Restaurant Manager, Part 2

The waitress was pleased. The customer liked her idea of soup and toast for an evening meal. This, she could manage. She was relieved and relaxed for the first time since the owner’s wife retired for the night.

 “Crackers don’t do jack for me, as a rule,” the trucker customer continued. “But instead of your soup, toast puts me in mind of steak and eggs and home fries, along with coffee. Lots of coffee. I have a long night ahead of me.”

Her chipperness crashed on the floor. She refilled his cup and stalled. Earlier that evening she had already wasted a dozen eggs trying to make them over easy for another customer and was not ready to repeat the fiasco that transformed a flank steak into shoe leather.

Emily shifted from one foot to the other, a nervous habit she retained from her early childhood, particularly when she had been caught in a lie. She wasn’t lying this time, specifically, but she wasn’t being honest. She didn’t take this job to be the cook or manager. She was going to get married and wanted to earn a little bit of money before then by becoming a waitress. Yet it wasn’t her fault. The cook and lead waitress both quit the day before, leaving her at the machinations of a bunch of crude, hungry truck drivers and bar patrons. (The bar was attached to the diner.) She nearly quit herself, but the owner talked her into staying. And here she was, after a long evening of hard work, ruined meals and grouchy truckers, being asked once again to fail.

“How would you like your eggs?” she stammered. At least with scrambled, she had a chance.

“Over easy,” he replied.

She gulped, noticeably. “Yes, sir. Coming right up.”

“You by yourself,” he asked suddenly.

“No, she’s not,” the owner answered from the doorway, where he was simultaneously watching the interaction between the customer and waitress out of the corner of one eye, and for the recently expelled hooligan out of the other. “Emily, why don’t you go back to the kitchen and get working on that meal,” he directed. “I’ll be right there to help you out.”

The girl nodded and obediently went into the kitchen.

Ten minutes later he was back in the bar. Although the two of them had managed the meal, he knew it was barely acceptable. Besides, he broke the yolks of three eggs in the frying. And the steak was more done than the man ordered. Emily was even so flustered by the potatoes that she charred the toast. As he left the restaurant, noting the man’s disappointment with the meal, he noted to the waitress, “Now, Emily, don’t forget that tonight the a la mode comes free with an order of pie.” If the customer chose it, the owner knew that dessert would leave a much better taste in his mouth. At least, the peach pie was good. Of course, there were only three slices left.

Leta was alone at the bar, having exhausted all of any potential paramours for the time being and sensed his discontent.

“Having a rough night, Charlie?” she asked. Charlie wasn’t his name, but she liked how it was both respectful and friendly at the same time.

Before he could answer, Emily’s jealous boyfriend walked in.

“It just got rougher,” he answered. “Hey, pal!” he called, as friendly as he could stomach under the circumstances. “How you doin’?”

The young man stormed over, already in a slight rage, “Why the hell did you leave my girl all alone with that trucker?” he demanded. “Don’t you know what he could do to her?”

The young man was right in his face, and he had already been drinking.

“Watch your language, young fella,” he cautioned calmly, letting all of his tension run into his more than firm grip of the counter. “There’s a lady present.”

The owner gestured to Leta, and the boy (for he was little more than that) became instantly humbled.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I’m just a little worried about my fiancé in the restaurant all by herself with some truck driver.”

Leta looked him over first. Then she looked at him hard. She had seen him before, and she had observed many boys like him, boys that grew up to be men like the kind he expected the trucker in the restaurant to be. She looked at him just long enough to take control of the atmosphere in the room, and then she smiled.

“That’s understandable,” Leta agreed and gestured to the bar stool next to her. “But I know that Charlie is making sure that everything is fine. Come over here and have a beer—no, I think a fresh root beet—would be better. With me.”

“I can drink beer!” the boy cried defiantly. “I’m a man!”

“Of course, you are,” Leta agreed in her sweetest voice. “I’m just thinking we need a fresh taste on our pallets, and Charlie here makes great root beer, don’t you, Charlie?”

