Tag Archives: family history

HARRY DEMAREST: Destroyer USS Hughes, Leyte Gulf, December 10,1944

Adventure, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Lieutenant Harold Demarest stands on the bridge, watching a kamikaze roar towards him.

Below, Gunner Frank McClelland fires the 40mm cannon and hits the suicide plane.

It veers downward, exploding into the ship.

Demarest is alive, a flimsy clipboard shielding his head. Below, Frank McClelland and seventeen others are dead.

Frank McClelland was awarded the Silver Star Posthumously. Harry
Demarest wrote this story about his father, Harold Demarest, who attended
many reunions with his shipmates until his death at age 96.

SARAH KRENICKI: Birthright

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

My great-grandparents’ farmhouse was built from two barns pieced together. In addition to being a fun piece of genealogical trivia, this enables my father to enthusiastically reply “Yes!” whenever my mother inquires whether he was raised in a barn.

She rolls her eyes every time, but she still smirks, too.

Sarah Krenicki was not raised in a barn, but visited one often. That counts, right?

JEFFREY DARTER: Heirloom

Odd, Submissions, , ,

“Lord, a good skillet makes all the difference,” Rhonda whispers, mimicking her grandmother. Bruised, bleeding, and trembling, she raises the cast iron high overhead, and then whops her sleeping husband, crushing his skull.

As blood soaks into the mattress, she understands why her grandma’s wedding gift came with a wink.

Jeffrey Darter is currently at work on his first book. A nature enthusiast and an adventurer, he is also an avid cook, and has an iron skillet of his own. He is single.