After 75 years, WWII Charles City area soldier’s dog tags make it back to family

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The call came on a Wednesday morning from a woman in New York, trying to locate a daughter of Robert Demro, who served in the Army in New Guinea during World War II.

Kathryn Pflibsen of Charles City, one of Demro’s daughters, explained that the caller said she had been in the process of moving and had come across a box of her deceased father’s military memorabilia.

The woman had decided the time was right to sort through it and weed out what was not necessary to keep.

That is when she discovered the dog tags of a man she had never met or even heard of — dog tags with the name Robert C. Demro and the hometown of Nashua, Iowa, on them.

“As she continued her sorting she found various pictures of a young soldier in uniform with the same name written on the back in her father’s handwriting as was on the dog tags,” Pflibsen said. “At that point she realized he must have been a good friend of her father’s in New Guinea.”

The woman in New York turned to a friend of hers who is a genealogist, to track down any ancestors of Robert C. Demro.

“Unfortunately, no one will ever know the story of why Robert’s dog tags were in the military box of another soldier halfway across our country for 75 years,” Pflibsen said, but she added that the Demro family is very happy to have an important part of their father’s history returned to them.

The tags are embossed with the usual WWII military information. In this case, they show the name, Robert C. Demro, on the top line; his serial number, tetanus dates and blood type on line 2; next of kin – his mother, Alvina Demro – on line three; and next of kin’s address – Nashua, IA – and serviceman’s religious affiliation – “P” for Protestant – on line 5.

Pflibsen said Demro’s family is grateful to the New York woman for tracking them down.

“It means a great deal to us that a total stranger would care so much. She could have just tossed the tags and we would have never known,” Pflibsen said.

Robert Demro owned a building construction company, Demro Brothers Construction, with his brother, Floyd. During the 1950s, 60s and 70s they did a lot of basement construction and masonry work in the Charles City and Nashua area, Pflibsen said.

He had been born in Bena, Minnesota, in 1922, but the family moved to Nashua, where he graduated from high school before entering the service, according to his obituary printed in the Charles City Press.

Demro died on June 8, 2008, at the age of 85, in Waterloo.

Pflibsen said he was hospitalized in Waterloo at the time of his death and needed to be moved to Rochester, but was unable to be transported because of the record flooding that occurred on that date.

Demro has three daughters: Kathryn Pflibsen, Charles City; Judy Nevins, Dallas, Texas; Patty Demro, Houston, Texas; and one grandson, Benjamin Pflibsen of Charles City.