Restaurant Manager, Part 1

She was single once again, and needed income, so she took a job managing a truck stop restaurant. It was a typical “greasy spoon” when she started, but I like to think she brought an element of class to it. She wasn’t young any more, but she still had her figure—with the help of a girdle, that is. Where many women of her age and generation wore girdles to squeeze the waist and slim the hips, Leta used hers to keep the shape of her body she was used to. In the dark, men didn’t seem to notice that the skin was somewhat looser than that of a twenty-five-year-old. And for the most part, she wasn’t with men who could get away with a twenty-five-year-old that they enjoyed doing with her. And truck drivers, she knew, were lonely men.

Working had never and would never be an anathema to her. In her life, she kept house, hand washed laundry, sewed and embroidered (although she didn’t like the latter very much), took in borders (which she hated), maintained vegetable gardens, canned vegetables, cleaned chickens and cooked. She was a good cook, although she never made anything particularly fancy. “Meat and potatoes—that’s what I make most of the time, and I do it pretty well. Never had any complaints,” she explained. “But country fried chicken—that’s my specialty. I know everyone says its her specialty, so I just say my fried chicken is very good.”

Her fried chicken got her the job. One evening, she was spending time being friendly to some of the drivers when the owner of the place, a very traditional man always concerned about her, was lamenting that he had lost his restaurant manager and the one waitress was threatening to leave. He wasn’t a good boss. Although he knew that young women inspired his almost exclusively male customers to eat more and spend more, he could never reconcile that he was using young women, who should be home being taken care of by their parents or home taking care of their equally young husbands, for income. He had a different kind of respect for mature women who had “two feet on the ground and their heads out of the clouds.”

To him, she was womanly and something else, not manly, but solid, sure, certain, like a man in that way. It was a kind of self-confidence in herself. Or maybe that she knew how to be a woman and a person at the same time. It could have just been her magnetism. He understood, married for twenty years to the girl he met at age 18, five kids, feeling tremendous respect for his silly wife, that his customer-friend was a womanly force, and he better be careful.

The evening he hired her was a near-disaster. The previous manager had quit the previous night, and although the owner was ready to fire him for his indiscretions with the waitresses and his lousy cooking, no actions had begun for a replacement. After the somewhat inebriated manager cornered her in the storage room for the umpteenth time and actually fondled her, the primary waitress quit in a huff. When the owner confronted him, the manager threw a punch and walked out, leaving him shy his primary waitress and cook-manager. His wife agreed to fill in briefly, but neither she nor he had any interest in her working. Especially there.

By ten p.m., when the late night drivers usually arrived, seeking a chunk of beef or a full-on late night breakfast, he was left with his youngish waif of a waitress. She was fine at making coffee and slicing pie, but terribly unqualified to run the restaurant, even in the interim. Plus, when she worked late, her fiancé stayed late at the bar until she was finished. He was an insecure, jealous sort, which the owner excused in the name of love, while also realizing that drinking and jealousy were a bad combination. The only saving grace was that the night in question was generally a quiet night for both the bar and the restaurant. But not entirely.

He stormed into the bar after chasing off a suspicious fellow who was more interested in molesting the waitress than eating pie. While he was forcibly excising the degenerate from the establishment, a tired, hungry trucker walked in.

The waitress followed standard procedure and poured the trucker a cup of coffee.

“What would you like this evening?” she asked.

“What you got?” he asked.

“We have some delicious chicken soup and fresh peach pie,” she answered. “Yes, I think we have a few pieces left. Even have some vanilla ice cream; I can put a dollop on top.”

“That sounds great for dessert,” the man answered. “but I’m powerful hungry.”

“Then I suggest the hearty soup and toast,” she covered cheerfully, “It’s a lot more filling than the usual crackers. And,” she added pointedly and proudly (for her mother made it), “we carry fresh raspberry jam!”

The man thought for a moment. “Little lady,” he finally said, “Toast sounds absolutely great.”

The girl was relieved. She was the best toast maker in northern Ohio, and not only in her own opinion. In her experience, she could judge toast-eater’s specific preference to toastedness, from stale bread to burnt, and smell its readiness from the toaster itself.

Leta and Ralph's divorce

Leta married Ralph on April 19, 1913. She had just turned 19, and he was 21. They had two children: Vivian (1913) and Dale (1916), but this marriage was not successful, and subsequently, they legally separated on February 15, 1922.

