Samuel David Minnick
I took my mom to lunch for her birthday this week and we got to talking family. It’s pretty interesting putting the family tree together and I suppose that’s why all of the geneaology websites have proliferated. Several years ago I posted a photo of the Windham’s Crossroads in Darlington County, but I hadn’t posted anything on my mom’s side. I went to high school in a relatively small town and folks would come up to me and say things like we’re second cousins. I didn’t exactly understand it at the time, but all of the Derrick, Shealy, Metz, Koon, and Christmas(‘s) were generally related. I fit into that scheme via my mother’s family who had been around the Dutch Fork area of South Carolina. With the big football game coming up, it reminded me of a story I’d heard about my great grandfather on my mother’s side.
Samuel David Minnick was born on June 1st, 1900 in Saluda County South Carolina. He graduated from Furman University in 1926 and worked as the State Officer for Standard Oil for 33 years living in and around where I live now. He pitched two winning seasons for the Furman baseball team. He also played on the football team who beat Carolina 10-0 and beat Clemson when he caught the winning touchdown on Thanksgiving Day. He married Edna Bell Fickling in 1926 and had one child, my grandfather Samuel David Minnick Jr.. He died in 1978 and is buried beside Edna Bell Fickling Minnick in Blackville, South Carolina.
They don’t call it the information age for nothing. And while my folks are having fun scanning old family photos to put on Facebook, it’s a bit harder to find older material unless it’s been digitized by an organization. Our universities have been involved the South Carolina Digital Library 1 and the Digital Public Library of America 2. Furman University has been digitizing quite a bit of material 3. So next time you go playing genealogist, remember to start top down with established orgs that are digitizing content. Here are some other photos of my great grandfather from the Furman Bonhomie 1925-1926 yearbooks.
23/06/06 – Today I learned more about my great grandfather from a first person account1. I got an email from a fella who was discussing him with his 93 year old mother. I’ve added the contents of that email to the comment below and @ https://davidawindham.com/til/posts/dave-minnick . Since I’ve noticed a good bit of traffic to this page, I’ve also added citations so the outgoing links are more clearly listed.
- South Carolina Digital Library – https://scmemory.org
- Digital Public Library of America – https://dp.la
- Furman University Digital Collections Center – https://libguides.furman.edu/digital-collections/home-old
- David A. Windham – TIL – Dave Minnick – https://davidawindham.com/til/posts/dave-minnick
I am in Blackville every weekend staying with my 93-year-old mother. We moved here from Cayce in 1970 after she married a man from Blackville named Joe Zeigler.
They opened a restaurant on the hill on Highway 3 as you come in to Blackville from Healing Springs area. Mr Minnick, along with many of the older Blackville citizens frequented the restaurant. My parents had hired outstanding cooks. Mutt, Lib and Harriet Corley along with Ella Kearse and Shirley Elmore. The food was exceptional and the public loved it.
I was nine years old at the time, and I remember sitting at the table with Mr. Minick as he ate his lunch. I recall him as a lean, distinguished man, always well dressed. He was a widower at the time, and he would tell me stories about his baseball pitching; my recollections these 53 years later, I thought he played for Carolina, but clearly was confused on that matter.
My mother and I have just finished supper that I cooked for us and I brought up Mr. Dave. One of my fondest memories that I still do to this day is watching him after he ate, clean the table with his hand or maybe with a napkin and any crumbs on the table, he would wipe into his hand and put onto the plate. It is a childhood memory that I have never forgotten. I have traveled all over the world and I have told people about Mr. Dave Minnick.
This discussion prompted a quick internet search and here we are.