RG 158: Ruby Lee Minar Family Papers, 1923-1979

Collection Number

RG 158

History

Ruby Lee Minar was born December 10, 1883, in Glendale, Montana to Ermina Catherine Lee (1842-1926) and Reverend Martin Thomas Lamb (1838-1912). Ruby Lee grew up in New Jersey where her father, a Baptist minister, founded and ran the New Jersey Children’s Home Society in Trenton. She was well educated; graduating in 1902 from the Peddle Institute in New Jersey, in 1906 with a B.A. from Kalamazoo College (where she was president of the Young Women’s Christian Association and a founder of a women’s literary society, Kappa Pi), and in 1908 with an M.A. in Biblical and Patristic Greek from the University of Chicago. She went on to serve as an instructor at the State Girls’ Reform School in Darling, Pennsylvania, and taught public speaking at the State Normal School in Trenton, New Jersey (1910-1916), where she also served as the Chairman of the Women’s College Section of the Women’s Suffrage Party for the State of New Jersey. On September 30, 1916, Ruby Lee married John Milton Minar at their home in Newark, New Jersey. The Minars moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1917.

Shortly after the end of World War I, Ruby Lee Minar entered the real estate industry. Using a few hundred dollars from Liberty Bonds, she invested in real estate in the Chevy Chase area and in 1919 began acquiring practical experience working for a Washington, D.C. real estate firm as a saleswoman. In 1920, she opened her own real estate business—Ruby Lee Minar, Inc.—in the Evans Building in Washington, D.C. Soon after, Minar had obtained exclusive rights for the sale property in the Lyon Park neighborhood of Arlington County. By 1922, she employed 20 salesmen and saleswomen, had sold $1,000,000 worth of property in the Lyon Park subdivision, and had opened extension offices in Lyon Park and Cherrydale. In 1923 she controlled 400 acres of land between the Potomac and the Washington Country Club, which became the site of her next subdivision project—Lee Heights—valued at $3,000,000. Minar had the foresight to recognize that the planned Key and Memorial Bridges and Lee Highway that would connect Washington, D.C., and Arlington were integral to the suburban expansion she envisioned. Minar also arranged for other residential amenities such as gas mains, a sewage system, and a water reservoir, all of which helped broaden the appeal of living in the Lee Heights neighborhood and contributed to its success. Minar’s third residential project began in 1925 with the purchase of the Palisades, a 500-acre estate valued at over half a million dollars previously owned by Chicago multi-millionaire Joseph Leiter. By 1927 her salesforce ranged from between 50 and 75 employees and in 1928 she managed Greenway Downs, a half million subdivision project in Fairfax County. In addition to developing subdivisions, Minar also managed the sale of individual homes and farmsteads over the course of her career. For a time, hers was the largest real estate office in and around Washington, D.C.

Minar was active in real estate organizations both locally and nationally throughout the 1920s. She became the sole female member of the Alexandria-Arlington Fairfax Real Estate Board and served as its Secretary in 1925. She was also the first woman admitted to the Virginia Real Estate Association. Minar was a speaker in Seattle, Washington, at the first conference for women realtors held in 1927 (as a part of the National Association of Real Estate Boards) where she gave a talk about the challenges of selecting and training a salesforce.

Outside of the real estate industry, she also served as president of the Lee Heights Citizens’ Association; and was a member of the Arlington County Civic Federation, the Arlington County Chamber of Commerce, the Washington, D.C., Chamber of Commerce, and the Washington Golf and Country Club. Minar also worked as the Director of the People’s State Bank in Cherrydale and was a member of the National Woman’s Party. In 1940 she relocated to Miami Springs, Florida, for her health. There she was a member of the Garden Club of Miami Springs, the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Delphi, and the Miami Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to the professional and civic activity noted above, Minar was also an advocate for women in business. She founded and became the first president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Soroptimist International (a worldwide organization for business and professional women) in 1922 and was elected as the first national president of the American Federation of Soroptimists when it was founded in 1928. After moving to Florida, she was a founding member and first president of the Miami Springs-Hialeah Soroptimist Club where she advocated for the study of Spanish so that businesswomen could carry out simple conversations both professionally and socially with Spanish-speaking clients and neighbors. She also helped to organize several other Soroptimist clubs in South Florida and was convention chairman in 1948 for the fourth annual Southern Regional convention held in Miami Springs. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Minar traveled nationally and internationally to attend and speak at a variety of Soroptimist events. She remained an active Soroptimist until her death on August 2, 1952, which occurred aboard a ship carrying both Minar and her daughter Patricia Lee to the International Soroptimist conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her remains are interred at the Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum in Miami, Florida. In 1954, the Southern Region of the American Federation of Soroptimists established the Ruby Lee Minar Soroptimist Memorial Fund, which provides interest-free loans to women pursuing graduate degrees and is still awarded today.

