Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920

Biography of Marianne DuQuercron Miller, 1870–1943

By Nancy Alexander Simmons, Fairfax Station, VA

Woman Suffrage Activist

Marianne DuQuercron was born March 25, 1870, in Starkville, Mississippi, to Francis Henry DuQuercron and Laura Blanche Billington DuQuercron. Her father, a pharmacist, died when she was 5 years old. Her mother subsequently married David Lewis Phares, a physician who was on the faculty at Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College—now Mississippi State University— in Starkville. In 1884, Marianne DuQuercron was one of seven women to enter Mississippi A&M College, and in 1886, she was elected sponsor of the Lee Guards—the college's military drill team. In 1888, she received a Bachelor of Science from A&M College, becoming one of its first two female graduates. After graduation, she began teaching and, in January 1893, was teaching in Meridian, Mississippi.

In Starkville on October 4, 1893, she married Charles Carroll Miller, a judge and prominent attorney from Meridian, Mississippi, who was a widower with two daughters and two sons. Her husband died suddenly on June 17, 1908, in Meridian. She continued to work as a teacher for the Meridian city schools—including Highland School and Stevenson School—until the early 1930s.

The thirteenth annual convention of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association was held April 13-14, 1917, in Starkville. Miller was the association's first vice-president that year. The convention consisted of invocations, musical performances, greetings from leaders of other organizations, reports from local suffrage leagues and committees, and speeches by noted suffragists from Mississippi and other parts of the country. Miller was scheduled to preside over the Friday evening session; however, it is not clear that she did because the event's program lists another woman—the Starkville League president—as the presiding officer for that session.

In 1935, Miller joined the Daughters of the American Revolution's Pushmataha Chapter in Meridian. And in 1938, Miller was introduced as a new member of the Asheville, North Carolina, chapter of the American Association of University Women. The 1940 federal census enumerated Miller in the household of her cousin in Memphis, Tennessee; but it recorded her address as Asheville, North Carolina.

On April 17, 1943, Miller died of cancer at Hollenbeck Home for the Aged in Los Angeles, California; she is buried there in Evergreen Cemetery.

An image of Miller can be found at https://archive.org/stream/reveille11898miss#page/n45/mode/2up.

SOURCES:

1940 U.S. Census, Tennessee. Memphis, Shelby County, p. 61B, Enumeration District: 98-92. Digital images. Ancestry.com.

Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

“Ballots for Both: Thirteenth Annual Convention of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association.” Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association, 1917. Available online at http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/suffrage/id/121/rec/1

Email from Nekita Gandy, Library Associate, UA/Special Collections, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, June 20, 2018

Harp, Scott. “History of the Restoration Movement.” Available online, accessed June 27, 2018. http://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/mississippi/phares.htm

Harper, Ida Husted, et al., eds. The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. VI (1900-1920). N.p.: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922, p. 333 [LINK].

“List of Teachers.” The Clarion-Ledger, January 5, 1893, p. 7. Available through Newspapers.com.

“Meridian Teachers.” Jackson Daily News, June 1, 1909, p. 2. Available through Newspapers.com.

“Military Notes.” The Vicksburg Herald, April 3, 1886, p. 4. Available through Newspapers.com.

“Mrs. Gibson Packer Speaks on Europe at A.A.U.W. Meet.” Asheville Citizen-Times, September 29, 1938, p. 6. Available through Newspapers.com.

“State Items.” Weekly Clarion-Ledger, October 12, 1893, p. 5. Available through Newspapers.com.

“Suffrage Association Will Meet Next Week.” Jackson Daily News, April 6, 1917, p. 5. Available through Newspapers.com.

“The Industrial Feature in Women's Education.” The Democratic-Herald, August 16, 1900, p. 2. Available through Newspapers.com.

The Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1943, p. 21. Available through Newspapers.com.

The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College. “Alumni – Continued.” Reveille. 1898, pp 38-39. Available online at https://archive.org/stream/reveille11898miss#page/n45/mode/2up

The Winston County Journal, November 18, 1955, p. 15. Available through Newspapers.com.

“Honorable C. C. Miller Dies Suddenly at Meridian.” Vicksburg Evening Post, June 18, 1908, p. 5. Available through Newspapers.com.

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