Bio-Minard, Dewitt

When Dewitt was a boy, his parents separated and then divorced. He and his siblings were divided among relatives, and he went to live with an uncle and aunt, William and Susanna Mayle, near Grafton, Taylor County, WV. He is shown in the household in the 1880 census, when he was age 12. The uncle put him to work, and Dewitt became a farm laborer before reaching his teens.

Dewitt married Rebecca Jane Mayle (1862-1944), a cousin and the daughter of Isaac and Sarah Mayle of Deer Park, Garrett County, MD. They were married in Garrett County. He was six years younger than his bride.

The Minerd/Minard and Mayle families were close, and Dewitt's sister Minerva Minard married Rebecca's brother Ellsworth Mayle.

Dewitt and Rebecca had three children -- Edward Harrison Minard, Lillian Minard and Maude E. Minard.

Dewitt and Rebecca's 1890 marriage certificate, signed by William J. Sharpes, presiding elder of the Oakland District. Note the spelling of Rebecca's maiden name as "Mail."

In January 1900, the Minards bought a 73-acre farm tract near Deer Park, Garrett County, from Wilbur and Olive B. Jones for $250. The acreage was part of Military Lots #1082, 1084 and 1085, and bounded a "corner of Mrs. O'Maley's land..." (Rebecca's father died in 1908.) Deer Park was near the town of Oakland, and seen here is a photograph of Oakland's Main Street, from an old postcard, a scene the Minards would have known well.

Deer Park was famed as the site of the Deer Park Hotel -- "one of the most exclusive mountain resorts in the east" -- where many nationally prominent people were guests over the years, including four presidents of the United States. It was constructed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1873 and was in use for 56 years, until its closure in 1929. The building was demolished in 1942.

Dewitt and Rebecca provided farm produce and services for the hotel, in addition to farming their land. They also worked for some of the summertime vacationers who owned homes in the area. The Minards sold butter, milk, eggs, farm-cured hams, venison and vinegar made from apples raised on the farm. Dewitt kept about 25 types of apple trees on his farm, and maintained records dating back to 1903.

Dewitt and Rebecca apparently had angry clashes over real estate with their neighbor, widow Nancy Cooper, who in turn may have been the mother of Dewitt's brother in law, Elwood Cooper. To resolve the boundary dispute, the Minards retained the services of attorney Gilmore S. Hamill of nearby Oakland.

Old Deer Park Hotel

After studying the situation, the lawyer wrote a threatening letter on June 22, 1907 to Mrs. Cooper and her family -- note the two different spellings in his text:

Mr. DeWitt Miner has shown me his deeds for the land conveyed to him by Mr. W.C. Jones. By a decree by the Circuit Court for Garrett County, I made Mr. Jones a deed for this land, which Minard and his wife now hold, and their deed is good, and besides you people stood by for eleven years and permitted him to put up fences and we can show that you assisted to some extent in putting up the division fence and furnished one half of the wire, and now it wont do for you to come back at this late day, and say there was anything wrong with the lines, and I want to give you notice, that if you attempt to interfere with Minard's fences or his property, we will take steps to arrest any one interfering with the fences or any one going in side of his fences without his consent, and now we give you notice with all others not to enter or cross over the land of he and his wife, and if arresting and putting a fine on you will not be sufficient, then I will apply to the Court for an injunction, and will send the Sheriff down with that. The Court authorized me to make this deed to Mr. Jones, and I know it is right and you have no right to any part of Mr. Minard's land. I hope you will obey the law and not undertake to interfere with Mr. or Mrs. Minard's land, if you do you will get into trouble.

Dewitt (behind wheel) and Rebecca (far left) and family in front of their home. Others, from left: Lillian (3rd), Maude (4th), Edward (5th) and nephew Dewey Mayle (far right).

A local newspaper, the Mountain Democrat, published a history of the Mayle/Male clan in its edition of April 16, 1936. The article was authored by local historian Capt. Charles E. Hoye, and the Minards proudly saved the treasure. (In 1942, Hoye published a book, The Hoyes of Maryland, which mentioned Dewitt's distant cousin, Louisa Minerd and her husband John J.P. Hoye and their five children, who were residents of Oakland before moving to Dunbar, Fayette County, PA.)

