Lotie Irenus Minard (1837-1913)

Portrait from the History of the City of Nashua, New Hampshire, 1897.

   Snappily dressed and sporting a fine example of a 19th-century mustache, three-term New Hampshire state legislator Lotie Irenus Minard was a lifelong resident of Nashua, being born in that city on April 7, 1857, the son of Charles F. and Sarah (Gay) Minard. He would attend the public schools of Nashua and the Crosby Academy and as a young man went into railroad work, which he would follow for four years.

  In the late 1870s Minard entered into the shoe-making trade, and after several years of private work joined the manufacturing firm of Moody, Estabrook, and Anderson in Nashua. Minard would be employed there for seven years and in the mid-1890s was involved in the concrete business in his native city. On October 1, 1884, Lotie Minard married in Nashua to Josephine Hebert (1858-1934), to whom he was wed for nearly thirty years. The couple would remain childless.

  Remarked as having a keen interest in the political life of Nashua, Lotie I. Minard's first run at public office came in 1884 when he was elected to represent Ward 6 on Nashua's Common Council. In 1885 and 1886 he sat on the Nashua Board of Aldermen and in 1890 was elected to his first term in the state legislature, serving in the session of 1891-92. Minard would be returned to the legislature in November 1896, garnering 316 votes on election day. During the 1897-99 session, he would serve on the committee on the Revision of Statutes and won his third term in the house in November 1898.

From the Souvenir of New Hampshire Legislators, 1897.

   After his third term in 1901, Minard returned to his business interests in Nashua, serving as the treasurer of the Nashua Concrete Co. He returned to political life in 1908 when he began service as a Hillsborough County Commissioner, serving in that post for an indeterminate length of time. Minard died in Nashua on February 24, 1913, at age 63. He was survived by his wife Josephine, who, following her death in 1934, was interred alongside her husband at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Nashua.