Jana Miars Minor

Interview Date: 14 October 2021

Jana Miars Minor was born in 1941 as is the daughter of Robert T. “Bob” and Clementine C. (Stenger) Miars. She grew up in Brimfield, Illinois during the 1940s and 1950s. She attended Brimfield Grade and High Schools and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. In 1961 she married her high school sweetheart, William “Bill” Minor, Jr. They lived and raised their family of four children in Brimfield. Jana’s father, Robert “Bob” was a businessman in town during the early 1940s until his retirement in the late 1970s. He ran the Miars Standard Service gas station and car repair business. Jana talks about growing up in Brimfield, her father’s business, church life and getting the current library building built.

Introduction
01:15 Origin Story – Birth and Parents
02:59 Miars Standard Service
13:26 New Library Building
25:05 Free Saturday Night Movies
27:55 St. Joseph’s Church Burning
35:22 Community Building
38:59 School days  

St. Francis Hospital, Peoria, Illinois
Brimfield Grade School
St. Joseph’s Church
Rodney and Barb (Wagner) McKown home
Gerald and Dorothy (Rench) Heinz home
John Powers
Brimfield Public Library
Governor Walker
Energy crisis in the 1970s and gas wars
Interstate 74
Frances Blundy, librarian
Mary (Miars) Best
John Dungan
Brimfield Area Men’s Club
William Minor, Sr.
Mrs. Hartley
Free Movies on Saturday Nights
Don Bride
Parkside Café
Rookie’s
Father Thomas Harrison
John Fuchs
Robert “Bob” Best
Community Building
Brimfield Volunteer Fire Department
R Clark
Frank Clark
Amy Powers
Dean Johnson House
Fred Johnson
Arbor Johnson
Johnson Hardware store and funeral home
Charles “Charlie” Sauerwein
Old Settler’s 
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons 

Interviewed by : Diane Minor

Interview Format : Zoom Video with Slide Presentation

Total Time : 47:54

The interview is archived at the Brimfield Public Library District in Brimfield, Illinois.

The Brimfield Oral History Project is a long-term effort to record the stories of Brimfield’s past in the voices of those who remember and make these original sources available for generations to come. This collaboration is a partnership between the Brimfield Public Library District, the Brimfield Historical Society, and the Peoria County Genealogical Society.

Readers of interview transcripts, if available, should bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word and that the interviewer, interviewee, and editors sought to preserve the interview as recorded. Brimfield Public Library District and project volunteers are not responsible for the factual accuracy of this interview, nor for the opinions expressed within.

© Brimfield Public Library District 2023

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