On June 23, 1922, she filed for divorce.

In her petition, Leta claimed that she was subjected to “extreme cruelty,” that included a death threat, being called “vile and indecent names, unfit to be set forth herein,” and a declaration that she was unchaste. This put her in “great fear and causing [her] great mental and physical suffering and anguish.” She also included declarations that when she was sick, he wouldn’t get her medical treatment, and he struck her more than once when he was in a violent rage.

Leta claims specifically that Ralph was “possessed of a vicious and ungovernable temper, and that on many occasions without just cause [he] became enraged, striking [her], calling [her] vile and indecent names, charging [her] with unchastity.” This behavior occurred not only when they were alone, but also when she had “lady friends” visit.

Neither my father nor his siblings recall a time when Ralph expressed any kind of temper, even though they didn’t spend a lot of time with him. In his later years, he was always temperate. Although many people mellow with age, over time or after a big life instance, it is highly likely that Ralph was not did not have a “vicious and ungovernable temper” and Leta needed to utilize a certain amount of hyperbole in order to give her divorce petition the proper weight.

Leta’s claim is extensive. She accused Ralph of consorting with other women, neglecting his husbandly and fatherly responsibilities by refusing to work, which required her to take in boarders, and contracting a “skin disease” that he refused to have treated and somehow subjected her to.

To conclude her petition, Leta asks for divorce, custody of their two children (ages 8 and 5) and “such other and further relief to which she may be entitled in the premises.”

The divorce was granted on November 8, 1922. Leta retained custody of Vivian and Dale. She was charged the court costs of $1,870.65.

In a later, unexplained development, Ralph filed a motion for custody of Vivian and Dale on September 9, 1925. At the time, Leta and the children were living with her husband Albert Mohr. However, two weeks later (September 22), Ralph withdrew his motion.

Siblings Update

One of the great aspects of researching a family history such as this is how one’s friends who are genealogists and family history researchers are eager to offer a helping hand. Earlier I wrote that I had only identified four Scott siblings, of which Leta was the youngest: Stephen, Aaron, Louise and then Leta. She was fifteen years younger than her eldest brother Stephen and 12 years younger than Aaron.

However, some skilled sleuthing by my friend Jeff, reinforced by acquiring Leta’s obituary, uncovered the fact that she was actually one of eight children born to David Scott and Julia Snyder. David and Nellie were born in the period between Aaron and Louise (David in 1883 and Nellie in 1887). In fact, Nellie seems to have lived a long life. There is also an “Aunt Mabel” who lived in Vancouver, Canada. She may have been a sister or sister-in-law.

What makes research of Leta’s childhood family particularly difficult is that a large portion of the 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed in a fire, and the damage of the rest resulted in its being thrown away in the 1920s. It is possible that the two “missing” Scott siblings were still living during this time; however, if they were still alive in the 1900 census, they would have still been children living at home (under the age of 16).

There is this family picture in which we have so far identified four of the women (l to r: Louise (sister), unknown, Florence (sister-in-law), Nellie (sister) and Leta.) The identified male is brother Aaron (center). Leta’s husband is not Eckman, which means he could be Bassett since he fits the age period she seems to be.

Another interesting family note from the 1900 census has Julia A. Scott as “divorced” head of household with two daughters living at home—Louise and Leta.  There is no census record of David or his whereabouts at the time. However, in the 1910 census, she and David were again listed as married. This time, they lived together in Toledo, Ohio in the Birmingham neighborhood. (For those of you who are M*A*S*H or Jamie Farr fans, this is the neighborhood that Corporal Klinger hailed from).

According to Aaron’s granddaughter Margery, most of the Scott family is buried in Wood County, Ohio. I’ve planned a visit in December.

Albert Mohr is shot

On Saturday, June 4, 1927, Leta's second husband Albert Mohr was shot while talking to his neighbor. According to news reports, Albert was on the front porch of his and Leta’s home when Fred Valentine walked up to the porch and shot him twice at point blank range. One bullet entered under his arm, and the other passed through his neck, severing the jugular vein.

