Museum trip brings family back to roots

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A love story spanning more than 50 years recently came full circle as a Cortland-born woman was laid to rest at Riverview Cemetery in Seymour next to her husband after his passing 16 years prior.

At the time of her death, Alverda “Bertie” Miner, 96, was residing in Georgetown, Texas, but was reared on a farm in Cortland by her parents, Mead and Elva McKain.

Miner, her sister, Ona Mae, and her three older brothers, Ken, Marshall and Gerald McKain, grew up living the farm life in Jackson County.

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“Mom talked about how growing up with three brothers was tough, but she could hold her own on the farm,” said Sue DeVillez, Miner’s daughter. “She drove a tractor and could throw the watermelons and cantaloupes as hard as they could.”

Alverda’s husband, Thomas Miner, also was born into a farm family but in Virginia. Due to his mother’s poor health, the family was advised to leave the state, so they moved to the Bluffton area in northern Indiana, where the family had a large farm.

DeVillez is the Miners’ only child and resides in Georgetown, Texas. She has two children, Heather and David DeVillez II. Sue’s husband, David, passed away in 2014.

DeVillez earned a Bachelor of Science degree and received a nursing diploma at Indiana University. She met her husband on a blind date while they were both attending college there.

“My husband attended medical school there, and we both graduated the same year in 1968,” DeVillez said. “We graduated on the main campus in Bloomington. I got to have my pinning ceremony at the Well House on the main campus, just as IUPUI was getting started.”

DeVillez’s parents met during World War II when Thomas Miner was stationed at Freeman Army Airfield, south of Seymour.

“Mom was working at the shirt factory during that time, and she’d go into town in the evening with her brothers,” DeVillez said. “They were out one night, and her brothers saw Dad sitting alone and brought him to their table and sat him down, so she blames her brothers for them getting together.”

They married Nov. 10, 1944, in Montgomery County, Alabama, and then Thomas continued his service with the U.S. Army Air Force.

“Dad served 10 years as a non-commissioned officer right out of high school, and then made lieutenant,” DeVillez said. “He was an officer for 13 years, and then retired as a major.”

After they were married, Alverda Miner followed her husband to Alabama and many other locations all over the world. She became pregnant while the military was still in full “war mode,” and then returned to be with her parents to give birth in 1946.

“Mom gave birth at what was then Schneck Memorial Hospital. She was much more comfortable surrounded by her family at home in Cortland,” DeVillez said. “Daddy was changing duty stations often, sometimes being at a location for only a few months.”

Miner was home for only a short time before her husband came back to collect her and their new baby daughter, and then they were off again.

For her father’s work, the family traveled extensively. DeVillez attended a school in England from seventh to ninth grade. Then the family lived in Alaska before it acquired statehood.

“I was an Air Force brat and an only child. While in Alaska, Dad made an ice skating rink in our backyard,” DeVillez said. “I was the center of their world as we traveled and explored together.”

DeVillez’s father was an avid reader and discussed geopolitical topics with her when she was a child. He also helped her with homework and encouraged her to “stand her ground alone if need be,” DeVillez said.

“Mom loved to be involved in everything I did, from ballet and toe to Girl Scouts,” DeVillez said. “She spent countless hours in travel time and sitting through meetings and appointments for me to do whatever my passion led me to try.”

When DeVillez’s parents would attend functions at the officer’s club, she went with them and either listened to their conversations or brought along a book to read.

While growing up, DeVillez spent a lot of time in Seymour with family, too. She remembers frequenting the roller rink, Hearts Hamburgers and the “five and dime” store.

“I would get material at Penney’s for Grandmother McKain, and she sewed dresses for my cousin and myself,” DeVillez said. “I also recall walking in Cortland from my grandmother’s home to the store for an ice cream.”

Every holiday, her grandmother got up early and cut large containers of flowers, and they would go to the cemetery and visit the family graves to put fresh flowers on each one.

“It was a time to honor and remember those who had gone before us,” DeVillez said. “It was a humble reminder that life is so precious. So many do not get the luxury of seeing old age.”

Thomas Miner went on to serve in the Air Force for 23 years but had planned to stay in only 22 years and then retire when they returned back to America from England.

“He was in job control at Lincoln Air Force Base, where they kept track of all of the bombers and planes,” DeVillez said. “The Cuban Missile Crisis took place, and so they kept him for another year.”

After retirement, Miner went to the Indiana University School of Business, and then went on to work for Douglas Aircraft in St. Louis.

“After working at Douglas, Dad left to work for the Internal Revenue Service and was one of the good guys,” she said. “He provided help for people and answered questions. He did that until he retired.”

Alverda moved to Texas a couple of years after her husband’s death to be near her daughter and family, the same ones who gathered together at her graveside service Jan. 12 on Seymour’s north side.

Afterwards, they were brought to the Freeman Army Airfield Museum by Mark Adams, owner of Voss and Sons Funeral Service in Seymour. The family was invited to a presentation and a private tour of the museum by Mike Jordan, a museum board member.

“We thought it would be nice to invite them to the museum after the graveside service,” Jordan said. “We thought it would be a natural fit.”

Larry Bothe, curator and board director, gave a presentation of Freeman Army Airfield’s history for the group. Bothe also is a flight instructor and a pilot examiner for the FFA.

Board member and treasurer Dan Kiel also was on hand to help guide the museum tour, along with Marty Schwab, in the annex.

“They had a great time, and Sue told me it was unbelievable and how only in Jackson County would people step up to help a family they didn’t even know,” Jordan said. “She said it gave them some real closure since they had no place to go after the graveside service. It was perfect for them.”

Miner’s sister, Ona Mae Williams, and her husband, Skip, live at Lutheran Community Home in Seymour and were unable to attend the service. Their children, Rhonda, Russell and Roger Williams, however, were there.

Thelma Prince, 87, of Bloomington also was in attendance at the service and museum tour because Miner was her best friend.

“She was my bestie, as the kids would say,” Prince said. “We got acquainted after Bertie applied for a job at Sears, and we became the best of friends, and then they moved to St. Louis.”

Prince said she lost her husband in 2000 and Miner lost hers in 2001, and as a result, they were more dependent on one another.

“We went everywhere together, like Vegas, Branson and anywhere you can think of, and we had a load of fun,” Prince said. “She’d call me four or five times a day just to talk about little things.”

During the family’s visit to the museum, they discovered a display of Miner’s brother, Lt. Ken McKain, on the wall.

“We had no idea that Kenneth McKain was Mrs. Miner’s brother, and that is a whole story by itself,” Jordan said. “Mr. McKain survived excessive bomb runs over Europe in the worst of the fighting, only to perish in a crash when he returned stateside.”

The display features a photo of McKain next to a framed description of how he became a World War II hero.

McKain joined the Army in January 1941 and was the only Seymour area native to train at Freeman Army Airfield.

“I never met Uncle Ken, but Mom spoke of him constantly,” DeVillez said. “In her hope chest, she kept some things he sent to her from the Panama Canal and various other places he had traveled to.”

McKain, who was a flight instructor at the time, lost his life May 4, 1945. He was aboard a B-29 Superfortress while on a night training flight in California. He had volunteered to fly when the original pilot hadn’t shown up. McKain was only 27.

The museum visit meant a lot to Miner’s family because it had been such a big part of her life and where it had all started, DeVillez said.

“If they hadn’t built a base, Dad never would’ve been sent here,” she said. “They were not just my parents, they were my best friends.”

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For information about the Freeman Army Airfield Museum, visit freemanarmyairfieldmuseum.org.

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