Bio-Minerd, GeorgeElmer

When George was 10 years of age, in 1909, his father died. George then began receiving his late father's federal pension payments and was assigned to a legal guardian, J.M. Burhans, a leading citizen of Dunbar.

The boy was sent to soldiers orphans schools at Chester Springs, Chester County, PA (circa 1910). By 1911, he had been transferred to the soldiers orphans school at Scotland, Franklin County. George received a postcard in July 1911 from a former instructor in Chester Springs, Major Beckman. In the card, Beckman wrote:

Dean Mosier is keeping the boys from starvation at your old post at my table. He also prevents that extra piece of toast from going to waste. Do you know of any of the lads on the other side?

Postcard sent to George in 1911 at the Scotland (PA) Soldiers' Orphans School, from his former instructor at the Chester Springs Soldiers' Orphans School. George may well be one of the boys in the photograph, taken by the Sigman Studio.

In March 1915, when George was 15, and after his mother had remarried, he was adopted by Marple S. and Ida Morris. His name was legally changed to "George Elmer Morris." It's not known whether the Morrises were relatives. For reasons that are unclear, George changed his name back to Minerd after only a few years. Perhaps this occurred after his mother divorced her second husband. However, George did not see his mother for nearly 20 years after his adoption.

Evidence suggests that George may have served in the Marines during World War I, but this has not been proven. A niece recalled that he had the top of his hip shot off.

On May 26, 1920, George eloped with 17-year-old Virginia Maud Fawcett (1903- ? ), the daughter of Harry A. Fawcett. The wedding took place in Wellsburg, WV, by the hand of Rev. E.E. Barcus of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At that time, he was working as a shipping clerk at the Westinghouse Machine Company in East Pittsburgh, and she was a stenographer for the Westinghouse Airbrake Company. They resided in her parents’ home on Highland Avenue Extension in Turtle Creek, near Pittsburgh.

Westinghouse Machine Company's sprawling works in East Pittsburgh

A month after marriage, the Minerds moved to the home of George's aunt in Pitcairn, staying about two months. Then, in September, after only three months of marriage, Virginia left her husband and moved back in with her parents, and then soonafter went to Cleveland. Apparently they reconciled, and Virginia relocated back to Western Pennsylvania. Over the course of the next two years, they lived in Vanderbilt, Fayette County and on the South Side of Pittsburgh, including with George’s sister, Mary Eicher. Virginia got a job as a cashier selling tickets at the Liberty Theatre, owned by the Mishel Brothers.

George and Virginia separated for good in May 1922. She soonafter filed for divorce. In her legal complaint, she said that he "hadn’t been doing anything for almost a year and a half, but at the time I left him he was working in the United States glass house, just worked there a couple of weeks." She also documented other matters of fidelity and physical abuse, as well as his arrest for carrying a concealed weapon.

They were divorced on June 21, 1924, by order of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. At the time, George was residing in Pittsburgh at 556 Oakwood Street.

On Nov. 5, 1924, George married Esther M. Bader (1900-1964), the daughter of Mathias and Mary (Donovan) Bader. She was a native of Martins Ferry, OH and was working as a cashier in Pittsburgh. A niece remembered that she was "so tiny."

In the 1930 Pittsburgh City Directory, George is listed as a clerk at the Gulf Refining Co., residing at 7058 Monticello.

In 1934, George reconciled with his mother, whom he had not seen for two decades. He wrote in August 1934, "I have never saw my mother for almost twenty years until just about a month ago, and I was fortunate enough to find out just where she was, and of course I went to see her."

By 1938, George worked as a clerk with the Works Progress Administration Liquid Fuels Survey, and living at 6217 Frankstown Avenue.

In the 1960s, the Minerds dwelled at 620 Rebecca Avenue in Wilkinsburg. Esther died in Pittsburgh in Sept. 1964.

George died just three years later, on Jan. 5, 1967. Neither of them had an obituary published in the Pittsburgh newspapers. They are buried at Calvary Cemetery.

He is mentioned in the 1995 booklet, SSVC – One Hundred Year Retrospective, a centennial history of the Scotland School for Veterans' Children.