Joe Jo-Jo DeMary, formerly of Monongah, son of the late Joe DeMary, a 1940s Monongah High graduate, writes:

“Saturday, I will be in my Happy Place!! In the mountains of WV!!”

It’s not that Jo-Jo has to come to West Virginia to see mountains. He lives in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee with wife Yvonne King DeMary. That’s not exactly flatlands.

But there’s only one Mountain Mama, and that’s in West Virginia, as John Denver reminded the world in “Country Roads,” sung in Mountaineer Field after every WVU football victory. I get chills every time I join 60,000 people to sing it.

Jo-Jo’s siblings are Kim DeMary Clowers, Class of 1979, living in Red Bank with husband Earl Lee Clowers; Julie DeMary; and Joanne DeMary. Their parents are the late Joe DeMary and Laurelle Costello Hustead.

Jo-Jo is a City of Red Bank, Tennessee engineer and a graduate of Red Bank High School near Chattanooga.

 Monongah High history is littered with DeMarys.

Frank DeMary, Jr. is Class of 1947.

Ann DeMary Eates, married to Joe Eates, is Class of 1945, like her husband.

Anthony DeMary, Jr., Class of 1950, is deceased.

So is Virginia DeMary Rossi, Class of 1941, who was born on the same day (April 24, 1935) as Christine “Tina” Tartell Arnett and died two hours apart on the same day (Aug. 20, 1982) after a lifetime of inseparable friendship.

Tina was Paula Rossi Wiley’s godmother.

Virginia DeMary Rossi is buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery on Park Avenue in Monongah. Nearby are the side-by-side graves of Lee and Josephine Tartell, Tina’s parents, and Lucy and Anthony DeMary, Virginia’s father’s brother.

 

Virginia’s parents, Frank and Lena Duva DeMary, are buried in Grandview Memorial Park, off E. Grafton Road in Fairmont.

 

Anthony and Lucy DeMary are the parents of Ann DeMary Eates, married to Joe Eates, and Jimmy DeMary and Anthony “Plumber” DeMary, Jr. Ann and Joe live at the bottom of Bridge Street hill. Jimmy and Plumber are deceased.

 

Virginia’s brother was Joe DeMary, who passed away in 2007, and is the father of Kimberly Jo DeMary Clowers, who lives in Rossville, Georgia with husband Earl Clowers.

Other children of Joe DeMary are Sgt. 1st Class Joanne Mary DeMary of Ft. Meade, Md.; Julie Ann DeMary of Soddy; and Frank DeMary Jr. and his wife Peaches Aldridge DeMary of Monongah.