January 4, 1937 - November 12, 2022
Rank: Corporal
Dates of Service: 1954 - 1958
Douglas Howard Snow was born January 4, 1937 to Douglas L. Snow and Synthia Finkenbinder in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They divorced while he was just a toddler after eight years of marriage and never remembers seeing his daddy. He and his mother moved to upstate New York. She worked in Ithaca and his grandparents, Charles and Eva Finkenbinder, living near Spencer raised him. They had a nice dairy farm and milking cows twice a day was not for wimps. From the age of six he was at the barn at 5:00 each morning. He loved his grandmama's molasses cookies and her good cooking. After breakfast it was to school and when there was snow, he skied downhill to catch the school bus. The skis were stuck in a snowbank; picked up and carried up the hill after school for milk, delicious cookies and back to the barn. As he grew-up he learned the value, integrity and responsibility of hard work. With it came church, school, and family gatherings for the holidays. His mother was doing well and had become a children's clothes buyer and took trips to New York City to buy clothes. She went by train and Doug went with her when possible. He was fascinated that he had to use finger bowls when finishing meals. This was such a change from cleaning the barn and emptying the honeywagon into the fields.
Doug's elderly grandparents had to make changes in their lives. His Uncle Carl was a marine during WWII, losing a leg on the Island of Tinian. His mother had married again and he now has a sister and brother, Stephanie and BIll Alles. Doug decides to become a Marine and enlisted January, 1954 in Buffalo, New York; going then by train to New York City to pick up more recruits and on to Parris Island, South Carolina. They spent the night in Beaufort. When getting there all pockets had to be emptied. There on the concrete was a stack of weapons, including brass knuckles and switch blades.
Doug was with the Fourth Battalion, Platoon 31. He found the hard work on the farm really paid off for the training. The time in training at Parris Island was near the end of the Korean conflict and he did not go to Korea. He served four years active and four years inactive; on the east coast at Quantico, Virginia, Key West, Florida, and Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. He kept putting in requests for a change of duty station and none materialized. Much later one of his buddies said to him, "Didn't you know that you were such a good worker that each time your request came to the top of the stack, that it was put to the bottom again?" Doug was with Food Service and enjoyed the twenty-four hours on and twenty-four hours off. He had the pleasure of being chosen to fly to Key West in 1956 to serve as an honor guard for President Dwight Eisenhower while he recuperated at the Little White House from a heart attack. Doug's seven-year-old great-grandson, Hudson, remembers with delight Doug's story about the trip to Key West on a big prop airplane and the engine caught on fire. Everyone had to put on their parachutes if they needed to bail out. They were over the ocean. The pilot finally managed to get the fire out and they landed safely. Whew!
While at Camp LeJeune and four months before being honorably discharged, he met on a blind date the love of his life, Juanita Pierce of Maysville, North Carolina. She was in nurses training. They were happily married in 1958 for sixty-four years and he became a beloved "Yankee" North Carolinian. They were blessed with two children, Karen and Ronnie, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Doug liked cars and started working at Sander's Ford in Jacksonville. Later he became parts-manager of the Ford Dealership in Richlands and the Josh Mill's Pontiac in New Bern. In 1988 he was asked to work for Eagle Pontiac in Raleigh and a new home was found in Knightdale.
Doug was proud to be a part of Knightdale activities. He was a member of the American Legion for twenty-nine years. Through their activities he had the fun of riding the big military truck donated for their use by Charles Bullock for the Christmas parades and throwing candy to the children. The American Legion also for some years furnished the United States flags for the yearly holidays and were responsible for getting them up for display and securing them after removal. Doug had a great sense of humor. One year he fell into a ditch getting one of the flags up. He crawled out and blamed it on the ladder. He had everyone laughing.
Doug's funeral was held at L. Harold Poole Funeral Home and Crematory on November 29, 2022, with honor by the United States Marine Corps Honor Guard and the Patriot Guard. He had accepted Jesus as his savior at a young age. He was a member of the United Methodist Church in Knightdale for some years and then the last twelve with River of Life Church in Raleigh. He loved God, was a proud American, wonderful husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and cherished friend.
