Minnie Belle Ostrander Edwards Irwin

1873 - 1944

Minnie Irwin, daughter of prominent pioneer Seventh-day Adventist minister William Ostrander, was associated with the music program at Battle Creek College for eleven years, eight as a student of Edward Barnes and then three as his assistant in music. She enrolled at the college at age seventeen and graduated in 1898 at age 25, having completed an academic program with an emphasis in music. She then assisted Barnes until the college was closed and relocated to Berrien Springs, Michigan, in 1901.

When Daniel Walter Edwards, her first husband, died in 1924, she married C. W. Irwin, a leading Adventist educator who had served as president of Pacific Union College and was then working at the General Conference in Washington, D.C. When he died four years later, she remained in Washington until her death a decade later.

One of her sons, D. Robert Edwards, was a music teacher who taught in three colleges and three academies during his 27-year music career.

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Sources: Review and Herald obituary for Minnie Irwin (contains errors), 2 November 1944, and William Ostrander, 21 August 1924.