|
Andrew
Minerd |
 |
Andrew and (possibly) Anna Minerd |
Andrew Minerd was born in 1867 in Fayette County, PA, the son of John V.S. and Elizabeth (Livingston) Minerd. He is one of many of our cousins known to have been killed at work in a coal, coke or steel-related accident.
On Nov. 27, 1896, at Uniontown, Fayette County, the 29-year-old Andrew entered into marriage with 24-year-old Anna Venetta Kissinger (Nov. 21, 1873-1959), the daughter of Rachel Darnell and originally from Dunbar, Fayette County. A clerk of the county court, possibly named Lewis, performed the ceremony.
The four children they produced together were Hershall Minerd, Venetta Pearl McLaughlin Sawyer and two who died as infants.
The Minerds lived at Dunbar, Connellsville and Vanderbilt, Fayette County, and at McKeesport, Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh. The Uniontown Daily News Standard of Feb. 9, 1903 reported that one of their infant daughters had died of whooping cough during an "epidemic of sickness [that] prevails about town among children."
A combination of heartache and abuse was the story of the marriage. Later, in her divorce papers, Anna accused Andrew of excessive drinking, abusive behavior, vile language and abandonment, starting within three months of the wedding date. On four different occasions, she said, she had him arrested. Once, said the Pittsburgh Press, "he had kicked the lamp over, allowed the oil to run over the floor and attempted to burn down the house where they lived. She testified that during the past two years [he] had only given her $32." In the court testimony, she said that:
Well, he would come and he would throw up all kinds of vulgar expressions to me, and he would allow he would rather be with a cow or a dog than he would with me. He would come home drunk and kick the lamp down-stairs and set the place on fire, that I would have to take the children ad go to a neighbor's all night, and he never needed a bath room when he was drinking; the bed or the floor was good enough for him.
A week after the birth of their youngest child, Anna testified that Andrew left home in a hard thunderstorm.
...there was no one in the house except myself and those three little children, until next day at one o'clock, and we didn't have a bite to eat in the house, because I wasn't able to get up to get it, and baby lived to be seven months old and died, and the night after it was buried he carried on so with me that I had to go to a neighbor's house to stay all night that night... I had him arrested at two o'clock in the morning and taken out.
Andrew attended his father's funeral in Foxtown, Westmoreland County in February 1907 and is pictured in a large family photograph taken that day. Anna is suspected to be standing beside him, but this is not confirmed.
In November 1907, she finally left their home in McKeesport, and went to Glenwood, near Pittsburgh, likely to be with her son Hershel. Andrew then countered by moving to Strickler, Westmoreland County, PA. He visited her often Hazelwood, and "would always come drunk and carry on," she remembered. "He came in one night and was cursing me, and we had rooms of another family, and he came in and knocked him down for the names he was calling me."
Anna's mother said in court that she had heard Andrew tell his wife
that she was nothing but a whore although I don't like that to go in print -- and that he would rather be with a cow or a cat than her... Then when her child was born both he and his mother kept that woman crying in bed. And he would tell her when he would come into the room -- of course I suppose you are all married men -- she took a little cold by some means and there was an odor about her room, and he would swear how she stunk that she wasn't fit for a man to come into her room."
Neighbor Lizzie Cartwright from Dunbar gave her testimony, remembering that Andrew
was a very cruel man as far as I know. I was with her in Mya five years this May, when she had a little child born, a boy, and I was with her when it was born; and a few days after he went away and left her and she had no girl or person, and I went up there about eleven o'clock in the day and she hadn't had a bite to eat from the evening before, and the fire was out and the two little children were running around the floor in their night-dresses, nearly froze, and she was nearly perishing, and I had to light the fire and go down home to get her something to eat, and then dress the children. And six months after the little boy died, and the night after he was buried he raised a racket in the house and was going to beat her, and I took her out, and took her to my house and kept her all night, and he abused me then terribly. He was cross nearly all the time but he was worse when he was drinking.
|
|
|
Allison
works near Brownsville, where Andrew was
killed in 1919
|
The divorce was approved in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas on April 26, 1910, a case officially designated as 872 October Term 1909. Andrew was ordered to compensate his wife and two children $2 each week. A year later, as shown in the federal census enumeration, he was living with his sister Minnie McKnight and her son Robert McKnight in Uniontown. It's thought that Andrew and his nephew worked together in the mines.
 |
| Uniontown Daily News Standard |
Circa 1918, Anna resided at 427 Elizabeth Street in Pittsburgh.
In 1919, Andrew was employed in the coal mine at Allison in Redstone Township near Brownsville, Fayette County, built by the W.J. Rainey Company.
Tragedy struck on Aug. 15, 1919, when Andrew lost his life in an accident at the Allison Mine. The Uniontown Daily News Standard reported that Andrew, "a veteran miner of the coke region was crushed between a rib and the side of his car in the Allison mines. ... while enroute to the pit at the close of his working day. [He] was instantly killed. The car jumped the track, it is said." An examining physician wrote that "Head crushed." His broken remains were transported for burial to the Stone Church Cemetery near Youngwood.
Anna outlived her first husband by four decades. She later married William Collins ( ? - ? ). His fate is not yet known.
 |
Stone Church Cemetery |
When the federal census was taken in 1930, Anna and her son Hershell made their home together in Bullskin Township, north of Connellsville. Just four doors away were Hershell's cousins Mariah (Minerd) Whetzel and Larmer Arthur Minerd.
She was a member of the First Methodist Church of Pittsburgh and a member of the Hazelwood Chapter of the Eastern Star. Her postal address in 1959 was 118 South Cottage Avenue in Connellsville. For the last two years of her life, she suffered from heart disease which led to her demise.
Anna died in Connellsville on Dec. 13, 1959, at the age of 87. An obituary was published in the Connellsville Daily Courier. Among her survivors were her brother Daniel Darnell of Englewood, CA and sister Pearl Foltz of Pittsburgh. Her remains are interred at Allegheny County Memorial Park in Allison Park, PA, in an unmarked grave beside her son Hershal and daughter Venetta Sawyer.
Copyright © 2000-2001, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2026 Mark A. Miner