John Minor and Trenna Baer were married on Aug 3, 1939 in Brownsville, PA. where they lived until 1940. Then in early 1941, Trenna left Pennsylvania and traveled to Florida to obtain a divorce. She obtatined the divorce from John Minor in early March. Then on March 21, 1941, she traveled to Morgantown WV and married William Meighen. Meighen then apparantely left for the service in WWII. She then moved in with John Minor in Ohio MI and Florida for 8 months and then returned to Brownsville PA in Feb 1942. On March 13, 1942. she gave birth to Randall Dewayne Minor in Brownsville PA. He was premature and only weighed three pounds. She lived with Minor until Nov 1943 at which time she left Brownsville and went with her child to Portage County in Ohio to live with Meighen where they lived after his return from WWII until 1944.
Court was held in 1945 since both men wanted to claim the child as theirs. The judge awarded custody of the child to Trenna and Meighen stating that the paternity didn't matter because the child was better off with the mother because of his young age. At one time, John Minor took Randy without the the mother's knowlege and she filed a Habeus Corpus. The Meighen's then took Randy to CA until he was five and that was also not approved because they were not supposed to take him out of Pennsylvania.
So was Randall the child of Minor or Meighen? It does appear that Minor is the father because Trenna was living with him while Meighan was in the service. As to why she would because she had divorced him and then went back to Meighan and why he even took her back, is in question. But it does appear that Randall's father was indeed John Minor. One time he was known as Randall Meighen but later his name was changed to Minor. However, his Catholic baptism record shows his name as Randall Meighen.
His mother and stepfather never told Randy much about these early happenings but he always knew that there was something really strange that had gone on in his early life.
Randall did have some visits with his real father and his paternal grandfather who ran the railroad in Brownsville. He has a half sister and brother in the Minor family. In the Meighen family he has a half sister. On his dad's side, his siblings all live in Brownsfille PA. His half sister on his stepdad's side now lives in NC.
