Del

June 13, 2017 · 5 min read

There is a fake plastic buried-treasure type chest in the living room at my mother's house. It's full of photo albums. Most of the pictures chronicle the childhood of my brother, but there are a few of me in there as well. I guess my parents got worn out taking so many pictures of my brother.

There also many pictures of my mother and father, her siblings, my grandparents, and my cousins. At the bottom of the chest, there is one black and white photograph:

I didn't recognize anybody in this photograph, so I asked my mother.

"That's your grandma and grandpa." she said.

"Grandma Anne and Grandpa Brophy?"

"No, Grandma Anne and Delmont."

I had never heard this name. I needed to know more. After a thorough Google search, I couldn't find much.

Delmont Crast died suddenly on June 6, 1961. He was 35 years old.

35 years old. He died suddenly? What happened? I'm 24 years old; I've never met the guy. My father, born in 1957, was far too young at the time to remember him. This man's life is all but a mystery to me, and 99% of its details have been lost to time; vanished with the death of Del, my grandmother, and his siblings.

After some sleuthing through old newspapers, census records, and military documents, here's what I have found:

Delmont Crast was born on Feb 7, 1925 somewhere in Watertown, New York to Glenn Amos Crast and Goldie Derma (Nellis) Crast.

The 1930 Census shows 5 family members:

Glenn Amos Crast - 34 years old (Father)
Goldie Crast - 31 years old (Mother)
Glenn Crast - 11 years old
Vivian Crast - 9 years old
Kenneth Crast - 5 years old
Delmont Crast - 4 years old
Jack Crast - 3 years old

Sometime between 1930 and 1940 (according to the 1940 Census, Delmont moved to his Uncle's house. I have no insight into why this happened, or why none of his other siblings moved with him. Interestingly, the very next entry in the 1940 Census shows a family of Crasts living in the same area. At this time, I have not researched the relation, although I am sure they are related.

World War II

Unless you live under a rock, you know that World War II broke out around this time. On March 5, 1942, Delmont enlisted in the Marine Corps. Artifacts from this era tend to be impersonal, just military records and such. An article from the Syracuse Herald in 1943 reveals some interesting info about Delmont and his brothers:

Some interesting observations from this piece:

Delmont was a boxer!
Glenn, Delmont's brother, was killed in action in Italy. I knew this, and will likely do a separate post on him and Kenneth.

Speaking of impersonal artifacts, here's a selection of Muster Rolls from 1942 - 1946:

There is definitely some decoding work to be done here to decipher this military jargon.

Post War

There is little information about Delmont from his post-war days. The photograph at the top of the post was taken shortly after his military discharge.

The Syracuse Herald/Post Standard proved to have the most interesting information. It seems that they pretty much reported anything remotely out of the ordinary. Here's an article about Delmont trying to sue some guy:

Death

Delmont Crast died on June 6 1961, of a sudden heart attack. Here's the most verbose article:

He was building a school that still stands, only 10 or so minutes from where I currently live.

One more interesting question: Where was he buried? A search on findagrave.com returned absolutely nothing. I know my grandmother was buried in Saint Mary's Cemetery in Dewitt.

I discovered an application for a Military Headstone filled out by my grandmother after Delmont's death:

It turns out that Delmont was buried in the same cemetery.

Final Notes

I have discovered quite a bit of information about my grandfather, but not quite as many personal details as I wanted. There's only so much to gather from military documents, census records, and newspaper articles.

They say that a person dies two deaths. The first death is the physical death of the body. The second death is the last time the person's name is spoken. I'm hoping that this record will help push Delmont's second death further into the future.