Verdugo Views: Union soldier shared war stories in his 90s
These days, stories about 90-plus-year-olds living an active lifestyle are quite common. But this 90-plus-year-old was active back in the 1920s, when life expectancy wasn’t as great as nowadays.
This is a story about Henry Mingay, who was still in his teens when the Civil War began. He enlisted in the Union forces, serving for 10 months.
After that, he moved around for several years, then discovered Glendale and made it his permanent home. Although it seems hard to believe, Glendale had quite a few Civil War veterans living here by the time Mingay arrived; enough to form a post in the Grand Army of the Republic (Union veterans of the Civil War), which he immediately joined.
At one point, the Glendale post had more than 100 members. Mingay eventually became commander and led the group for many years, partly because he outlived almost all the other members!
The Grand Army of the Republic was one of the first national groups to observe Decoration Day (now Memorial Day), asking all their posts to set aside May 30, 1868, as a day for remembering their fallen comrades.
In 1927, Mingay and some of his fellow veterans began what became a long-standing tradition, visiting local schools around Decoration Day to share their stories.
There is a wonderful undated newspaper clipping on file in Special Collections at the Glendale Central Library about the then 96-year-old preparing for the annual event.
“Marching on with the same patriotic fervor he displayed as a Boy in Blue in New York’s ‘Fighting 69th,’ Mingay, one of the last two men of N.P. Banks post, GAR, has completed the schedule for his annual Decoration day visits,” the clipping states.
His schedule — remember he was 96 — called for visits to several schools. He started in Burbank, where he began talking to the first class at 9 a.m., then, after lunch at one of the high schools, continued his classroom visits. He spent three days in Burbank, visiting several schools each day.
After a few days’ rest, he focused on Glendale. On the first day, he spoke at 9:50 a.m. at Glendale High and then at Wilson Junior High. The next day he spoke to five different groups of students at Fremont Elementary School. He finished up with a visit to Sunland schools.
He told the interviewer he planned to attend a memorial service at North Glendale Methodist church on Sunday and, on Decoration Day itself, attend services in the morning in Burbank and at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale in the afternoon.
Mingay said he didn’t want to be too tired when he made his school visits, so he had skipped a military encampment in Hollywood the week before.
“I conserved my strength, feeling that the school visits were more important, for they give me an opportunity to carry the principles of the GAR to young people, who soon must accept the responsibility and carry the burden of maintaining and upholding the greatest and most important free government the world has ever known,” he said.
He added that he was looking forward to the visits, which he had been making since 1927, and that his “strength would see him safely through.”
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Readers Write:
“When I was young, I seem to recall my parents telling me that a home on Kenneth Road with the KolonialVue name on the arching wrought-iron gate was where Shirley Temple filmed a movie. Do you know if this is a true story?”
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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at KatherineYamada@gmail.com or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.