Charles
Minor White
(1884-1944)
Charles Minor White was born on Leap Day (Feb. 29), 1884 at Haseville, Linn County, MO, the son of Lester and Susan (McCarty) White. His only son was killed in military service during the Korean War.
As a newborn, Charles moved with his parents and grandparents to Isabel, Barber County, KS.
In about 1907, he married Fay Stark Shoemaker (1884- ? ), daughter of John and Fay (Stark) Shoemaker. She is said to have been a seamstress, animal lover and piano player.
They had one son, Minor Fay White.
As farmers, Charles and Fay lived and worked near Isabel and Nashville, KS. Later, in 1932, they relocated to Wichita, where he labored as a flour mill operator.
Wichita's busy Douglas Avenue
Charles died in 1944 in Wichita.
Fay outlived him by several years. She passed away sometime before 1951. They are buried at Wichita Park Cemetery.
Son Minor spent three years in the US Air Force during World War II, taking part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and in a C-47 troop carrier at Normandy, France on D-Day in June 1944. During the Korean War, he served again and was wounded in an evacuation, receiving the Purple Heart.
On Aug. 25, 1951, while on maneuvers at McChord Air Field near Tacoma, WA, Minor tragically was killed in an airplane crash, a casualty of the Korean War.
McChord Field's airplane hangars
None of the details of Minor's grisly death are known, but will be reported here when learned. He was buried with his parents at Wichita Park Cemetery.
Minor's widow, Nina Mae (Sutter) White, was "a teacher of educable retarded children" for a number of years in Wichita, according to the 1971 book, Ancestral and Chronological History and Lineage of the Family of Luther White and Mahala (Minor) White, Their Forbears and Descendants, 1665-1971, by J. Blanche (Clark) Tarter, Edith M. (Peterie) Hoyt and Verda (White) Richey.
Copyright © 2000, 2006 Mark A. Miner