John Elmore Minor
(1886-1944)
John Elmore Minor was born on June 22, 1886 in Bristol, Sullivan County, TN,
the son of Capt. Henry Clay and Mattie
(Phillips) Minor.
As a boy, John moved with his parents to Knoxville, Knox County, TN, where the Minors originally had lived at the end of the Civil War. John's father died in Knoxville in 1906, when John was 20, and the widowed mother Mattie soonafter moved the family to Massachusetts, for reasons not yet known.
When the federal census was taken in 1910, John was listed as making his home with his mother and siblings in the city of Boston, Suffolk County, MA. He was employed as a printer in a "railroad printing" business.
John married his first wife, Florence Eloise Kimball (1887-1966) in Boston, sometime between 1910 and 1916. They resided in Boston at least until 1916, when their only child, Robert Clifton Minor, was born. By 1920, the Minors had moved to Summit, Union County, NJ, on the outskirts of New York City. the 1920 census shows John, Florence and Robert boarding with Frank and Minnie Kimball in the home of C.M. and Sadie Odell in Summit. The census shows that John was a purchasing agent for the T.G. White Company.
He
later was employed as a buyer by Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation. The company
was a major producer of copper for decades in La Oroya, Peru, and was well-known
in the industry as "the most well-known Peruvian mine worldwide." The
company's output in 1919, for example, was 58.1 million lbs. of copper, silver
and gold, and in 1920 was 63.1 million lbs.
The 1930 census shows the family residing at Barry Place in Summit. Also making their home with the Minors that year were Florence's widowed mother in law, Minnie E. Kimball (the proprietor of a ladies' shop), aunt Alice A. Kimball, and lodgers Allen E. Williams and teachers Virginia Wessels, Dorothie Berry and Ruth Ormigh.
He also was "an active worker in the Masons and Eastern Star," said the St. Petersburg (FL) Times.
At some point, the marriage between John and Florence ended. He later married Blanche Vedder Wood. In early 1944, following retirement, John and Blanche moved to St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, FL, making their home at 1517 Bay Street Northeast.
Sadly, just seven months after
arriving in St. Petersburg, and having suffered from liver and colon cancer, John passed
away at home at the age of 58, on Aug. 6, 1944. His remains were cremated, and his obituary was published in St.
Petersburg Times. We are grateful to the St.
Petersburg Public Library System for providing a copy of John's obituary.
The book Mining in the Americas, by Helmut Waszkis (1993), says that "The sheer size of the operation made Cerro an ideal target for nationalistic attacks. Here was, after, all, another foreign giant exploiting and exporting a most valuable national resource, metals, at what were obviously attractive terms to foreigners... Cerro was slowly but inexorably strangled until the owners had practically no other choice but to sell out." As of Jan. 1, 1974, the company ownership was transferred to the government of Peru, and renamed Centromin.
Blanche's fate is unknown. Florence passed away in August 1966.
During World War II, son Robert Clifton Minor (1916-1977) served in the U.S. Army Air Force. He married Marion Sanchez, the daughter of Jude G. and Caroline M. (Cate) Sanchez, on Aug. 2, 1941. They had two children, Robert Allen Minor and Barbara Ann Roberts. Robert passed away in Manatee, Manatee County, FL on March 22, 1977, at the age of 60.
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Robert Clifton Minor -- at left with his wife Marion Sanchez, and at right in his World War II army uniform |
Copyright © 2006-2008 Mark A. Miner