Fred DeMary passes away

Fred DeMary, son of Rivesville DeMary’s Market founder Pete DeMary, passed away Tuesday, June 26.

Fred, 95, was Pete's last surviving child.  

Domico Funeral Home is handling Fred's arrangements.

Bill Meredith, Class of 1957, has a memory that sums up Fred perfectly:

 “I was saddened to see that Fred DeMary had passed away. Many people don’t remember that Fred had a grocery store in Monongah on Bridge Street at the end of the Ford Street sidewalk. This was after his father, Pete, had closed his store on the Bridge Street curve, near Fred’s store.

“Fred was a really nice person who never met a stranger. During the early 50’s, he volunteered to coach our basketball team at East Monongah Grade School. As you might expect, we got to know Fred very well.

“Sometime in the late 50’s, Fred closed his store in Monongah and began working in the family business in Rivesville. My wife and I left West Virginia in 1961 and, although I often thought of him, I never saw Fred again until the late 90’s, almost 40 years later.

“I was visiting my sister, Patty, in Fairmont and asked her if Fred DeMary was still in Rivesville. She said she thought he was still there, working in DeMary’s Market. I talked her into going with me to see him. I walked into the store alone, since I didn’t want Fred to see Patty and spoil the surprise. As I approached the counter, where Fred was standing, I said, ‘I’ll bet you don’t know who I am.’ Without saying a word, he turned around and picked up a picture, which was sitting on a shelf behind him, and handed it to me. The picture was of our East Monongah basketball team.

“I was blown away. After all those years, he not only remembered me, but remembered and cherished his time as our coach so much that he kept our picture in his ‘office’ at the store. That’s the kind of man Fred DeMary was.

 “I feel I’ve lost a very dear friend.”

Pete DeMary opened up the Rivesville DeMary's Market in 1938. Sons Fred, John, Joe and Leo helped run the market till Pete retired and Fred and wife Mary Jane took over.

In 1991, they turned it over to Richard DeMary, one of their five children, but continued to help out.

John June DeMary was in the Class of 1937 at Monongah High. Ann DeMary Eates, Class of 1945, married to Joe Eates, also Class of 1945, and living in Monongah are his cousins.

John and Mary Louise Martin DeMary’s children are Michael and John Robert DeMary.

After Mary Louise’s passing, John June married Regina Sue Hickman Dulin.

Other DeMarys at Monongah High included:

John DeMary, Class of 1928

Rose Ann DeMary Flore, Class of 1933.

 

Virginia DeMary, Class of 1941.

Frank DeMary, Jr., Class of 1947.

Anthony DeMary, Jr., Class of 1950.

Virginia DeMary Rossi, Class of 1953.

Patti DeMary Evans, Class of 1972.

Kim DeMary Clowers, Class of 1979.

Mike DeMary, Class of 1974.

Betty Anne DeMary, Class of 1979.

Fairmont West English teacher Adrin Fisher, a finalist for West Virginia Teacher of the Year, is married to Mark Fisher, a Title I teacher at Monongah Elementary.

Title 1 teachers are licensed elementary teachers that work with small groups of children on math and reading skills.

Mark graduated from West Forest High in Tionesta, Pennsylvania (110 miles north of Pittsburgh) and Fairmont State. Adrin is a WVU graduate.

Adrin and Mark live in Fairmont with their children Sam, 13, and Elias, 10.

Adrin is among final finalists for the West Virginia Department of Education award who were selected from the fifty-five 2018 county teacher of the year winners.

The other finalists are Summer McClintock, Pleasant View Elementary School, Morgan County; Jada Reeves, Bradley Elementary School, Raleigh County; Clifford Sullivan, Mount Hope Elementary School, Fayette County; and Joy Van Scyoc, Moundsville Middle School, Marshall County.

Fisher encouraged civic engagement among her students that brought nearly $10,000 to the humanitarian organization Nuru International. Nuru, based in Irvine, California, works with rural areas in Kenya and Ethiopia. “Nuru” is a Kiswahili word that means “light.”

Kathy Holcomb’s cousin passes away

Sylvia Gayle Voights, cousin of Monongah’s Kathy Sue Holcomb, passed away Tuesday, June 19.

She had been living in Fairmont.

Jennifer Holcomb, at same address as Kathy, is 1982 North Marion graduate.

Michael Holcomb is a 1989 North Marion graduate. He studied nursing at Alderson Broaddus and Davis & Elkins colleges before joining the Marion County Rescue Squad.

Denise Vozniak Holcomb also was a North Marion graduate. She married Andy Holcomb in 2007. They live in White Hall. Andy came from Upperglade, West Virginia.

Melissa Holcomb Moyers, another North Marion graduate from Monongah, is a teacher in Berkeley County who married Tony Moyers. They live in Martinsburg. Melissa is a Fairmont State graduate.

Sylvia’s obituary:

Sylvia Gayle Voights, 59, of Fairmont, passed away on Tuesday, June 19, 2018, at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown. She was born on May 21, 1959, the daughter of the late James Clarence Voights and Dora Lilly Hall Voights.

