Seven times married is just the beginning

Throughout my childhood and into my adulthood, she was just “Grandma Eckman.” Her first name was Leta, which I always liked, but for the most part, she was just our great-grandmother—our old great-grandmother. I mean, just the words “great-grandmother” carry connotations of a wrinkled face and a sharp voice—someone who lived alone and needed to be visited and perhaps taken care of some. (My whole notion of great-anything would change when my stepsister’s eldest daughter became a mother, and I went from Uncle Jerry to Great-Uncle Jerry before turning 40.) Still, she was, Grandma Eckman, a widowed old lady that we visited first in her duplex in East Toledo, and then in the senior home—or “Old Folks’ Home,” as we called it—after she moved there. She spent holidays with us and as long as she felt comfortable, attended weddings, birthdays and special events.

Leta Eckman - 1972

She was my dad’s mother’s mother.

When Grandma Eckman died in 1985, I was a junior in college. She was just two days shy of her 91^st birthday. Although I was a little sad that she didn’t live to 91, she lived a long time and was alert and mobile for most of her last years. I wouldn’t learn until later that not only did she live a long life, but she also lived a scandalous life.

Frankly, I had no idea. I knew that she was not married to the man she had her only two kids with—my Great-Grandpa Chetister. He was her first husband and died when I was seven years old. Naturally, as a child, I never gave this unusual situation any thought. After all, my brother, sister and I had all these wonderful people around to love and take care of us—parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-grandparents. That was good enough for me at the time.

It wasn’t until after Grandma Eckman’s death that I started to learn more about her—well, her life before I was born, that is. I remember specifically when her son-in-law—my grandfather Ed—told me.

I realize that names and relationships can be confusing and apologize for that. But here I go, briefly. Grandma Eckman’s daughter Vivian married Ed. Their oldest son is my dad—Don. In 1976, Vivian died unexpectedly from a blood clot.

So there we were in the kitchen, my grandpa Ed and I, a few years after her death. I don’t remember how we got on topic, but I can still hear his voice quite clearly: “Your great-grandmother was married seven times.”

WHAT?!?

He had been going through some papers and found a reference to her that he wanted to share. You see, not only was she married seven times, but also one of her husbands was murdered. There was an article from the paper at the time that shared how Albert Mohr was shot on the afternoon of July 5, 1927, while he was standing on the front porch of his house while his stepson was playing nearby. From that moment on, I decided that I would one day I would put this amazing woman’s life together. Being married seven times is scandalous enough, but to have a husband murdered meant that she had lived through some remarkable experiences. And I wanted to know more. At the time I was in graduate school and unable to do much more than hold this information close and my curiosity in check. Until now.