Tag Archives: Donald C. Minor

Top Hat on the Turkey: A Vintage Postcard for Wordless Wednesday

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In keeping with the tradition begun by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation in October 1908:

“Once again the season is at hand, when according to the ancient custom of our people, it becomes the duty of the President to appoint a day of prayer and thanksgiving to God.

. . . .Upon material well-being as a foundation must be raised the lofty life of the spirit, if this nation is to properly fulfill its great mission and to accomplish all that we so ardently hope and desire.  The things of the body are good; the thing of the intellect better; but best of all are the things of the soul; for in the nation as in the individual, in the long run it is character that counts. Let us therefore as a people set our faces resolutely against evil, and with broad charity, with kindness and goodwill toward all men, but with unflinching determination to smile down wrong, strive with all the strength that is given us for righteousness in public and in private life.

Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt,  President of the United States, set apart Thursday the 26th day of November next as a day of general thanksgiving and prayer, and on that day I recommend that the people shall cease from their daily work, and in their homes or in their churches, meet devoutly to thank the Almighty for the many and great blessings they have received in the past, and to pray that they may be given strength so to order their lives as to reserve a continuation of these blessings in the future.”

This turkey donned a patriotic top hat and set out to wish six year old Donald C. Minor a Happy Thanksgiving.  Aunt Sarah Minor McClure attached a one cent stamp and sent the German-made card to R.F. D. 1, Carmichaels, Pennsylvania on November 3, 1908.   She signed the back “From Aunt Sarah”; the date 11-24-’08 was added later by another hand.

This card is the first in a series of Thanksgiving Vintage Postcards.

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday: Waynesburg M. E. Church 1907

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Wordless Wednesday is an ongoing blog-prompt hosted at Geneabloggers.  The author frequently uses the opportunity to share the vintage postcard collection of her grandfather, Donald C. Minor.

Today’s visitor to 112 North Richhill Street, Waynesburg, Pennyslvania would come upon this beautiful old church:

accessed August 10, 2011: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ronmilliken/reunion/Sunday%20tour.html

 

One hundred years ago the corner looked like this:

From the postcard collection of Donald C. Minor

How many differences can you spot!

  • The NAME:  In or around 1968 the Waynesburg Methodist Episcopal Church became affiliated with the newly created United Methodist Church, and was afterward known as the First Methodist Church of Waynesburg.
  • The parsonage porch is brown.
  • There is no ramp leading through the front arches.
  • There is no stop sign at the corner.
  • The trees are different.
  • There are no electrical lines.
:)

This second image is an artochrome postcard from the Donald C. Minor Postcard Collection, a treasure trove of images and notes sent to my grandfather from 1907-1910.  The card was printed in Germany, as were most of the postcards of that era.  The publisher, however, was more local.  Olmstead Brothers Company Publishers were located in nearby Wheeling, West Virginia.  Either the printer or the publisher identified the card as being #1035, one of a set that showed scenes of the region.*  Unfortunately for Minor genealogists, no note explains why Walter sent this card to five year old Donald on October 21, 1908.

*You can find more photo postcards of the Wheeling, West Virginia region at http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/photos/postcards/index.htm.

 

Wordless Wednesday: 1909 Artochrome Postcard of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania

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Wordless Wednesday is an ongoing blog-prompt hosted at Geneabloggers.  The author frequently uses the opportunity to share the vintage postcard collection of her grandfather, Donald C. Minor.

My branch of the Minor Family lived in Greene County, Pennsylvania for over 16 decades.  Most of that time my ancestors lived on a farm outside Gerard’s Fort, on a tiny back road called Ceylon Lane.  The closest large town was also the county seat — Waynesburg.  It was the political, economic, social, and educational hub for generations of Minors.

In this artochrome postcard from my grandfather’s collection, a German printer has lithographically processed a half tone photograph to create a full color photocard of west Waynesburg.

The Waynesburg of my childhood family reunions didn’t look like this.  Donald and my grandmother, Kerma Bradford Minor, had moved from the farm in the 1950s, and lived in a brick house on a hill, with a huge side yard and a carport covered by grapevines.  I remember Waynesburg as blocks and blocks of homes surrounding the Waynesburg College campus, with a main street that ultimately led to an ice cream parlor, the only building that really counted for anything, in my opinion.

