Donald Malarkey - Youth

Youth

Donald Malarkey was born in Astoria, Oregon to Leo Malarkey, and Helen Trask. They were married in 1918. His father was Leo, who gained his nickname, "Tick", while attending the University of Oregon, where he played football, and had a job winding a huge campus clock. He was also a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity. Two of Don's uncles, Gerald Malarkey and Robert Malarkey served in World War I. Gerald died in combat on August 11, 1918 in France by shrapnel from a German shell, and Robert died in 1926 due to complications of a mustard gas attack.

Don attended Star of the Sea, a Catholic school in Astoria, where he excelled as an athlete, most notably as point guard on the basketball team. He graduated from Astoria High School in 1939. As a youth, he worked on a purse seiner crew on the Columbia River. He also was a volunteer firefighter during the destructive Tillamook Burn forest fire, which destroyed thousands of acres of Oregon timber. He was in his first semester at the University of Oregon in the fall of 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.