Dr.
Roy Sheppard Minerd
(1885-1962)
Dr.
Roy Sheppard Minerd was born on March 15, 1885 at Mt. Pleasant,
Westmoreland County, PA, the son of
Rev. Isaac
Herschel and Margaret (Jane) Sheppard Minerd. He was an early
physician in our family, and helped organize our clan's 1st reunion in 1913.
Roy grew up in New Haven (Connellsville) and Uniontown, Fayette County, PA. Wanting to teach, he attended what is now California University of Pennsylvania, where he often played piano and organ for school events. There he met his future bride, Nell Gertrude Penn, who wrote articles for the campus publication, The Normal Review.
At California, they also knew his second cousins Edward Campbell Miner and Andrew J. 'Bud' Enos, in their class of 1909. These relationships may have sown the seeds of the first Minerd Reunion, held just four years after graduation, where Roy and his father, and Ed's father, were organizers and officers.
From
1904 to 1906, Roy taught at the Leith Coke Works near Uniontown. (Leith is seen
here in a rare old postcard. Note how close the worker houses at left are to
the railroad tracks at center and coke ovens to the right.) He later taught in the town of Belle Vernon (1910) before becoming principal of
Fairchance grade and high schools (1910-1913). Botany was a favorite
subject. Nell taught 8th grade at Uniontown, PA, the first known woman
teacher in our family to be college-educated.
A voracious reader, Roy had a large collection of books. Among these were The Works of George Eliot, in Twelve Volumes, published by P.F. Collier & Son, and The Works of Washington Irving, in 15 volumes, published by The Co-operative Publication Society. He added the Eliot series to his personal library on Sept. 30, 1909, and so inscribed one of the books in the set.
Roy also was a family history buff, and, though unable to attend, wrote a "When We Were Young" for the Sheppard reunion at Lincoln, NE in June 1906. On Aug. 21, 1913, he and his family attended the first annual Minerd Reunion at Ferncliff Park in Ohiopyle, PA. His father was elected president, and Roy was elected secretary. He was fascinated with the family history written and prepared by cousin Allen Edward Harbaugh.
A week later, he wrote to Harbaugh:
Your card received and correction made. Just now I am deep in the systematic arrangement of the data concerning the Minerds. What can you tell me about Frederick Minerd who died in Perry Co., Ohio, in 1871? You merely mention him and his daughter, Mrs. David R. Johnson, and, to date, that is all the information I have of that branch of the family. Will you let me have this as soon as possible?
Roy
was in a hurry, because less than two weeks after the reunion, on
Sept. 2, 1913, he and Nell were married. A month after marriage, they left for
Philadelphia, where he enrolled in the Department of Medicine at the
Medico-Chirurgical College (now the University of Pennsylvania). The old
Medico-Chi Hospital building is seen here in a rare old color
postcard.
After son Penn was born, Nell returned to Connellsville so that Roy could complete his studies without disruption. During that time, he devoted much of his time to working with orphan boys at the Northern Home for Friendless Children. He kept a detailed memoir of his experiences, trying to turn around the lives of boys who had lost their moral compasses, applying his background in Christian principles and elementary education. The memoir, Keep Sweet!, appears on our website, in 12 installments.
He graduated in 1917 and went to Erie to intern at Hamot Hospital.
Roy practiced in Erie until 1929, when he accepted a position as a "country doctor" in Smethport, McKean County, PA, where they lived the rest of their lives. After arriving in Smethport, they joined St. Luke's Episcopal Church. An account of one of Roy's patients, Russell Lindsley, who was Smethport's postmaster and publisher of the McKean County Democrat, can be seen by clicking here.
During
World War II, sons Roy 'Penn' Minerd and Robert Edwin Minerd, seen at right, served in the US
Navy. Bob was at age 22 the senior surviving officer of the torpedoed and
sunken USS Frederick C. Davis. Click
to read the letter he wrote
to the crew of the USS Hayter who rescued him and his shipmates from
the water. He is mentioned
in Vol. X of Samuel Eliot Morison's 1964 landmark naval history, The Atlantic Battle
Won, and was a guest speaker at our 1998 Minerd-Miner-Minor Reunion.
A voracious reader and a prolific letter-writer, Roy kept in touch over time with his father's cousins Sadie (Minerd) Luckey and Martha (Minerd) Gorsuch. In one 1961 letter he recalled his grandfather Eli and father Isaac traveling to Mill Run, PA, to go fishing with Eli's brother Charles. Roy also kept detailed travel diaries of trips with Nell to New England (1947 and 1953) and to Florida (1949).
Roy at his old office desk
Sadly,
Nell
died on Feb. 20, 1961. Roy passed away a year later, at age 77, on June 6,
1962. Their ashes are buried
in the Penn family plot at Hill Grove Cemetery in Connellsville, PA.
Son and daughter in law Penn and Jane (Sage) Minerd are pictured in Linwood Parks Shipley's 1971 book, The Shipleys of Maryland.
Grandson Douglas Edwin Minerd formerly was director of entertainment at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, and has his own music label, Minerd Music Works. In 2003, he accepted a position as Vice President of Entertainment at Sea World in San Antonio, TX. In 2005, he became Vice President of Entertainment at Sea World in San Diego, CA, where he often is quoted in stories in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Grandson Russell C. Minerd received a United States patent in 1982 for his invention for musical instrument device used for "remote-controlled key-depressing."
Granddaughter Cynthia Moringiello spent several years as a teacher in Alaska, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. She later 'switched' careers and became a top switching craftsman with New York Telephone (Ma Bell), retiring in 2001 from Verizon. Her husband, Daniel Moringiello, was a longtime engineer with the Long Island Railroad, with 31 years of distinguished service prior to retirement.
Granddaughter Barbara Minerd serves on the visual communications adjunct faculty of Farmingdale State University of New York. In the fall of 2001 and 2002, she displayed a selection of her drawings in faculty exhibitions on campus.
Copyright © 2000, 2002-2003, 2006 Mark A. Miner