Los
Angeles County
Biographies
MINNIE U. PURE
Minnie
U. Pure’s thirty-four year career as a teacher in the
San Gabriel School District began quite dramatically. Married to a minister, with a family of six
children to raise, Mrs. Pure found herself facing destitution in 1927, since
during the lean Depression year’s people were able to contribute almost nothing
to the church. When faced with a
particularly grave crisis in their affairs, the Pure
family knew that their only hope lay in prayer.
After they had knelt and prayed, it occurred to Reverend Pure that,
since Mrs. Pure had been a teacher in Mexico, she may possibly teach in this
country. A conference with Conrad Hale,
then superintendent of San Gabriel schools, resulted in the promise of a
teaching position at Lincoln School if Mrs. Pure could complete the required
eight units of university work necessary for a California teaching credential. She completed the work and taught at Lincoln
School from 1927 to 1956, working largely with Mexican-American children and
their parents to help them understand and appreciate the American way of
life. From 1956 until her retirement in 1960,
Mrs. Pure taught at McKinley School in San Gabriel, and is now part time
teacher of Spanish in the seventh grades in San Gabriel.
Minnie
Uriegas Pure was born in the Sunday school room of
the Baptist Church in Mexico City on September 19, 1895. Her parents were Fernando and Guadalupe (Barocio) de Uriegas. Mrs. Pure was educated at the Methodist
Missionary School in Puebla, Mexico, and at the Colegio
del Estada de Puebla, and
graduated from the Puebla State Normal School in Puebla, Mexico. She taught from 1914 to 1916 at the Baptist
School in Mexico City, and then received a three year scholarship to the
Baptist Missionary Training School in Chicago.
She was sent to the University of Redlands in California by the Home
Missions Board to attend the Northern Baptist Convention and obtained
employment from the Presbyterian board at Redlands, working for the Reverend Heliodoro Pure who was minister there. After a short period as a missionary in Santa
Barbara, the former Miss Minnie Uriegas married Reverend
Pure, a widower with four children, on March 2, 1921. In 1923 the family moved to San Gabriel where
both Reverend and Mrs. Pure worked at La Primera Inglesia Presbiteriana de San
Gabriel. In 1927, when Mrs. Pure began
her teaching career, she worked at the church part time. At the time of Reverend Pure’s
death in 1941, he had been retired for two years, and prior to his retirement
had been with the Bethseda Presbyterian Church at
Clinton and Paloma in Los Angeles for some time.
Mrs.
Pure received the Recognition Medal for Teachers from the Freedoms Foundation
at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1959, an honor given to four hundred teachers
in the United States. She received a
certificate of merit in 1961 for youth development from the San Gabriel Board
of Education. In 1950 she was a Gold
Star Mother. She has been an honorary
member of the American Legion, Post Number 442, in San Gabriel since 1951. As a member of the Highland Park Presbyterian
Church since 1936, she is now serving there in the capacity of Adviser to the
Junior High Westminster Fellowship.
Reverend
and Mrs. Pure had three sons. Robert Helio Pure was born in 1922, is with the United States
Postal Department, and is married to the former Miss Dorothy Presco. They have
two children, Karen Marie, and Robert Joseph.
Kenneth Walter Pure, born in 1923, is a teacher in Colton and is married
to the former Miss Marian Bown. They have a daughter Malinda Alice. Ervin Helio Pure
was born in 1925, and was killed in Korea in 1950.
Vivacious
and active, with a wonderful outlook on life, Mrs. Pure enjoys organ music,
writing, painting, knitting and is a voracious reader.
Including
her own three sons and her stepsons, Mrs. Pure has raised and helped to send
seventeen boys and girls through school.
One of them became a teacher, two others are engineers. Others are doing outstanding work. She has always had someone in her home whom she has been helping and has done a great deal to
develop moral and spiritual values in the young people with whom she has
worked.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Historical Volume & Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park,
Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple City, by Robert P. Studer,
Pages 723-724, Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California. 1962.
© 2013 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES