Green Bay true crime author Lynda Drews will share how a college-educated woman and a servant in the 19th century got caught in the web of a sadistic doctor when she comes to Shawano on Oct. 20.
It sounds like an intriguing plot for a novel, but Drews noted in a recent interview that it’s all true and involves one of the community’s celebrated surgeons at the time, Dr. John R. Minahan. The Minahan family had a strong grip on Green Bay’s professional, business and political scenes from 1892 to 1954; the doctor’s wealth brought the city a stadium at St. Norbert College, six-story office building and science center in his name.
Drews started out wanting to write a book on the Minahan family, given that their name was all over the place. While doing research, however, she came across the two women whose names had nearly been erased from the history books.
Mollie was a socialite in Green Bay working as a teacher who later married Minahan, while Mary was an illiterate maid who found her herself raped twice by the doctor and went through a criminal abortion when she became pregnant with his child. Drews said the women’s lives were destroyed when Minahan claimed they both had syphilis, a disease popping up in cities on a global scale, but there was no blood test at the time that could prove it.
“I uncovered the stories of the abuse,” Drews said. “I was not going to write the stories of these women and had planned to start with the Minahan family, which was really one of the top families in the area.”
Drews used newspapers.com as part of her research on the family history and came up with more than 32,000 entries. When she did a search with the words “Minahan” and “trial,” because she had previously written a true crime novel about a tragic three-teacher love triangle titled “Run at Destruction,” the search uncovered Mary and Mollie’s stories.
“There were six trials, three for each woman,” Drews said. “Nobody in Green Bay really knew anything about them — not the families, nobody. So it was like I uncovered some new history that nobody had known about, and then I was able to give these women a voice. That’s what was important to me.”
Drews’ initial interest in the Minahan family cropped up when she moved to Green Bay and lived in a home in the historic Astor Park district that was once occupied by V.I. Minahan, the doctor’s brother.
“When I started in (researching the Minahan history), I really didn’t plan on contacting any Minahan relative,” Drews said. “But then as I got into it, I figured I should find someone and tell him I’m writing this story.”
She discovered that V.I. Minahan’s grandson, Tony Walter, wrote for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, and she talked with him. Walter was able to fill in some gaps on John Minahan and why there were three hospitals in Green Bay, she said, but he was unaware of Mary and Mollie’s tales.
“I asked him about these women, and he said, ‘What women?’” Drews said. “Then I asked him about the trials, and he said, ‘What trials?’ He was a direct descendant, and it was covered up in their family. It was never brought forward.”
Drews said she liked the idea of bringing forward women’s tales, especially after she spoke with a descendant of Mary, the maid, and learned that family knew all about the sinister doings of John Minahan.
“I call them more, like, everyday women in this era,” Drews said. “You’ll see a biography on one of the president’s wives or something like that, but these are just everyday women, and there are very little true stories written about the everyday women in this era.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
