When William Ashmund Presruidge was born on November 5, 1839 in Sumter, Alabama, United States, his father, Benjamin Bagley Presrudge, was 22 and his mother, Mary Ann Ezell, was 18. He married Victoria C. Mills on October 5, 1865, in Choctaw, Alabama, the United States of America. They had for 2 children. William was a labeled confederate soldier at 3rd Alabama Cavalry. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment was formed in Tupelo, Mississippi, in June 1862. It consisted of independent companies that had seen the previous service, some had fought in Shiloh. These companies were from the counties of Monroe, Choctaw, Wilcox, Mobile, Perry, Dallas, Calinha and Autauga. He enlisted on September 25, 1861, in Mount Sterling, Alabama. He was present in all the actions of his regiment, including Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Atlanta Campaign and Bentonville, and was released in Conditional Freedom in Charlotte, North Carolina, May 1865. As reported in the book "Rest Soldier" written By Judith Mac Knight Jones, it is reported that she arrived in Brazil by according to Betty Antunes de Oliveira (1985), in her book "Spark Bills Dry", we have the following information about Bertha Mills:

    Bertha was born in São Paulo, Santa Barbara or Limeira, in 1879 or 1880, being the daughter of William M. Mills and Dora (Thacher) Mills.
       Around 1892/3, Methodist worker Michel Dickie was helping religious work among the settlers in Santa Barbara d'Oeste. In one of her preaching, the teenager Bertha, then 13 years old, converted and became a member of the Methodist Church.
       We believe that Bertha came from Santa Barbara d'Oeste to study at the Progress College after 1902.
       We suppose that time is your passage to the Baptist denomination. Some time later she was sent to study in the US.
       It is called called for missionary work, it offered for missions in Brazil. FMB (Foreign Mission Board) appointed it to 21.11.1907, thus being the second young woman born in Brazil to become a Baptist missionary in her own country, supported by the Richmond Board. In the previous month Anne Hope Thomas, also from Santa Barbara d'Oeste, had been named, becoming the first.
       Bertha Mills returned to Brazil, then in the company of missionaries Dr. H.H. Muirhead and wife D. Aline, also newly named for Brazil, as FMB missionaries. They landed in Recife, Pernambuco, where they would work.
       In January 1908, Bertha Mills became the director of the Youth Society of the First Baptist Church of Recife, as well as a professor of the Baptist College Primary Department in that city. Bertha spoke Portuguese and English well and this greatly facilitated his missionary activity. In the report sent to FMB, Dr. Muirhead mentions that much of the success of work that year was due to the effort of Bertha Mills.
       In April? From 1908, in Recife, Bertha married missionary Robert Edward Pettigrew, who has worked in northern Brazil, since 1904.
       At the end of 1909, Campo de Alagoas became the place of the couple's activities, with the first Baptist Church of Alagoas, in Maceió. In June 1910, Robert and Bertha became the first Baptist missionaries in Paranaguá, Ode stayed a few years. They opened a school and Bertha contributed to the organization of the first ladies society in that place.
In Rio Grande do Sul, Bertha was enthusiastic in the plan to raise a temple when she pleased God to call her. It had been a long time since she was sick. All human resources were used for their recovery, but it was time to leave! He died in Porto Alegre on May 22, 1931. Before being taken to his grave, a cult of the Methodist Church was held gently. Spoke at the time, Dr. W. B. Bagby. She was inhumated in the German Baptist Cemetery in that city. Of the four children he left, three were in the US, including the firstborn, then older (Oliveira, 1985, p.153).