Palm Beach family honors late matriarch's joyful life with avocado sale

Just steps from the front door of their home on Barton Avenue, a family found a unique way to honor their matriarch — by selling avocados from the trees that brought her so much joy during her life.

Once a year for the past two years, the Miller family has sold avocados in honor of Linda Bartlett Miller, who died at age 70 in March 2021. Part of the proceeds from “Royal’s Island Avocados” — named for Miller’s 9-year-old grandson, Royal Douglass, who leads the sales effort — go toward Linda Miller’s beloved Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, where she served on the board for nearly a decade.

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Donating to Peggy Adams made all the sense in the world to Royal, who was very close with his grandmother, said Whitney Miller Douglass, Linda’s daughter and Royal’s mother, who helps to run the avocado stand with her sister, Penelope Miller, and father, Leverett Miller.

“To give back to the animals that she loved so much, it was so beautiful,” Whitney Douglass said, adding, “When she died, it left a big hole in all of our hearts.”

The stand, a one-day-only affair that takes place on a select Sunday after the family harvests avocados from their pair of 20-year-old trees each fall, this year was the Sunday before Halloween, prompting Penelope Miller to don an avocado costume and stand with a sign that read, “Royal’s Island Avocados. Fresh! Organic! Pesticide-free!”

And below the address and hours, next to a drawing of two avocados: “Grown at home.”

Royal joined her, donning his own avocado hat.

Linda Miller would surely be proud of the simple stand, as it carries on a bit of an island tradition for the family: Not only was Leverett Miller the proprietor of Peter Dinkel’s restaurant on Royal Poinciana Way in the 1980s, but Linda Miller’s aunt also was fashion icon Lilly Pulitzer, whose eye for color was honed as she looked for patterned dresses to hide juice stains at her own stand in Palm Beach.

Linda Miller planted the avocado trees when the family moved into their house on Barton Avenue in 2003. They moved from Fairfield, in north-central Florida, where they had a farm and bred thoroughbred horses. Whitney and Penelope grew up there, watching their parents raise championship horses.

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“She had an amazing green thumb,” Douglass said of their mother. While it took a while for the avocado trees to bear fruit, once they did, they were “incredibly prolific,” she said.

The first harvest after Linda Miller’s death, the Millers packaged up the avocados and shipped them to friends and family around the country.

"Mom's friends were so touching," Douglass said. "They said, 'We're going to plant them and have a little piece of Linda right here.'"

In 2022, they decided to sell the avocados instead, donating the money to Peggy Adams and teaching Royal about growing and harvesting. He put a lot of thought into every touch, from decorating the stand, to creating the signs, to how much they should charge per avocado, the sisters said.

With the entire family — both sisters, their father and Royal — living in the Barton Avenue house, there are plenty of opportunities for the youngster to be hands-on with the growing process.

He even spent time creating peanut-butter whipped cream for any dogs that might visit the stand, Douglass said.

“He wants to make sure that his customers have a top-of-the-line experience,” she said.

When asked about their favorite memories of their mother with her avocado trees, both sisters cited moments their mother spent with Royal.

Linda Miller and Royal would sit and read together in a nook that overlooked the trees, Penelope Miller said.

"The two of them would sit in there with the avocados hanging from the tree in the background," she said.

Douglass recalled her mother explaining the benefits of bees to Royal: "There was a beehive in one of the avocado trees, and she explained to Royal that it was a good thing, because they would make the avocados grow," she said.

Penelope Miller said she is proud of Royal for making the choice to donate to Peggy Adams in his grandmother’s memory.

“She would be so touched by that,” she said. “She would be beyond moved to tears.”

While on the board of Peggy Adams, Linda Miller initiated a campaign for small repeat donors who gave less than $100 a year, Penelope said. “She celebrated every dime that went to help the animals, and for her grandson to carry on that tradition is just the most beautiful thing,” she said.

The community aspect of the avocado sale is another important element of honoring their mother, the sisters said, saying the stand encompasses her joy and silliness.

“Having fun, seeing the neighbors, meeting people, being in our community, that was all stuff that my mom loves,” Penelope said. “When we spoke at her funeral, Whitney made a beautiful statement that recalled how Mom loved celebrating other people’s happiness. So to see that spirit come back around and people celebrating my nephew’s happiness, her grandson’s happiness, is really kind of profound and moving.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach family honors late matriarch's joyful life with avocado sale