Hedgesville High School Principal Frederick Miller married new graduate Ruth Keesecker

Around 1915, Hedgesville High School Principal Frederick Miller, standing at the far right in front of the old school, poses with a group of students. He ended up marrying one of the girls in the photo about three years later. He was 36 when they wed, and the former student, Ruth Keesecker, was 19.

Ruth had Riner, Butts, Everhart, Snyder, Johnson, Clark, Albright, Wilson, Shimp and Kerns ancestry.

Frederick was born and grew up in Sharpsburg, Maryland. For at least a decade, in his youth, his family had the same live-in servant, a middle-aged woman named Bell Koontz. As a young man he lived with his parents until he was at least 28, and worked at a clothing factory. He was a short man by today’s standards, standing 5 foot 6. He had light blue eyes.

He started his education career in Georgia before heading back up North. He served as principal at Hancock, Bunker Hill and Martinsburg high schools, and dean of men at Western Maryland College. He earned a master’s degree from Columbia University.

He and Ruth apparently had no children. They lived on Boyd Avenue when they resided in Martinsburg.

He died at age 74 in 1956 and is buried in Hagerstown. In his will, he noted that Ruth should consider leaving something for the children of his brother Leo “upon her demise,” if she wished.

Frederick’s brother Leo served as superintendent of schools at Bunker Hill before attending law school. Leo and his wife later lived in Hagerstown.

One of Frederick’s sisters, Goldie, was married to a professor at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. At one point they lived in a modest, but well-located, waterfront home in Tampa.