistol River to give Ed and Susie Miller a home in the cabin at Oak Grove Prairie.
Susie’s two sisters, Rebecca and Ruby, homesteaded 160 acres.
That’s when William and Hannah Forgey bought the ranch known as Grasshopper Hill located farther into the mountains.
William's happy-go-lucky son-in-law, Ed Miller, sold the Oak Grove cabin and prairie to Susie’s sister and her husband, Fred Smith.
After Ed and Susie had rented a house at the mouth of Burnt Hill Creek for a couple of years, the young couple was again desperate. More children had been added to the family and Ed had trouble finding work from that remote location.
William and Hannah, Elmer’s grandparents and Jack’s great grandparents, packed their belongings again. Ed and Susie were given the ranch.
William and Hannah had been invited to stay with Will and Ruby Wridge who had moved to the Beaverton near Portland. But the household became tense when William refused to apply for a veteran’s pension.
Page 172, Pistol River Recollections, Ella Mae Sponaugle