When the federal census was taken in 1910, and again in 1920 and 1930, the Minards and their children made their home in Deer Park. Rebecca's older brother, widower Hugh Mayle, resided with the family during that era. Dewitt's occupation in 1910 was listed as "farmer" and Hugh's as "farm laborer" on the "home farm."

Rebecca was a member of the Methodist church in Deer Park. Circa 1913, the Minard children attended school at Spring Glade School No. 11, taught by Anna Harvey. The building was a one-room school house located next to Dewitt's farm, which doubled as a Sunday School building. (Trustees of the school were Henry D. Strawser, Charles Tasker and Walter W. Flanigan.)

The census of 1930 shows young grandchildren Cecil and Rosalie A. Minard living under the Minards' roof. Their home was along the Deer Park to Oakland Road. A history survey of their neighborhood notes that their house was "a two-story, gable-roofed, ell plan dwelling with a three-bay, center door facade. The house rests on a stone foundation and is covered by weatherboarding."

Final resting place for Dewitt and Rebecca in Deer Park, MD

On March 23, 1939, at the age of 79, Dewitt "dropped dead at his home," reported a local newspaper. He was "a resident of this county for about fifty years." (Click here to read the full text of the obituary on the RootsWeb website.) Dewitt was laid to rest at Deer Park Cemetery after a funeral service led by Rev. David C. Trimble.

Rebecca outlived her husband by five years. After suffering from an illness for one month, she passed away on Nov. 5, 1944, at the age of 82. The funeral was held at the Minard home, led by Rev. J.C. Foster of the United Brethren church of Mt. Lake Park. Her remains were laid to rest beside her husband's.

Son Edward Harrison Minard (1897-1975) married Olga Smith (1902-1967). At age 20 in 1917, he registered for the military draft during World War I. On his registration card, he marked himself as a farmer residing near Deer Park. The Minards had two children -- Cecil Warren Minard and Rosalie Minard, with the son born in Enterprise, WV.

On the eve of the Great Depression, Edward and Olga purchased an attractive, two story home on Main Street in Deer Park. They only resided for six months, when the impact of the economic crash caused Edward to seek employment elsewhere. During that time, their children went to live on the farm of their Minard grandparents. The house appears on an old postcard of Deer Park and is pictured in the book, Deer Park, Maryland, Then and Now, published by the Garrett County Historical Society, and identified as the "Minard house." Today a great-grandson occupies the dwelling.

At some point, the Minards moved to Washington, DC. About that time, they stopped pronouncing the family name the old way -- "MY-nerd," and began saying it "Minn-ARD." This may have been due to the fact that the family name was well-known to be German, and since our nation was at war with Germany during World War II, and German-Americans were being persecuted, it may have been rather convenient to give the name more of a French or Canadian sound.

Olga died in 1967 at the age of 65. Edward outlived her and passed away at the age of 78 in 1975. They are buried in the Minard plot at Deer Park Cemetery.

Graves of Edward and Olga in Deer Park Cemetery

Son Cecil Warren Minard (1922-2005) is seen here. He was married and had six children -- Phillip Warren Minard, Michael E. Minard, Robert Minard, Loretta Smith, Betty Peake and Suzanna Latos. In the early 1940s, Cecil was employed n a military procurement division in Washington, DC. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in February 1943.

Cecil was a veteran of World War II and served as a technical sergeant, engineer and top turret gunner with the 490th Bomber Group, 8th U.S. Air Force, taking part in 27 missions, and receiving the Purple Heart. In a June 7, 1945 edition of a local newspaper in Oakland, Cecil described a memorable mission where his craft, heavily damaged after being rammed by a "wildly careening German fighter that inflicted a cut like a giant can-opener,... got back to friendly territory safely by playing a grim game of hide-and-seek in the clouds with stalking enemy planes."

