Lt. Robert "Bob" Chester Demaree
Born: August 19, 1915 in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana
​
Married to Florence Marie Budreau
​
Died: April 4, 1946 near Albuquerque, New Mexico
Lt. Robert "Bob" Chester Demaree is Sweetie's eldest brother, and the second eldest sibling of all the Demaree children. When the Podcast begins in 1941, Bob is training in the US Navy as a Pilot, and marries Florence Marie Budreau.
​
By 1942, Bob is deployed overseas in the Pacific Theater during World War II and is involved in the Guadalcanal Campaign. However, he is home by early 1944 celebrating the birth of his first child, K.M.
​
Bob continued to serve in the United States Navy after the war. On April 4, 1946, while serving as co-pilot on a routine flight from Phoenix, Arizona to Amarillo, Texas, the Navy plane crashed about a dozen miles southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bob had been serving the Navy at the time as part of the Olathe (Kansas) Field Squadron. Eleven people (including Bob) had been on board the plane - there were no survivors.
Florence Marie Budreau is Sweetie's sister-in-law. She was born on May 2, 1915 in Johnson County, Iowa. In contrast to the Demaree family, who are Presbyterian, Florence was raised Catholic.
​
Florence spent some time with Sweetie while Sweetie was in New York in April and May 1945 (for about a month Sweetie lived with Florence and Bob), and it is thought that they developed more of a relationship from this experience. Florence writes to Sweetie at the beginning of January 1946 from Kansas, where she is residing at that point.
​
Sweetie's parents, Chester and Laura, go to help Florence when Bob dies in the plane crash on April 4, 1946.