| Rhea Emma Donahue was born on a Saturday afternoon, 30 July 1898, at 115 N. Elm Street, Warren, Ohio. She was the daughter of James T. Donahue and Clara Elizabeth Scoville, and their only child. Ted Chadwick was very close to Rhea and had many fond memories of her. �She was a heart-breakingly lovely girl in every sense of the word,� he wrote years later to Rhea�s daughter. �Rhea and I were distant cousins and grew up together, literally from the cradle thru high school. She made us a cup of tea at age 6 when she and her father and mother and John Reed � lived in a small house at Thorn & Elm. Then when the big double house at the end of Scott was built next to us she was �the girl next door� thru [sic] the 8th grade and as far as I went in High School - 2 � yrs. Many a lesson we worked together and there was a friendly rivalry between us as she was smart as well as beautiful.� �John Reed,� Chadwick continued, �from the time I can first remember anything lived with Rhea and was, according to my mother, �not Rhea�s real grandfather'. Which did not stop her from being the apple of his eye and he was fiercely protective of her. Even I, when I took her to an occasional High School doings had to answer all the who, why, where, when and how questions - more stringent than Jim Donahue�s even!� �Shortly after I left high school and the old home (1914-1915) Rhea moved to the corner of Washington & Vine (?) streets where they lived until after Jim�s sudden death on the street shortly after he had met and talked with my mother.... They - Rhea & her mother - then moved one house east on Washington where they were when I came �home from the wars'.� Chadwick also remembered riding the interurban trolley with his family and Rhea�s to visit their Horner relatives in Youngstown. Rhea attended Warren High School, where she apparently took a great interest in languages. She studied four years of Latin, three of German and one of French before graduating in 1917. The high school yearbook from her junior year lists her name among those who worked on the junior play. In fall 1917 she went on to Lake Erie College, a women�s college in Painesville, Ohio. Her transcripts show that she took predominantly music courses (eight classes in 2 1/2 semesters) - piano, voice, and theory - so she must have been a music major. Her reason for dropping out in the middle of her second year is not recorded. She must have missed school, since she was still a member of the alumnae association when she married several years later. Leap Year day in 1920 must have been traumatic for Rhea. Her father died that evening, in her presence. The two had walked into town to run an errand for her mother and were on their way home when James had a stroke, collapsing on the street. He was taken into a nearby home and died an hour later. His obituary described him as �a man of fine character, high principle and devoted to his family in an unusual way,� so his loss surely hit Rhea hard. On October 11, 1924, Rhea married Roscoe Conklin Mines, whom she likely met at Central Christian Church, where they were both members. �The bride was charming in a frock of apricot crepe, meteor French beaded in black and silver, with black hat, and she carried brides roses,� said the account in the Warren newspaper. The newspaper also said she worked as a stenographer at the Second National bank and that she and Roscoe were to go on a two-week honeymoon trip, but it didn�t say where. A year and a half after the wedding, Rhea had her first child, Patricia Ann (1926), and five years later a son, Lewis Wesley. She didn�t get to enjoy them very long, as in March 1935, she contracted scarlet fever and died after a week�s illness, on the 22nd, a Friday. She was 36 years old. The actual cause of death was septic endocarditis, according to her death certificate. The family was living at 346 Iddings S.E. at the time. She is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Warren. Sources: Warren Tribune Chronicle, prob 1 Aug 1898 Warren Tribune Chronicle, 1 Mar 1920, p.1 Warren Tribune Chronicle, 23 Mar 1935, p. 7, col. 2 Warren Tribune Chronicle, 11 Oct 1924 Death certificate, Rhea E. Mines, 23 Mar 1935 Marriage license application, Roscoe Conklin Mines and Rhea Emma Donahue Birth record, Rhea Donahue, Trumbull County Archives, Warren, OH Transcripts, Rhea Emma Donahue, Lake Erie College, Painesville, OH Letters of Theodore Chadwick, 5 May 1974 and 26 Sep 1976 |
| Rhea Emma Donahue Mines - 1898-1935 |
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| Rhea (center) and friends |
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| From Rhea's wedding to Roscoe Mines, Oct. 11, 1924 - she and Roscoe are on the far right. Probably Rhea's mother, Clara, is standing next to her, and in the center is Roscoe's mother, Carrie Titchenal Mines. Roscoe's brother Lloyd and his wife Bessie are far left. The woman next to Bessie Mines is unidentified. |
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| Oakwood Cemetery, Warren, Ohio. |
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| A portrait of Rhea, painted by her cousin, DeAlton Valentine (her father's sister's son). |
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| This page is dedicated to the beautiful grandmother I never knew. |
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| Rhea - looking about 15 years old - with her father, James. |