After the shooting, Valentine ran down the nearest alley, but was pursued by Leta’s nine-year-old son Dale, who was either playing on the front porch or yard at the time. “You shot Daddy!” Dale cried as he made pursuit.

Charles Halterman, an off-duty police patrolman who was with his wife in his own nearby garage, heard the shots and Dale’s cry. He pursued Valentine, ordered the assailant to throw down his weapon and stop running. Valentine complied and was immediately arrested.

During his interrogation, Valentine confessed that he had been nurturing a grudge against Albert for 20 years. Valentine stated that Albert and another man had assaulted him. From that time forward, Valentine told police that he had done nothing for twenty years except “drink coffee, eat doughnuts and plan to get even with Mohr.”

A short time before the shooting, Valentine had seen Albert near the glass factory where the latter was working, followed him home and planned his revenge, which he executed a short time later. According to the news reports, Valentine stuck with his story until appearing before a judge on Monday. At that time, he stated that he had not meant to shoot Albert, but only to “scare Mohr away.” Valentine also noted that he had been threatened by Albert and was afraid of him.

Leta & Albert wedding picture

Albert died en route to the hospital. He was 43 years old, and he and Leta had been married four and a half years. (They married on November 22, 1922, about a month after her divorce from Ralph Chetister, her first husband and the father of her two children.) The news reports do not share where Leta or her daughter Vivian were at the time, but interestingly, the photo story that first appeared in The Toledo Blade on June 6, 1927 featured photographs of Albert (of course) and Leta’s children. None of Leta.

So far, I have not learned whether Valentine was convicted or even tried. These matters can take a long time, and frankly, I wasn’t about to read through weeks of newspapers on microfilm to find out. However, I do have an affiliate with the Toledo Police Department researching the story, and to find out if there is some other information.

While Valentine’s contention may be accurate, the family rumor was that Albert and Leta were bootleggers, they made whiskey, and Albert’s murder was related.

Leta's employment and activities

While she may have considered herself a housewife while raising her children, Leta pursued several kinds of employment throughout her life. It is difficult to ascertain when she needed employment for financial reasons or when she was employed to be active, although it is likely that she found herself more than once widowed (or divorced) without an income.

When she filed for divorce from Ralph Chetister in 1922, she noted in her claim that while they were married, they took in boarders to support the family. If accurate (this was, after all, a divorce document during an era when divorce required tremendous maneuvering), these would most likely have been her responsibility entirely. She was also raising two children at the time. There is also a picture of her as a rather young woman (undated) in a housekeeper’s uniform. In her life time-line this could have occurred after the death of her second husband Albert Mohr (1927) and before her marriage to Robert Fields (mid to late 1930s).

From 1954-1959, Leta worked as a secretary for the New York Life Insurance Company. Immediately prior to that she was head of housekeeping at Toledo Hospital. In 1960 when she married Richard Eckman, she listed her profession as “retired.” She was 66 by then.

According to her obituary, she was a secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Local Pensioners Club #365. I am not sure whether or not this was a paid position or when she did it.

She also managed the restaurant at a truck stop for some time. In her life timeline, this came at a period, again, when she was not married. Both of her children, however, were married at the time, and my dad was old enough to remember it. Also, my great-aunt Kate (her daughter-in-law) remembered going to the restaurant. It was a small place. This I know from the picture, and she did most of the cooking with a younger woman to assist her. If you know Bus Stop, then this is the image that comes to mind, although truckers would be a rougher crowd than the bus-riding patrons in the play/movie.

According to Aunt Kate, her specialties were fried chicken and hamburgers. Once, she recalled, when she and Leta’s son Dale (Kate’s husband) went there to eat, she served them undercooked chicken. I like to think that Leta did not make that chicken, but her waitress/assistant did.

Leta’s obituary also notes that she was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. I know that her son Dale served during World War II, and that might have initially connected her.

She was also active at East Christian Church, a non-denominational parish, where she was a president of the loyal Workers Sunday school class and active in the Esther Missionary Circle.

Marriages and divorces update

Previously I shared what information I had learned and/or collected about Leta's seven marriages. Naturally, there were details missing (dates and parts of names, for examples). During a family visit in Ohio, where I participated (for the first time) in my high school’s biannual Alumni Marching Band on October 1, 2010, I visited both the Toledo-Lucas County Courthouse records department(s) and Toledo Public Library’s archive of newspapers to conduct some research.