When I look at this 1909 view I am puzzled by the smokestacks and large rectangular buildings.  From what angle was the photographer observing the town?

Accessed from Historic Map Works, July 26, 2011

While trolling the internet I happened upon Historic Map Works, a site that sent my heart a twitter.  This 1897 bird’s eye image of Waynesburg was among the Greene County collection.  I spotted a building that appears on both this image and on my granddaddy’s postcard.

Accessed from Historic Map Works, July 26, 2011

This bird’s eye image gives a greater sense — though mightily flattened out — of how large Waynesburg was at the turn of the 20th century.  The 1909 autochrome reduces Waynesburg’s scope, but stays true to the topography of its land.  Taken together the images provide a framework for my family stories that I find just fascinating.  My eye turns inward, images now combined, and I soar like a crow over town; imagining my family walking these streets,  wandering through shops, attending weddings in churches, drinking lemonade with school chums on shaded porches.  What stories can my family heirlooms now tell me?

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From the Donald Corbly Minor Postcard Collection
Accessed from Historic Map Works, July 26, 2011
Accessed from Historic Map Works, July 26, 2011

Vintage Photo Postcards of Southwestern Pennsylvania — Wordless Wednesday –

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This post is prompted by the ongoing series, Wordless Wednesday, at Geneabloggers.

From the sleeves of my grandfather’s postcard collection come these wonderful examples of early 20th century photo postcards.  These notes were sent to Donald C. Minor of Carmichaels, Pennsylvania by his sister, Helen Minor, (1910) and his cousin, Laura Stephenson (1909).  All these individuals were living in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania.  Donald lived with his parents and grandfather on the Ceylon Road farm outside of Carmichaels and Helen attended school in nearby Waynesburg, a town north and west of the farm’s rolling hills.  Cousin Laura Stephenson lived in Uniontown, a large town just a short distance to the east, across the Monongahela River.

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View of White Rocks Near Uniontown, PA. sent by Laura Stephenson to her cousin, Donald C. Minor of Carmichaels, PA.
View on Ten Mile Creek, near Jefferson, Pa., sent by Helen Minor, 1910
Published by W. T. Hayes

The Old Minor Home Farm: Those Places Thursday

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My mother and three siblings pose here on the dining room steps with their mother, Kerma Minor.  The white painted-brick farmhouse was surrounded by 330 acres of rolling hills studded by her daddy’s prized cows.  This was my mother’s home, Ceylon Lane, Greene Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania–where the Donald Minor family weathered the Depression and World War II.  Home on the home farm that her daddy had inherited from his daddy, Robert Minor, who had been bequeathed the home farm by his dad. Francis Marion Minor had in turn received the 330 acres from his father, John Pearson Minor, as per item 7 in his will of 28 February 1867:

I give, devise and bequeath unto my son, Francis Marion, his heirs and assigns the tract of land whereon he and I reside, known as the Myers farm, containing three hundred and twenty nine acres more or less…

Just when, I have wondered, did the former Myers farm become my family’s home farm.  Last week I unearthed a document in the Minor Papers that provides an important clue.

An article of Agreement made and concluded between James McFarland of Cumberland Township (housejoiner) and John P. Minor of Green Township both of Green County Pennsylvania on the twenty second of February eighteen hundred and thirty one as follows

John P. Minor was to purchase and supply all the materials for the project, and furnish board and lodging to James McFarland for the duration of the project.  In addition Mr. McFarland would receive $300 upon the satisfactory conclusion of all work.

For his part, James McFarland was to

complete the joiner work of the brick house formerly occupied by Jacob Myers.

The agreement stipulates that he was then to finish the floors and petition three rooms off on each floor

according to the construction of the said house.

Mr. McFarland was also charged with making cupboards, and sashes for the upstairs window, and casing and fixing off all the windows in the whole house.

and run up two pair of stairs in the dwelling house ….a pair of stairs to be run up outside on the porch and a drysink on the inside byside of chimney  the doors to be taken down and the facings new and then hung and mantle peaces and cheer boards and wash boards and all other things necessary to complete the building is to be done by said McFarland.

The house described bears a striking resemblance to the house my mother described as her childhood home.  For now, til new evidence surfaces to contradict me, I believe that the brick house, formerly occupied by Jacob Myers, was handsomely renovated by one James McFarland in 1831, and subsequently occupied by generations of John P. Minor descendants.