Reginald Maxwell Minor

S/SGT in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : HQ & Service Co

Military occupational specialty: 804 (camouflage technician)

ASN#32998073 Casualty: Wounded

Born 1912 in NY, Died 2005

Artist

County of residence at enlistment: Kings County, NY

Other residence(s): Bay Ridge (Brooklyn), NY; Centerport, NY

United States Army, European Theatre of Operations

Occupation before the war: commercial artists

College education before the war: Pratt

Source: Travel Orders, 23d HQ, 29 August 1945; Photo Caption Seymour Nussenbaum Scrapbook; Bahnhof Flag signature; Unit Shipment 10143-B, 23d HQ, from le Havre 23 June 1945; militaryyearbookproject.org/references/old-mos-codes/wwii-era/army...; photo courtesy Newsday (NY), February 16, 2005

Reggie Minor was born on July 29, 1912 in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, the third of four children. His father drove an ice truck and later managed a fuel company. His mother, and all four of his grandparents, had been born in Germany.

He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, where he played lacrosse (among other athletic activities), and went on to study advertising design at Pratt. Somewhere along the line, he started rowing at the Nautilus Boat Club in Brooklyn, a sport in which he would continue for most of his life.

Local newspaper articles of the 1930s call attention to Reggie for two reasons—his art achievements at Pratt and his rowing championships. Some of these achievements include winning first place in a 1932 poster contest conducted by the Museum of Modern Art, and designing a prizewinning poster in 1933 to publicize the Salvation Army's appeal for emergency relief in New York. He also served as social manager of the "Artsmen" society at Pratt.

On the athletic side, he was one of 400 young men from Brooklyn who spent the summer of 1932 at Camp Dix, NJ, camping and preparing for an annual athletic competition "in every well-known sport." In 1935 he was the New England sculling champion; that year he and a classmate were touring the US and spent some time working out at "an exclusive boat club" in Santa Monica.

In 1936, still rowing for the Nautilus Boat Club, he was named to the US Olympic rowing team, having placed second in the single sculls in Philadelphia on July 3-4. But sadly, he did not go to Berlin—he could only afford to get himself there and not his boat. The 1936 Olympic US rowing team is best known for the book and movie about The Boys in the Boat—the University of Washington rowing team. They were asked to come up with $5,000 to fund their travel, but their community kicked into high gear and raised the money in a week. Apparently, there wasn't much support for a second-place single sculler so Reggie never got his chance to shine!

After graduating from Pratt, he took a job as an art director at F. W. Dodge, a project marketplace company for the construction trades that would eventually become part of McGraw-Hill.

Reggie had been a member of the Nautilus Boat Club's Glee Club, and he met Gladys Thompson, the woman who would become his wife, at a concert that the club performed in Bensonhurst (Brooklyn). They married in 1940, and their first child, Reginald Jr., was born in 1943.

Reggie registered for the draft on October 16, 1940 and enlisted on August 12, 1943. Assigned, like other Pratt students, to the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, he saw service in Europe during the war.

He was discharged from the Army on October 19, 1945, and returned to his job at what would become McGraw-Hill, as art director for Sweets construction catalog division. He would remain there until his retirement. Reggie and Gladys became the parents of two more children, Kenn and Robin, and, in the early 1950s, the growing family moved to Centerport, NY.

Reggie's son Kenn had Down syndrome, and Reggie became involved in the Association for the Help of Retarded Children in Suffolk County. He pioneered the association's resident housing program and was responsible for designing homes. He also served as president for 10 years, and was awarded the organization's Humanitarian and Founders awards. The group named its Huntington, NY residence in his honor in 2004.

He was also an active member of the Bay Ridge Minerva Masonic Lodge.

He designed and built his own home in Centerport, as well as several other homes in the community. His obituary says that "his eye for design enabled him to become a master at the creation of stained-glass artwork." Some of his work decorates the windows of Centerport (NY) United Methodist Church and a number of Long Island residences.

Reggie continued to row; he was a lifetime member of the Sagamore Rowing Association in Huntington, NY which named the club's first boathouse (at the now closed Friends World College in Lloyd Harbor) in his honor. A 1985 article in an Albany, NY newspaper recounts a trip he made with a fellow rower, driving from Long Island to Albany with their new Argentinian shells on top of his friend's station wagon. The two 72-year-olds had met in their 50s through rowing, and had become close. They would row in the Empire State Regatta on the Hudson River, in an event for single scullers 55 and over. "We may not go as fast, but we know what we're doing," Reggie quipped. The article went on to say that both men rowed almost every day outdoors when the weather was warm enough. "I was out on the water Christmas Day and New Years," said Reggie.

Reggie taught rowing and continued to row competitively until he was well into his 80s. Although he used a wheelchair toward the end of his life, he was still able to exercise on his rowing machine. He died on February 10, 2005 at the age of 92. He is buried at Northport Rural Cemetery in Northport, NY.