Sylvia is survived by her cousins, Sharon Talbot of Dayton, OH, Jim Trader of Huntington, Jane Baker of Fairmont, Bill Hall of Fairmont, Mary Ann Whiting of Fairmont, Ronnie Hall of Oceana, Vicki Stout of Fairmont, John Hall of Wichita, KS, Tracy Hall of Medway, OH, Kathy Holcomb of Monongah, Bob Trader of Chesapeake, VA, and Craig Hall of Carthage, IL; and an aunt, Carol Hall Dalrymple of Wooster, OH.

Sylvia was a member of Fellowship Baptist Church and enjoyed knitting and being with her cats.

In accordance with her wishes, Sylvia will be cremated. The family will receive friends at Ford Funeral Home, 201 Columbia St., Fairmont, WV 26554, on Friday, June 22, 2018, from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. A memorial service will be held in the funeral home on Friday, June 22, 2018, at 11 a.m. A private committal will be held at a later date. Online condolences may be made to the family at www.FORDFUNERALHOMES.com .

There they were, three “cowboys” and a “cowgirl,” in 1940s Worthington.

Bobby Tulin, Judy Galler Price, Jim McDaniel and Roger Harbert.

Franklin Delano Tulin was Robert Thomas Tulin’s brother. They grew up in Worthington.

Franklin lived in Indian Head, Maryland but passed away at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Martinsburg.

Frank was on the 1952 Monongah High football team that won the first of five Lions state titles. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1953 during the Korean War.

Their brother, Donald Tulin, lived in Nashville before he passed away.

The daughters were Gladys Tulin Ireland, who married John Ireland and lived in Milford, Delaware; Flora Tulin Ireland, who married Fred Ireland and lived in Ellendale, Delaware; and Alma Jeane Tulin Leeper, who married Robert Leeper and lives in Fairmont.

Siblings Franklin Tulin, Donald Tulin and Robert Thomas Tulin are deceased.

Their parents were Thomas Tulin and Alma May Mackey Tulin.

Thomas Tulin passed away in 1976 at the age of 93 in Terra Alta, West Virginia. Thomas was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to Peter Tulin and Anne Nicholson Tulin.

Thomas retired in 1975 after owning and operating the Worthington Garage and Exxon Station for 47 years. He was in the British Navy for 12 years.

His first wife was Florence Meredith Tulin. Florence, two sons and Thomas’ sister predeceased him.

One of the Galler daughters – perhaps Odie -- was best friends with Jim McDaniel’s oldest sister, Mary Janes,  class of 1942. 

Bobby Tulin was found dead in his Dad's ESSO garage in the 1960's. 

Roger, Bobby and Jim McDaniel started 1st grade together in 1948, and remained classmates through their Monongah High days.

James Nottingham, Class of 1961, also went through most of the grades with Roger, Bobby and Jim McDaniel.

Jim McDaniel recalls Bobby’s terrible accident:

“Bobby had stopped one night to help a guy whose car had broken down.  He was in 

between the cars when another car hit the car and crushed his legs. Bobby was never the same after that happened.”

Bobby’s legs were almost severed.

Jim McDaniel, who was in the legendary Monongah High band, was married to Shirley Eakle from 1962-74. They had two sons, James and Donald, who live in the Clarksburg area. Shirley passed away in 2017.

Jim and his second wife, Mary Bolin McDaniel,  have a combined 12 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.  They have been married since 1979.  

Jim was in Air Force for more than 23 years. His son, Jimmy served more than 21 years in the Air Force.  

Jim was stationed in Hof and Berlin in Germany, Wakkanai in Japan,  Osan in Korea, 

Shemya in the Aleutians Islands and some type in Bangkok, Thailand.

Jim is the youngest McDaniel sibling of famed Monongah streetcarstation master Ted McDaniel. So are Mary Jane McDaniel Pritchard, Donald McDaniel and JoAnn McDaniel Huff.

Roger Lee Harbert, Class of 1960, is married and lives in Monaca, Pennsylvania. He is retired.

Wednesday, June 20 is West Virginia Day, when in 1863 the hard-working family farmers in the 39 Virginia counties in the western part of the state decided they had had enough of the snooty plantation slaveholders and became their own state.

The two sides were separated by the Alleghenies and the future state motto, “Mountaineers Are Always Free,” in contrast to Virginia’s slavery legacy.

The first choice for the new state’s name was Kanawha, to honor the tribe of the same name which already had a river named for it. 

Vandalia also got some consideration because that was the late 1700s name of a British colony what encompassed what today includes West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana.

But in the 1862 constitution, the founders settled on West Virginia. And the confusion among those not from West Virginia continues to this day that Richmond and Morgantown are not in the same state.

The day had been celebrated informally for decades before the West Virginia Legislature made it a formal holiday in 1927.

Wheeling, where the separation held its first meetings, was the first state capital. 

In 1870, the capital shifted to Charleston, but returned to Wheeling in 1875. 

At a statewide vote in 1877, Wheeling was not among the choices and voters selected Charleston over Martinsburg and Clarksburg and the capital moved to its permanent home in 1885. It wasn’t the first time folks west of the Alleghenies wanted nothing to do with the looking-down-their-noses aristocrats east of the mountains. 

