Mary Minnich

Mary was born on September 12th, 1935 and was the oldest of three children. She had a younger brother and a younger sister. Her father was a Baptist minister. She attended college at Mercer University where she met her first husband, O. Earl Hardegree. They were married in 1955, and had three children: Sharon, David and John. Earl was a Baptist minister and served as pastor at various churches in Georgia until 1964 when they moved to Tampa, Florida. The marriage ended in 1966. Earl passed away in 1970. Mary remarried in 1969 to Perry Minnich who brought two sons: Dennis and Jeff, from his previous marriage. Mary's fourth child, Elizabeth, was born in 1970, making a family of eight until Perry passed away in 1975 leaving Mary a widow. Mary had worked as a school teacher after her first marriage and she returned to teaching after Perry's death. In 1977 she began working on a Master of Library Science degree at the University of South Florida and she completed that a few years later. In 1978 Mary was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She underwent two radical mastectomies and countless courses of chemo-therapy during her nine year fight with cancer. During most of that time she worked full-time as the Head Librarian at Bayshore Christian School in Tampa. Mary passed away on October 2nd, 1987. She was a kind, warm, wonderful woman and a terrific mother and grandmother. We all miss her terribly but we're so thankful to have had her in our lives. I have established this Footnote page as a memorial to Mary and I want to invite family and friends to contribute comments, stories, photo's and, if needed, any corrections to the information on this site. Thanks, John Hardegree