Mary Barbara Minick
Our subject was born May 29, 1795, between Spires and Manheim, in Bavaria, Germany. Her maiden name was Foerst. We are not advised as to her parents or early history, but she was born and reared a Protestant, and in 1826 identified herself with a division of the Prostestants, a branch of the Lutheran Church, believing in a deeper and more exalted piety. This branch or division of the German Prostestants were of similar views to the followers of John Welsey as compared to the Church of England. They had many meetings for prayer and conference, and Mrs. Minick was one of their most enthusiastic adherents. She was married in 1815 to John Peter Minick, or Munch, as it is properly written. We believe a correct translation in English would be Menken. Her husband was born April 9, 1792. They had two children born in Germany. Peter Minick was a soldier under the first Napoleon for a short time, in the campaigns where the Germans last supported his standard. He and our subject lived in Germany and kept house until 1830, when she was thirty-five years of age and he thirty-eight. It was while she was living in Germany that she had an experience given to none since the days of Elijah. When she was a young married woman, aged thirty-one, and in a time when she had been attending meetings of the pietists faithfully for some weeks, she fell down in her own house with a hemorrhage, and was found in an unconscious condition by her husband. She was put to bed and lay in an apparently unconscious state for six weeks, though, as she afterwards told, she was conscious towards the last, but was unable to move or speak.
At the end of six weeks, she died, or apparently died. Her physicians, her nurses and her friends thought she was dead, and she was dressed for burial. At that time, in her neighborhood, it was customary to keep the dead three days where circumstances permitted it, and this was done in her case. At the end of that time, some of her friends thought they saw signs of life, and she was kept a day longer. On the fourth day, her funeral was set. and the bells rung for that purpose. Her friends as sembled and the funeral services were held. When the funeral procession was about to start, she came to life and was taken out of her coffin and put to bed. She was very weak and feeble for a long time, but finally recovered her health entirely, and when she did, she related this wonderful experience:
While apparently unconscious in her six weeks' sickness, she was conscious most of the time, and knew what was going on about her. She could hear what was said, but could not communicate. She felt the approach of death; she noticed the cessation of circulation in her extremities, and the approach of it to her heart. Then she became unconscious. Then, the first thing she knew, an angel approached her and took her in charge. She had no sense of the time she traveled with him through space, but found herself in an outer court of a great pleasure garden or park. There was like lattice work before her, and beyond that, were a great company of happy people, surrounding a loved object. She could hear the most rapturous music and singing of the multitudes. At another place within the inner court, she saw a company sitting about a table. Their faces shone so she could not look upon them, and was compelled to take her eyes from them. Among those she saw in the inner court was the face of a young woman friend of hers, who had attended the pietist meetings with her. She made a request of her guide to be admitted to the inner court, but he said, "No, you must return to earth and preach Christ a period longer before you can be admitted." She then seemed to be spirited away by four angels and let down to earth as it were in a sheet.
As soon as she was able, after her return, she told her vision. People came from all the surrounding country to see her and converse with her. In relating her vision, she predicted the death of her friend, whose face she had seen in Paradise, and it took place within a year, but she died in the triumph of faith. Mrs. Minick believed in this heavenly vision as much as she believed in her own existence. To her it was as real as anything which ever occurred to her, and it influenced her entire life. The angel's message was ever as fresh to her and ever as important as the day she received it, and she followed it to the last of her life.
She and her husband had heard of the United States and longed to go there. His experience with the service under the great Napoleon satisfied him and made him wish for America. So he and his wife and two children came to the United States in 1830. They located at Piketon, Ohio, where they lived several years. Then they moved to West Union, Ohio, where they spent all of his life and most of hers. She lived in the little brick house just opposite the Pflaummer residence, then Dr. Wm. B. Willson's residence. She believed that cleanliness preceded godliness, and her home was always scrupulously neat and clean. She and her husband had and kept a most wonderful garden. A self-respecting weed would not grow in it, and none were ever seen in it, and all of the vegetables grew just as though they thought it their duty to do so to please her. One room in her house she had fitted up for religious meetings, and many were held there, the services being conducted in her mother tongue. She had an occupation. She was a doctress and nurse and followed her profession most faithfully. In the cholera of 1851, she went among the patients everywhere, and her services were thought equal to those of the regular physicians.
She was the mother of four children, two sons and two daughters, the youngest born in this country. She was a woman of the most earnest and devoted piety. She believed in her religion, and she lived it every day. Her whole life, day by day, was a sermon and an argument in favor of her faith. While she never mastered the English language fully, she would attend the Methodist revival meetings, and she enjoyed them very much. She could not express herself to her satisfaction in English, and was often, at these meetings, requested to sing in German. She was always pleased to do so, and everyone felt the spirit of her hymns. She was always reluctant to tell the Heavenly Vision, as she knew many were skeptical about it, and only related it where it was appreciated, but to her it was real. She had all the faith and love of St. John, and the zeal and enthusiasm of St. Paul. She was respected and loved by all who knew her. Her husband died August 19, 1870, and her pleasant home in West Union was broken up. After that she lived with her grandchildren until the tenth of April, 1883, when her Heavenly Vision was realized. She and her husband rest in the old South cemetery at West Union, waiting the sound of Gabriel's trumpet. Her life was full of usefulness, of good deeds, and she was a minister to the souls of all who knew her.
From "History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time" - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900