Hester
(Minerd) Rankin
(1843-1923)
Hester
Ann Minerd was born in 1843 in Wharton Twp., Fayette County, PA, one of 11
children of James and Sarah (Walters) Minerd Sr.
Her husband Robert was a wounded veteran of the Civil War.
On July 17, 1859, at age 16, Hester married Robert Rankin ( ? -1918). The ceremony was performed at Summit House, site of today's Summit Hotel, near Uniontown, PA.
Seen at right, Robert (1836-1918) stood 5 feet 9 inches tall, with blue eyes and brown hair.
Hester and Robert were the parents of 10 children -- John William Rankin, Sarah Jane Addis, James Henry Rankin, Marinda King, Elizabeth Ann Rankin, Minerva Rankin, Alfred Rankin, Margaret Ann Fike, George Washington Rankin and Robert Alexander Rankin.
Robert enlisted in Battery K of the 2nd PA Artillery on Aug. 25, 1862. While in action on June 18, 1864, during a charge on the enemy's entrenched line near Petersburg, VA, he was shot in the right leg below the knee. So many soldiers ran past, tripping over him as he sat, that he dug a hole and temporarily buried his leg until he could be evacuated.
He was sent to the Corps Hospital at Point of Rocks, VA and then to Hampton Hospital, VA, where the ball was removed. In August 1864, he was transferred to David's Island, NY for treatment, and then was moved to Haddington Hospital, Philadelphia, where he reported after returning home on furlough. Later, he was sent to a hospital in West Philadelphia and stayed there for the remainder of the war. He was discharged on June 3, 1865.
The Petersburg battlefield during and after the war
Robert returned home to Elliottsville, Fayette County. Robert is said to have loved to "ramble through the woods and over the hills ... [and] always loved to help survey land. He knew the corners of nearly every man's land in Wharton Township ... [and] was a good judge of road making." Berries and chestnuts were plentiful for the family to gather and sell.
Hester is seen
at right, standing
in the doorway of their primitive mountain home. A daughter in law once complained
that the house "was just weather boarded up and did not have any fire
places, only had a wood stove, and had no paper on the walls, and no carpet on
the floor...." She added that snow and rain came through the cracks
in the walls.
Over the years, Robert's leg became infected and bone shards made their way to the skin's
surface. Initially he received a pension of $4 a month which later
increased to $12 a month.
Over the Christmas/New Year's holiday of 1887-1888, three of his children died of diphtheria. Later, he gave his surviving adult children land for their own homes.
Robert died Jan. 16, 1918 at nearby Farmington, Fayette County. His standard-issue government grave marker is seen here circa 1995.
Hester survived him by five years. She passed
away at age 80 on Feb. 22, 1923.
They rest for eternity together at Brown Cemetery near Elliottsville.
In 1993, a photograph of Hester standing on the porch of their home was published in the book, Yesteryear in Ohiopyle and Surrounding Communities, compiled by author Marci Lynn McGuinness.
Copyright © 1996, 2000, 2002, 2005 Mark A. Miner