OBITUARY

Alice Francis Minney, a fixture among Newport Beach’s sailing

community and the former owner of Josh Slocum’s Restaurant, died May 10,

just two days before her 88th birthday.

“She was really the perfect mother,” said Mrs. Minney’s son, Ernie

Minney, who now owns a Newport Beach business that sells new and used

boating equipment. “She was so unbelievably unselfish.”

Born May 12, 1913, Mrs. Minney grew up in Long Beach. She married her

husband, George, in 1933 and the couple moved to Newport Beach in 1947.

There, Mrs. Minney managed her husband’s yacht brokerage in the Bowman

Shipyard on Mariner’s Mile and also worked as a bookkeeper for they

shipyard, which had been leased by the Minneys.

With their five children, the couple embarked on sailing trips on

their 65-foot schooner, Kelpie, in the early 1950s.

Soon after acquiring their boat, the Minneys bought the property on

West Coast Highway where Josh Slocum’s now stands.

While raising her children and working at her husband’s business, Mrs.

Minney began attending night classes at Cal State Long Beach and left

there with a diploma and teaching credentials.

She went on to teach fourth-graders at a school in Fountain Valley.

Mrs. Minney remained there for two decades and became the head of the

music department, turning down offers to move up the ladder as a

principal.

After retiring, Mrs. Minney and her husband traveled from Mexico to

Alaska in the camper, while she also still helped out at a yacht salvage

store her sons, Ernie and George, owned.

When her husband died in 1975, Mrs. Minney leased the West Coast

Highway property to her children, who opened a restaurant and named it

after Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail around the world alone.

Mrs. Minney also served as the restaurant’s bookkeeper until it was

sold to a different owner about five years ago.

Asked what his mother might say about recent changes at the

restaurant, Ernie Minney said he didn’t want to comment because city

officials recently sued the establishment and, as landlords, he and his

siblings could be involved in the case.

The new owners of Josh Slocum’s received money from ex-basketball star

Dennis Rodman for remodeling and have allegedly offered live

entertainment and dancing without city permits.

But the restaurant is “totally different than what we had,” Ernie

Minney said. “It was a center of yachting. We had weddings and funerals.

We took a lot of pride in the food and had family antiques there. It was

a monument to sailors. Now it looks like something out of Hollywood.”

Called “the Godmother” by her children, Mrs. Minney is survived by her

daughters, Patricia Phinney of Costa Mesa and Cindy Avena of Mammoth

Lakes; her sons, Joseph of Paso Robles, Owen and Ernie of Newport Beach;

and nine grandchildren.

A funeral took place earlier this month at All Souls Chapel and

cemetery in Long Beach.

Anyone who wants to make a donation in Minney’s name may do so by

supporting the Boy Scout Sea Base’s sail training ship, Argus.

Information: (949) 642-5031.