Honoring Memorial Day: New Market remembers its fallen heroes
For many in New Market, those heroes are their dads.
'Growing up, my dad never talked about his service,' Elizabeth Perry Mason, daughter of Paul Perry, said. 'And when you would ask him questions, he would say, 'You just don't talk about it.' When he died, all of us just fell apart. So, he was just our glue.'
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'I can talk about this all day long, and then it hits, and I don't know why,' Daughter of Jonah Ray Fanning, Melinda Fanning Avery, said. 'My dad has been dead for 50 years.'
For these families, Memorial Day is the opportunity to open the scrapbooks, read the letters and honor the lives of those they lost. Several people News 19 spoke with said they didn't know much about their dad's time in service, but letters and pictures found later in life revealed much of the story.
'January 11, 1945, to my mother,' Pam Howard Mann, daughter of William B. Howard Jr., said as she read a letter from her dad to her mom. 'This was written from France. Dearest darling, how's my sweet darling doing these days? As for myself, I'm not so good. I'm back in a convalescent hospital.'
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Fanning Avery read a letter from her dad to her grandparents, detailing the jungle fighting he had just endured in Japan.
'Their own clothes had worn out long before, and only the captured Jap clothing saved them from fighting in the raw…I remember him talking about how hard it was,' Fanning Avery said.
For many families, honoring the lives of service members on Memorial Day goes far beyond the front lines. Their loved ones suffered life-changing illnesses or injuries after service, often leading to their passing after hanging up their uniform.
'It would be criminal to forget those men that gave so much, either the ultimate sacrifice, injury, mental damage that was caused by seeing what they saw and going through what they saw,' George Jones, son of Howard C. Jones Jr., said. 'They deserve as much as anyone to be remembered for their service.'
Every year on this day, they get together, share stories about their heroes, shed a few tears and remember.
If they could speak with their dads one last time, they would simply say 'thank you.'
'I am proud of you,' Rosemary McCrary, daughter of Thomas R. McCrary, said. 'I am in awe of you. He was a special man, and he was my hero.'
'Thank you is not enough, but just thank you for giving so much of your life,' Fanning Avery said.
'I wish I could've told him 'thank you for what you did',' Howard Mann said. 'And for allowing us to live free today.'
'Thank you for your service and sacrifice to our country,' Jones said. 'I'm very proud of you.'
The names listed below are those whom the people News 19 spoke with are honoring this Memorial Day:
Jonah Ray Fanning
William Benton Howard Jr.
Howard Criner Jones Jr.
Howard Criner Jones Sr.
Thomas R. McCrary
Levi Pickett Esslinger
John R. Thomas
Paul Perry
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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