April

Don Malarkey is portrayed by Scott Grimes in "Band of Brothers". After resuming his studies at the University of Oregon, Don Malarkey was walking back from the library one night when he decided to stop at the College Side Inn for a Coke. It was then that he noticed a pretty girl from Portland named Irene Moor who was sitting with her sorority sisters. Malarkey described Irene as follows, “Blond hair. A great smile. And brown eyes that made you want to look into them forever. I was smitten from the get-go with this gal,” he said. The girls at the table invited Malarkey to sit with them and he sat down next to Irene. He enjoyed getting to know her a bit. Of their parting that night, he commented, “When she brushed past me to get out of the booth, I thought a bolt of lightning had struck me. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life.” They started to date and Malarkey said that Irene was different from anybody else when it came to his experiences in the war and the effects it had on him. “She listened. She understood,” said Malarkey. “When all the sudden I’d be in tears over some stupid thing, she wouldn’t think I was some sort of wimp. I told her stuff about the war, stuff that I’d never told anyone in the fraternity.” During the war, Irene had traveled around to bases and participated in social events to keep up morale. “She understood soldiers,” said Malarkey. While attending the university, Malarkey proposed to Irene and they were married on June 19, 1948, the same day the rest of his class was at their graduation ceremony. After college, they lived in Astoria, Oregon, and for years Malarkey worked as a car salesman for Lovell Auto Company. Eventually, they moved to Portland and he became involved in commercial real estate. He and his wife Irene had four children: a son, Michael, and three daughters, Martha, Sharon, and Marianne. #bandofbrothers #ww2 #easycompany #WWII