Doris Miller Hargrett

November 2, 1923 – November 2, 2023

Contributed by: Ms. Lucy Hargrett Draper, eldest daughter

Doris Lorraine Miller Hargrett (“Dotty”) was born 100 years ago, November 2, 1923, on a windswept night in the 1880s log cabin home of her Mother, Lucy Jones, and Father, Ancil Layfayette, on Plantation Road in Screven, GA, Wayne County. She was attended by her eight surviving siblings, sisters Maude, Jessie, Janie & Lucille, and brothers Henry, David, John & Dorsey. Her sister, “Baby Ruby”, had passed away the year before. Doris would survive the loss of all her siblings in her lifetime, living to be 90 years old.

Beloved by her family, Dotty, a great beauty, grew up on the sandy Yeoman’s Farm, established by her Grandfather, Andrew Bowen Miller, and Grandmother, Margaret Bennett Miller. Andrew Bowen named the farm “Margaret’s Plantation.” He had been a soldier in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Dotty’s and her large family’s log home had no glass windows (wooden shutters) and no running water, plumbing or electricity. She grew up during the Great Depression.

A seventeenth-generation descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine & Lorraine, Dotty became a self-taught scholar of poetry, art, and the Civil War. A West Point professor noted, “she knows more about the Civil War than I do.” Over time she amassed a large book collection and was buried with her two favorites.

When Dotty was a young woman, the county’s new dashing, handsome, young Dr. McKee Hargrett made a house call in his convertible to her parents’ home when her Mother lay ill. After much persuasion of her parents, Dr. Hargrett returned for their first date when he landed his airplane in her Father’s field to travel to Atlanta for the premiere of “Gone With The Wind”.

As World War II broke out in Europe, Canada organized the Royal Canadian Air Force which Dr. Hargrett joined to pilot a Curtiss P-40s Warhawk. Dotty (age 17) followed him and made national AP headlines when she was removed from the Northbound train at the U.S.-Canada border and detained. “He Went to War and the Georgia Peach Followed” was the headline. She was pictured in the first store-bought dress she had ever owned, and he was pictured with a rifle resting on his shoulder. They were married in Canada after she was allowed to cross the border.

When the U.S. entered WW II, Dr. Hargrett transferred to the U.S. Army Air Corps as a pilot. Dotty returned to her parents’ “new home” to give birth to two daughters by lamplight, and a third daughter in the Leaphart Hospital. When WW II ended, Dr. Hargrett established an office in the center of Screven, Georgia.

Dotty took on the task of raising the “3 Hargrett Girls” and two cousins, Shirley Varnadore and Andy Rosholt, when their parents passed away. For 12 years they made their home in a four room apartment adjoining Dr. Hargrett’s five room office. The porch was reserved for patients who arrived from 6 am to 10 pm. He was paid with fruits, vegetables and small animals due to the intense poverty of many patients. Often he was not paid. After hours Dr. Hargrett made late night house calls. His children would ride along—their only way to spend time with him.

Over the years Ethel Lee Daniels, Alice “Mama” Dixon and Aunt Mae Jones joined the household to assist with the children. There was no washer or dryer in those years.

After 12 years of living in the office, Dr. Hargrett purchased the Tudor style home across the street. Dotty transformed the home which she named “Wisteria Cottage” after the purple flowers hanging from vines in the many trees. Three generations of her family would live there.

The grounds of Wisteria Cottage had a barn, a “summer house”, trees to climb, swings, a jungle gym and basketball court where neighborhood children joined the Hargrett girls to play. A large garden and bamboo forest lined the back yard and a wide fence in the front yard.

Dotty emphasized her children’s educations, and when her last daughter was married she began a new chapter. Without telling her family, she returned to and completed high school, then attended nursing school where she graduated second in her class. She specialized in Pediatrics & Elder Care Nursing, fields in which she worked.

In 2006, as he passed away in Savannah, GA, Dotty stood at the bedside of Dr. Hargrett, who was her children’s father, to whom she was married twice. He was 90 years old and had practiced medicine in Wayne County for 67 years. Patients had traveled to his Savannah retirement community to consult with him as recently as two weeks earlier. Following several years in Atlanta, Doris Hargrett passed away November 30, 2014. She was laid to rest, still beautiful and at peace, next to Dr. Hargrett, her sister Lucille, and her daughter Cherry, in the historic Churchyard on St. Simons Island, GA.

Doris Hargrett’s living descendants include Lucy H. Draper, 82 (husband Stephen Elliot Draper, d.) of Atlanta, and McKee H. Hamilton, 72 (husband Philip Lamar Hamilton, d.) of Savannah. Granddaughters include Lynx Deluxe band member Lucy Theodora Erickson, 56 (companion Andy Browne), of Atlanta, and her son, Doris’ great-grandson, scholar and actor Zain Abrouch, 19, of Atlanta; Independent Archivist Chrisy Erickson Strum, 55 (husband Lee Strum), of Atlanta; High School Assistant Principal Jessie R. Draper, 46 (companion Clay Atherton), of Athens; and new mother, Kate Hamilton-Taljaard, 38 (husband A.J. Taljaard), and their twin boys, Doris’ great-grandsons Bowen McKee, 2, and Bennett Philip, 2, of Savannah.

“We love and honor you, Momma Dot.” -Your descendants. November 2, 2023