Last updated: April 22, 2021
Person
Mary Wasley Minthorn
National Park Service
Quick Facts
Significance:
Maternal Grandmother of President Herbert Hoover
Place of Birth:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date of Birth:
September 1, 1818
Place of Death:
Newberg, Oregon
Date of Death:
June 11, 1903
Place of Burial:
Newberg Cemetery
Herbert Hoover’s grandmother, Mary Wasley Minthorn, and his sister, Mary “May” Blanche Hoover, shared a name, a birthdate (September 1), and a home.
Mary Wasley was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1818. She married Theodore Minthorn in 1842 and they lived in a Quaker community in Ontario where they began raising their family of seven children: Anna, Ellen, Henry John, Hulda, Agnes, Phoebe and Pennington. In 1859 the Minthorns emigrated to Iowa and settled on “Lone Tree Farm” southeast of West Branch.
Mary Minthorn taught her husband how to read and write. Her community knew her as an expert weaver – a skill she used to support herself and her family. Theodore Minthorn died in 1866 and Mary moved to another home nearer town. Later, Mary moved to the western Iowa town of Kingsley to be near two of her daughters and their families. Her daughter Hulda and children visited their grandmother at her home there.
After Hulda died in 1884, all three of the Hoover children were sent to live with Grandmother Minthorn while the family decided what should happen to them. In the end, Grandmother Minthorn raised her namesake granddaughter herself, while the boys went to live with the families of different uncles. In 1889, Grandmother Minthorn and May moved from Kingsley to Newberg, Oregon to be near the Henry John Minthorn family, where Bert had gone to live in 1885. Grandmother Minthorn lived to see all three of the Hoover children attend college and get married. She died in 1903 and is buried in the Newberg Cemetery. A contemporary described Mrs. Minthorn as a woman of “nimble fingers and gentle purpose.”