Trula was born in Dante, Virginia on September 16, 1921 to the late William M. and Bessie May Woods Wilkerson. Trula grew up a coal miner’s daughter. She moved to Kingsport at an early age, working at the lunch counter at Russell’s Drug Store on five points. Every week, she walked to Eastman to apply for work to get better pay to help move her mom to Kingsport. She worked in the cafeteria at Tennessee Eastman where she met a handsome man, whom she always gave extra ice cream on his pie; this man later became our dad. She and Albert Miller married in 1941 in San Antonio, Texas, where he was stationed at Ft. Sam Houston during WWII.
Trula had a full life! She has been a member of Cedar Grove Baptist Church since 1954. After raising her daughters, she worked for over 25 years in the cafeteria at Cedar Grove Elementary School. She has always stayed involved in cooking for Meals on Wheels, her church love meals, delivering cookies to local hospitals, making hats for cancer and NICU patients, singing in the church choir, going to ETSU ballgames, watching the Atlanta Braves and UT Vols Basketball, playing bingo at Bloomingdale Ruritan and with her neighbors at Pinebrook. She never missed a chance to go somewhere and do something.
In addition to her parents, Trula is preceded in death by her husband of 65 years, Albert Miller; sisters, Dora Glovier, Lucille Horne, Gladys Lowe, and Virginia Doyle; and brothers, Arthur, Carlos, Vernon, Garvie, and Cline Wilkerson.
She is survived by her daughters, Barbara Moffitt and husband Don and Nancy Bishop and husband Tom; grandchildren, Celeste Arrowood and husband Kenny, Eric Bishop and wife Charlotte, Preston Moffitt and wife Kimberly; great-grandchildren, Christian, Brady, Emery and Aiden; sister-in-law, Vada Wilkerson; numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and a host of church friends and many loving neighbors in her community of Pinebrook.
The family will receive friends on Sunday, September 1, 2019 from 1:00 to 2:30pm at East Lawn Funeral Home. Funeral services will follow at 2:30pm with Pastor Larry Browder officiating.
Trula will be laid to rest beside her husband following the funeral at East Lawn Memorial Park in the Chapel of Memories Mausoleum.
Pallbearers will be: Tom Bishop, Eric Bishop, Preston Moffitt, Kenny Arrowood, Christian Bishop and Brady.
Honorary pallbearers will include the Cedar Grove Ladies Sunday School Class and Pinebrook Neighbors.
Flowers may be sent to East Lawn Funeral Home or donations may be made to Cedar Grove Baptist Church, 125 Coley St., Kingsport, TN 37660.
The family would like to thank the loving people at Crown Cypress who assisted us as if she had lived there forever and Amedysis Hospice for their loving care for our mother.