The bomber was part of a formation out to get a Nazi airfield when five Messerschmitt 109's attacked. One of the Germans darted into the formation with his gung guns winking flame and appeared to be headed for a plane under the Marylander's Fortress when Sgt. Minard and the ball turret, waist and tail gunners opened up on him... In a fraction of a second this happened: the Messerschmitt knocked the left waist gun back into the plan into the lap of the gunner, who was thrown to the floor; a six-foot long, foot-wide gash was torn in the fuselage down to the ball turret; the turret was smashed and crumpled and the arm of the gunner inside was broken in three places, his only injury; three feet of the left wing was torn off where it joined the body of the plan. The broken Messerschmitt hurtled under the bomber and came up under the engines on the right win. It struck the turbo-supercharger under the inboard engine and then ran into the propeller of the outboard engine. One blade of the propeller snapped off, but the Messerschmitt kept gong to a point ahead and to the right of the bomber, hung there posed for an instant and then disintegrated , falling apart in a cloud of debris... As the crippled B-17 turned back, four Messerschmitts took up the trail. The Fortress sought concealment in the clouds. Two of the Germans broke off the chase, but the others hung on, dropping back when the bomber hid in order not to lose the plan when it emerged from the clouds... After landing at the emergency field in France, the crew stayed overnight returning to England the following day.

Cecil (bottom row, far right) with fellow crew members of a B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber during World War II. Note the heavy damage to the fuselage of the aircraft, caused by a collision with an enemy Messerschmitt.

The air battle is described more fully, although Cecil not mentioned, in the 1997 book The Last Flight of the Luftwaffe: the Fate of Schulungslehrgang Elbe, 7 April 1945, authored by Adrian Weir, and published by Arms & Armour Press, London. (See pages 132-133.) The book details an almost suicidal attempt by the German Luftwaffe at the end of the war to inflict heavy damage on Allied bombers in a desperate attempt to buy time for a new force of German jet fighters to be placed into service.

While in London during the war, Cecil met his future wife, teenager Yvonne Joy Arnold (1929-1990), a native of the Aylesbury District of England, and who had grown up in Kidderminster, near Brigham, England. In March 1947, with Cecil having returned to the United States, they were married by "proxy" over a shortwave radio, and then she traveled to the U.S. so they could begin married life together.

In the postwar years, Cecil worked as a carpenter and collected watches. He and his father also placed great value on antiques with local historical connections, and donated a number of them at the Garrett County Historical Society. These included park benches modeled upon one from Dewitt's home; a white cast iron vase; guns in the log cabin room; clock over the fireplace; Oakland High School clock; and oil lamps, butter dish and butter mold. Says a daughter, "Dad thought that these things needed to stay in Garrett County."

Yvonne passed away in Florida on May 27, 1990, at the age of 59. She was laid to rest in Lauderdale Memorial Park in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Cecil outlived his wife by 15 years. He passed away at the age of 83 in Mariner Health Center of Bethesda, MD. He rests for eternity in Deer Park Cemetery. At his death, The Glades Star published an admiring tribute.

Cecil and Yvonne's son Michael E. Minard (1955-2010) resided in Rockville and Gaithersburg, MD. He married Mimi and had children Jennifer Minard, Lara Minard and Eric Minard. Michael died at age 55 on Feb. 19, 2010. His obituary was printed in the Washington Post.

Daughter Lillian May Minard (1893?-1975) never married. She had one daughter, Mildred "Garnett" Minard, born in 1913.

She resided in Deer Park and then moved to Takoma Park, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC.

She passed away at the age of 81 on Feb. 14, 1975. Burial was in Deer Park Cemetery. Her obituary was published in the Cumberland (MD) Times.

Dewitt Minard family gathering with Mayle relatives, circa 1914-1915. Known faces: Hugh Mayle (back row, far left); Dewitt (5th from left, with half of his face showing), standing next to Lillian May Minard and Rebecca (Mayle) Minard; baby Mildred Garnett Minard in the arms of Maude Minard.

Maude resided in later years with a niece in Washington, DC. She died on Oct. 28, 1990, at the age of 99.