Following is an update, based on Leta Scott’s history:

In June 1922, after nine years of marriage, Leta filed for divorce from Ralph Chetister, her first husband and the father of her two children Vivian and Dale. That divorce was finalized in October. She subsequently married Albert E. Mohr on November 29, 1922. He was 37 and had not been previously married. She was 28. He listed his occupation as clerk, and she listed hers as housewife. A minister married them.

The information about Albert matches two census records from 1910 and 1920. In 1910, he was the oldest of four children and still lived with his German-born parents Casper and Anna. While his father was a stone mason/curb cutter, Albert was a glassblower in a factory. In 1920 at age 34, he still lived with his parents, but was employed as a laborer in a wholesale house.

Her third husband’s name was Ora Freeman. He was born on October 10, 1895, making him a little over a year younger than she was. They were married on December 27, 1927, barely six months after the murder and death of her second husband Albert Mohr. He was divorced and a painter by profession. Leta declared that she was a widow married once previously (although she was married twice.) When they married, they lived two blocks away from each other. This is a different address than the home she and her children shared with Albert Mohr (and where he was killed).

On October 14, 1952, Leta was divorced from Claud N. Bassett. She filed alleging “extreme cruelty.” She returned to the name Leta M. Fields. (The record of her divorce petition was not saved.) They were married nearly four years.

On September 22, 1960, she married her last husband Richard Eckman. He declared that he was married once before and divorced, as well as retired. Her registered name was Leta Fields, however she noted that her married name was Bassett. She declared that she had been married three times previously and also stated she was retired. Both were 66 years old. A minister named Myron R. Kell performed the ceremony. Their marriage ended on December 27 1963, when Eckman died of a heart attack.

Little Sisters of the Poor

In 1972, Leta moved from her second story duplex into Little Sisters of the Poor's Sacred Heart Home for the Aged, a Roman Catholic nursing home. She was still in relatively good physical and mental condition and only 78 years old, but by her own admission, an older woman with no personal means of transportation in a deteriorating neighborhood, going up and down stairs regularly was not necessarily in a good and safe place. 

She and her daughter Vivian did quite a bit of research and planning for this. Leta had some financial assets, and the nursing home required its residences to pay an entry fee and basically to turn over their assets upon admission. She did not want to be destitute or dependent, so before applying, she moved a portion of her savings into an account in Vivian’s name. This money would be used to pay for any extra needs she might have over the ensuing years. And she would not be a burden on anyone.

What I most remember about this time is wondering why, if we were Lutheran—meaning her daughter’s family (I am not sure she was)—and there was a Lutheran Home barely a mile from Vivian and Ed’s house, why would she choose a Roman Catholic institution.

The facility was small and rather new. It had been built in 1969. She moved into a shared room, wisely taking very little with her. We visited her quite often—my mother, sister Michelle and I. My older brother Jeff also visited until he became a rambunctious and rebellious teenager. She had her good days and bad. At least, that’s what we called them. As we grew older, my sister and I would visit apart from my mother.

I don’t know how long she expected to be there, but she lived there until her death 13 years later. In about 1975, she converted to Catholicism in order to have an active religious life. It caused some consternation for Vivian’s family. At the time, there was a considerable social division between Catholicism and many other Christian denominations.

Originally, she was quite mobile and active. In fact, for most of her life, she managed to do quite a bit. Not one to sit idle, she became one of the craft leaders that made potholders, tea cozies, table runners and these very interesting dolls that were made not to be played with, but to sit on the middle of a bed. She could sew quite well. In fact, the dolls were her specialty, and she made dozens of them over the years.

Leta's handmade doll

Michelle's Doll

Leta's handmade doll

In fact, during one of our visits when she was well into her eighties, she had two dolls in her cabinet. These were the last two dolls she was going to make, she said. One each for her two great-granddaughters Jennifer and my sister Michelle. Even though my sister was well into her teens at the time, Leta was very clear that my mother should keep it for her until she was old enough to take care of it herself.