Demarest family.

Frances Brown Demarest was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Stephen C. Brown, registrar of the Smithsonian Museum, and step-granddaughter of Amanda Brown, who worked in the Treasury Department, 1880-1910, and was the leading authority on mutilated money. Demarest had two siblings, Marjorie Brown Rush (died July 1982) and Harry J. Brown, a Washington journalist. Demarest married Reginald E. Demarest, who was of Huguenot descent, and they had four children: Frederick (died July 14, 1983), Robert (a pilot during World War II), Virginia Demarest Singer (Smith College, class of 1932), and Frances Demarest Nichols, who attended Wellesley College with the class of 1940. Demarest was a "gray lady" for the Red Cross during World War II. She died in September 1978; her husband died in July 1971.