Jacob Florance Minis of J.F. Minis & Co., shipbrokers, steamship agents, and merchants, of Savannah, Georgia, was the son of Abraham Minis, merchant. His Minis ancestors had been in the Savannah area since before the American Revolution. Minis's first wife, to whom he was married in 1890, was Louisa Porter Gilmer, the daughter of Jeremy Francis Gilmer, a United States Army engineer, 1839-1861, and Confederate Chief of Engineers. Minis married his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873-1964), in 1926. Haskell was born in Columbia, S.C., to A.C. Haskell and Alice Alexander Haskell. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1898 and from 1898 to 1923 she taught school at the Haskell-Dean School in Boston, Mass., and the Cambridge-Haskell School in Cambridge, Mass. She was a close friend of Charlotte Teller, playwright, socialist, and suffragette, who wrote under the name of John Brangwyn; Jacob Giller, a Russian immigrant for whom she provided financial support; and Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese poet and artist, for whom she also provided financial support. Gibran died in 1931, and Haskell was one of his heirs. She was charged with the duty of shipping his possessions and paintings to his birthplace in Bsharri, Lebanon.
From the description of Minis family papers, 1739-1948. WorldCat record id: 25031584