In 1775 the Continental Congress was petitioned unsuccessfully to create Westsylvania from parts of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 

In 1783 the Continental Congress turned down an attempt to make Westsylvania the 14^th state with much of the territory that would have been in the Vandalia colony.

West Virginia was the birthplace of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) to the widespread farms.

Free and West Virginia have been synonymous for a long time.

It was an obituary in the Fairmont Times about a former Rivesville resident, Frances S. Malcolm, 94, who passed away Friday, June 15 that didn’t ring a bell with me.

Until the names of her parents caught my attention: Winfield Scott Meredith and Frances Dent Meredith. 

Naturally, I contacted Bill Meredith, Class of 1957, who lives in Sarasota, Florida and Buckeye Lake, Ohio, to see if there was any connection.

Bill’s reply:

“John, 

“My daughter looked it up and found that Frances Malcolm’s father, Winfield Scott 

Meredith, was my great uncle. He was my maternal grandfather’s brother. 

“I really did not know any of their family. As you say, there were a lot of Merediths in 

the Marion County area. Judge J. Harper Meredith, whose name is on the County 

Building, also was part of our family. 

“Bill M.”

Winfield Scott Meredith was the son of silversmith Thomas Meredith, who left South Wales in 1800 and came to America with his 3-year-old son, William Meredith. After living in Hagerstown, Maryland, then on farms in the Paw Paw District of Marion County and in Monongalia County, Winfield went to Canada, where he passed away.

Winfield’s son, William Meredith, farmed near Smithtown on the Monongahela River before moving to another farm on Pickett’s Creek until he passed at the age of 72. He once was Marion County Court president.

His son, yet another William Meredith, was a wagonmaker who plied his trade in Harrison and Ritchie counties. He died at the age of 86. He built The Meredith House, 1312 Pennsylvania Avenue, Fairmont, and was the first mayor of Barnesville, later renamed Belleview.

This William Meredith’s son was another Winfield Scott Meredith, an 1879 Fairmont Normal graduate who became a prosecuting attorney, Peoples National Bank of Fairmont director and a state senator in West Virginia. His third wife, Frances Dent, gave birth to Winfield Scott, Jr. (that’s three Winfield Scott Merediths, if you’re counting). 

The third Winfield Scott Meredith and Frances Dent Meredith were Frances Meredith Malcolm’s parents. And Winfield #3 was Bill Meredith’s great-uncle. Bill was christened Charles William Meredith after his birth to Jane Meredith and Charlie Meredith.

Bill’s siblings are Patricia Meredith Wills, Class of 1950; Jack Meredith, Class of 1943, Howard Joe Meredith, Class of 1945, Bonnie Meredith, Marion Jean Meredith Riddle, Class of 1945, and Marjorie Delores Meredith Holt, Class of 1947. All but Patty are deceased.iHH

Frances’ son, Scott Malcolm, and daughter, Debbie Malcolm Salgo, live in Fairmont, where Frances was born. Another daughter, Jennie Malcolm, lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Frances donated her body to the West Virginia Human Gift Registry.

Domico Funeral Home handled her arrangements.

Names of those who attended 2018 Monongah High Alumni Reunion

In case you want to re-connect with former Monongah High classmates this is a list of the 146 who attended the 2018 Monongah High Alumni Reunion.

MHS Alumni Association treasurer Donna Colbert Davis, Class of 1961, married to Bill Davis, Class of 1958, has provided me with the attendees’ lists since 2005. It helps me find alumni when I’m doing items for this Monongah High Alumni blog.

Those who attended in both 2005 and 2018 include Sandy Thompson Barton, Class of 1967, who lives in Fairmont; Connie Coldres Cameon, Class of 1963; Marlene Davis Christopher, Class of 1962; Rebecca Cole, who lives in Monongah; Don and Patty Commodore, Class of 1958; Kathryn Toothman Crim, Class of 1950, who lives in Farwell, Michigan; Sylvia McIntyre Duckworth, Class of 1958; Ina Kincaid Fullen, Class of 1961; Trudy Ice Lemley, Class of 1968; Danny Manzo, Class of 1957; Bernadette Naegele; John Olesky, Class of 1950, who lives in Tallmadge, Ohio; Rosemary Raymond Pagliano, Class of 1958; Lorraine Patton, Class of 1961; Dave Raddish, Class of 1958, and Luanne Felton Raddish, Class of 1961; Tom Shelosky, Class of 1958; Carol Spadafore, Class of 1965, who lives in Fairmont; Sally Woods Tarley, Class of 1959, who lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Sam Thompson, Class of 1970, who lives in Worthington.

And Alumni board members Donna Davis, Class of 1961, and husband Bill Davis, Class of 1958; Dolores Edwards, Class of 1955; and Linda Lopez Gandy, Class of 1965, and husband Jim Gandy, Class of 1964.

Kathern Herndon Loss, Class of 1942, widow of Bernie Loss, was the oldest alumni to show up this year.

The Class of 1948, although not formally recognized as an honor class, was represented by Otis “Sarge” Shaver and June Paxton Rogers, who sat my table.