John (“Jay”) Milton Minar was born on November 20, 1882 in Vevay, Michigan, to Florence Anstress and George A. Minar. John attended Kalamazoo College as part of the class of 1906, which is where he met Ruby Lee. There he wrote for The College Index (a monthly student publication) and was a member of the Sherwood Society (a literary organization). John made his career in journalism working first for newspapers in the Midwest including those in Muskegon, Jackson, and Calumet (The Calumet News), Michigan, and with the Duluth News-Tribune in Duluth, Minnesota. In the 1910s, he was working for the New York Sun. John was sent to England as a correspondent in December 1916 (shortly after his marriage to Ruby Lee, who traveled with him). The couple moved to Washington, D.C. in 1917 and in 1920 John served as the chief of the Evening Sun Washington Bureau. According to census records, Ruby Lee and John began living separately in the early 1930s when John began working for the International News Service in Chicago. He resided in Chicago until his death on January 23, 1946.

Patricia (“Patty”) Lee Minar, daughter of Ruby Lee Lamb and John Milton Minar, was born on August 22, 1917, in Washington, D.C. In 1934, Patricia attended the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland for her senior year of high school and spent time in Paris before returning to the US. From 1935-1938, she attended the State Teacher’s College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where she was a member of the Stratford Dramatic Club. In the 1940s, Patricia lived in Miami Springs with her mother and was herself an active Soroptimist. In 1950, she taught English at the University of Havana in Cuba and started the Havana Soroptimist Club. Patricia had returned to live in Arlington by the time of her first husband’s (Beno Sandor Vajda of Hungary, b. May 7, 1914) death on June 21, 1979. Patricia entered into her second marriage on May 7, 1982 with Michael Hogye of Falls Church. She died on June 8, 2002.

Scope and Content

Record Group 158, measuring .63 linear feet and artifact storage, contains the personal papers of the Ruby Lee Minar family and spans 1923-1979. The bulk of the material pertains to Ruby Lee and Patricia and comes from the period of the early 1920s through the early 1950s. The collection contains handwritten and typed correspondence; 1930s holiday cards; photographs; publicity and business records for Ruby Lee Minar, Inc.; a copy of John’s death certificate; and the paperwork with official seals recording Ruby Lee’s death abroad. There is also a 1930s play bill from a production of “Private Lives” at the Barter Theater in Abingdon in Arlington County. The collection contains material in English, German, French, Danish, and Polish.

The artifacts consist of a leather purse that Patricia used during her time studying abroad based on the presence of a St. Gallen stamp found in the pocket (now in Series 2, File 9) as well as a number of printed books. The book artifacts include one in German entitled “Zue freiheit berufen!” (which translates to “Called to Freedom”), a French yearly planner, a guidebook for birds, a handbook for Chemistry and Physics, and ten books from the Ten Cent Pocket Series including a book of synonyms, one on improving vocabulary, one about Buddhist philosophy, and one of the U.S. Constitution, and ones based on works by John Stuart Mills, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, and Dante, and a compilation of Shakespearian quotations. A photocopy of the clipping found in the Tolstoy book was made during processing and left where it was originally placed.

Series 1 contains personal material for Ruby Lee Minar including publicity portraits of Minar taken by Harris & Ewing and Underwood & Underwood (two prominent D.C. photography companies), correspondence, material connecting her with the Soroptimist International organization, and the State Department paperwork (in Danish and English) recording her death overseas.

Series 2 contains personal materials for Patricia Lee Minar. This series includes correspondence in English, French, and German and a book about Warsaw written in Polish; photographs; and academic material from her time studying abroad and at the State Teacher’s College.

Series 3 is designated for material relating to John Milton Minar and contains only a single, satirical article he wrote during his journalism career.

Series 4 consists of material from the 1920s relating to Ruby Lee Minar, Inc., including the business ledger for 1923 that records meetings and business dealings with clients. This series also contains promotional material for each of Ruby Lee’s three major developments in Arlington: Lyon Park, Lee Heights, and The Palisades, and a blank sales agreement for Greenway Downs in Fairfax County.

Arrangement and Description

The majority of materials were donated loose and mixed together in envelopes. As a result, the collection is arranged into five series, as devised by the archivist, with one for each member of the Minar family, one for Ruby Lee Minar’s real estate business, and one for artifacts. Each series and the material within files generally follows a chronological order. Material is grouped thematically and was combined from the two donations pertaining to this collection. This arrangement is meant to help researchers find appropriate material. Photographs in Series 1 and Series 2 have been rehoused in photo sleeves.

Provenance

The Ruby Lee Minar Family Papers were donated in two groupings. The materials dealing primarily with Ruby Lee Minar’s death and most of the photographs of her were donated in 2006 by Michael Hogye, the stepson of Minar’s daughter Patricia Lee Minar. The other materials, (some photos, the holiday cards in Series 1 and 2, and primarily those items pertaining to Patricia Lee Minar) were donated by Cynthia Liccese-Torres of Arlington County’s Historic Preservation Program and came from 4014-26 Lorcum Lane with a note that most of the items belonged to Patricia and/or Ruby Lee Minar. The house on Lorcum Lane was called the Joseph Tabor Johnson House and was demolished in December 2003; the site is now the “Lorcum Ridge” subdivision.

Restrictions

There are no known restrictions on material in this collection. (Note: Photographs taken by Harris & Ewing and Clinedinst have no known restrictions and those taken by Underwood & Underwood are in the public domain, according to research on each photographer conducted by the Library of Congress.)

Related Collections

Researchers can find complementary materials in RG 14, Arlington County Civic Federation; RG 156, Records of Soroptimist International of Arlington; and RG 196, Records of the Syphax Family (Margarite Syphax was a prominent African-American real estate developer in Arlington).