Page 543-544 - Don E. Minor, attorney, 400 First National Bank building, is a native of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, where he was born on May 1, 1868. His common school training was received at Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He then went to Birmingham, Alabama, where he had risen to the responsible position of superintendent of construction for the Pratt Coal and Coke Company at the age of eighteen years. He was employed, when nineteen years of age, with the Tennessee Coal and Iron Railroad Company, at Thomas, Alabama, in the same line of work. He then went to Brookside, Alabama, where he was connected with the Sloss Iron and Steel Company. Following this early successful business career he entered the University of Valparaiso, Indiana, where he was graduated in 1890 with the degree of B. S. During his college course he specialized in civil engineering and upon the completion of that course of training returned to the south and took charge of the construction of the coking plant at Horse Creek, Alabama, for the Lady Ensley Coal and Iron Railroad Company. Following that period of service he was made superintendent of the Bessemer Fire Brick Company at Bessemer, Alabama. In 1894 he enrolled in the law school of the University of Michigan and completed his course and was graduated in 1896, coming at once to Grand Rapids where he has since built up a very successful practice. His activity in fraternal circles is attested by his record as past chancellor of the old Pythian Lodge No. 2, at Grand Rapids, which is the second oldest lodge of that order in the state of Michigan, and active membership in York Lodge No. 410, F. & A. M., and the Elks. Mr. Minor has supplemented his professional career by his development of a large orchard in Kent county. He has become widely known as an orchardist in his fifteen years of activity as a grower and shipper of fancy apples, peaches, cherries, pears, and plums. His products took the first prize at the World’s Apple Show at St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Minor was married on December 21, 1891, to Mabel Haste, daughter of Colonel Geo. S. Haste of Valparaiso, Indiana. Her father was colonel of the Third regiment of Indiana State Militia during the decade of the nineties. He had served throughout the Civil war and is now one of the few remaining veterans of that notable conflict, having attained the age of eighty-three years. His wife, Emma Haste, died in January, 1925, at the age of seventy-nine years. Mr. and Mrs. Don E. Minor have two daughters, Emma Jane a graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree of A. B. and the wife of Earl Cress, an investment broker and owner of a chain of successful clothing stores, they having one son, Donald Minor; and Ruth, a graduate of Grand Rapids high school with two years of attendance at the University of Michigan and one year at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, where she specialized in dramatic and public arts and public speaking. She married Elmer W. Cress, a twin brother to the husband of her sister Emma. Both Emma and Ruth and their husbands, Earl and Elmer, were classmates in the Grand Rapids high school and later classmates at the University of Michigan. Elmer W. Cress is a security broker. They have one daughter, Lou Jean.