A scathing obituary for a Florida great-grandmother published in a North Carolina newspaper late last month is not true, according to her son, and parts of it may have been plagiarized from another obituary published in California in 2008.
The obituary in the Cherokee Scout described Cornelia June Rogers Miller, who died in February at the age of 82, as a woman who "made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life."
It said “she spent a lifetime tearing apart” her family and that she had a lifelong drug addiction.
“Drugs were a major love in her life, as June (the name she went by) had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life.” It also said she would not be missed.”
But June Miller's son, Robert Miller, said the obituary is not true and that he believes his sisters may be responsible.
"The whole thing is just sad," he told Chattanooga TV station WTVC. "It's really sad that they don't have anything better to do."
The station contacted one of Miller's sisters, who denied writing it and called it "very tragic and very sad."
The small-town paper's publisher refused to identify the person who sent in the obituary two weeks ago, telling WTVC that it published the obituary because "the family's will overrode the editor."
The paper has now published a new obituary on June Miller sent in by Robert Miller and told WTVC it’s considering taking down the first one.
The new obituary refers to June as a "devoted military wife and homemaker who taught swimming lessons to school children," and who "made a wicked lemon pound cake."
Robert Miller had previously told the station that his mother was a “loving, generous woman.”
June Miller and her husband, who had three children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, had a vacation home in Murphy, North Carolina, an area the Cherokee Scout covers.
Credit: DIGIcal
Credit: DIGIcal
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