Herb Minard papers

Herbert (“Herb”) Leslie Minard was born in Fresno, California on December 14, 1908. His father was a building contractor and both parents were members of the Disciples of Christ. Minard graduated from Chapman College in Orange, California and from the University of Southern California. He married Marcella Mills on December 28, 1933. Marcella was a graduate of the University of California and was the daughter of a freight agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Before his work with the YMCA, Minard was the Pastor of Curtis Oaks Christian Church in Sacramento, California. He was also the editor of Young People’s Literature and “The Front Rank” for the Christian Board of Publication in St. Louis Missouri. Minard started out his YMCA career as an active committee member for the YMCAs of Sacramento and St. Louis and then moved into International Work. In 1939, Minard was a delegate at the World Conference of Christian Youth in Amsterdam and to the Young Men’s Conference in Amsterdam.

Herb Minard was appointed as YMCA secretary in China in 1943 and arrived there in 1945 after a year of Chinese language study at the University of Californa, Berkeley. His first assignment was in Chongqing (Chungking), where he helped to open a service center in the Chinese YMCA for American forces. He was assistant and later acting secretary of the Army and Navy YMCA in Shanghai, and then went on work on the rebuilding of the YMCA in Nanjing, which had been destroyed by the Japanese. Minard was also secretary and chairman of the Program Committee of the Nanking Rotary Club and served as a pastor of the Nanking Union Church, where there was an English-language service conducted for Protestants of all nationalities. His wife, Marcella, joined him in China in 1946 and played an active role in support of his career there, as well as serving as the first president of the revivied International Women's Club. Due to ill health and the upheavals of the incipient revolution, the couple was forced to leave abruptly in 1948.

With the political situation making a return to China impossible, Minard accepted an appointment to Jerusalem in 1950 to assist with the YMCA still in the process of regrouping following the Arab-Israeli war there. What was intended initially to be just a six-month assignment became bulk of his YMCA career. Minard became the West Jerusalem Senior Secretary in 1959 and held the role until 1973 at the time of his retirement. While there, he saw the Association through a major modernization project for the main building as well as the Six Day War in 1967. During the conflict, the UN established temporary headquarters for its Jerusalem offices at the YMCA, and remained there over two months. He also oversaw the establishment of a YMCA in Nazareth.