MORGANTOWN — When Charles DeMao finally made it home from the war, his mother Mary was so mad she was shaking.
She didn’t want to believe that the coffin about to be lowered into that grave at Morgantown’s venerable Oak Grove Cemetery contained the body of her eldest son, who was taken down by sniper on the Italian front in the waning days of World War II.
Mary gained admission into a grim club she wanted nothing to do with: She became a Gold Star mother.
Because of the pervasiveness of popular culture, the general public still may collectively have the image of grieving mothers from that war, or say, Vietnam, who got folded American flags in exchange for the lives of their once-baby boys who gave all on the battlefield.
It still happens today, when today’s soldiers, men and women, fall in the fight of the current war on terror.
That’s why Brenda Shinkovich these days is seeking some special real estate in the Morgantown area.
Shinkovich, whose Colonial pedigree earned her place in the Daughters of the American (DAR), also has a reminder about the above.
West Virginia had an abundance of Gold Star mothers before there was any such thing. Before West Virginia was a state, even.
“We’ve sent soldiers to every war since the Revolutionary War,” she said. “A lot of them don’t get to come back. That’s why we need to honor those mothers who had to endure horrible, horrible, losses.”
And that’s where the aforementioned real estate comes in.
The DAR in West Virginia earlier commissioned local sculptor Jamie Lester to create a bronze plaque in bas relief honoring the legacy of West Virginia’s Gold Star mothers.
Lester, whose work includes the West Virginia commemorative quarter and statues of Morgantown founder Zackquill Morgan and WVU basketball legend Jerry West, will do two identical plaques.
One will be placed in Point Pleasant next year on West Virginia Day.
The town along the banks of the Ohio River isn’t just known for Mothman: Many scholars believe the town to be the site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War.
Before that, though, the other will take up residence in Morgantown on Memorial Day 2019.
That’s in honor of the town founder who fought in the Revolutionary War and settled the place in 1785.
The Morgantown area was chosen because of the obvious ties to the Morgan family. Zackquill’s brother, David, in fact, founded the tough little town of Rivesville next to the Monongahela River in neighboring Marion County.
History, just like real estate, has to abide by location, location, location, Shinkovich’s DAR colleague, Samantha Shleser, said.
“I think of what those generations of Gold Star Mothers went through,” she said. “We need the perfect place. And we welcome suggestions.”
Follow The Dominion Post on Twitter@DominionPostWV. Email Jim Bissett: jbissett@dominionpost.com.
