Family puzzles

The research into my great-grandmother Leta’s family, life and marriages continues. Most recently, I’ve come across a couple of puzzles. Frankly, I’m totally stumped and for the most part, don’t know how to solve them. While a genealogist would just take another path and mull it over, my own exploration is far more specific. It is my intention to obtain as much factual information in my story as possible, and then fill in the detail.

Here’s the first puzzle: Leta’s brother Aaron was born March 26, 1882 to David Scott and Julia Snyder. Her and Aaron’s sister Mabel was born on May 3, 1882. While Aaron is listed in several sources (census, birth and death records) as the child of David Scott and Julia Snyder, I have not yet been able to find a birth record for Mabel. However, both are listed as children of Julia Ann Scott in her obituary, and Mabel is listed as sister of Aaron in his obituary.

Accounts note that Mabel Scott married Floyd Worthing from Rochester, Minnesota. The two relocated to New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada and died there. In Mabel’s death registration, her birthplace is listed as Toledo, Ohio, and her birth name was Mabel Scott, which may be true (meaning she had a different mother or was adopted) or is simply a general largest city point-of-reference.

I have yet been unable to find a birth record for Mabel, and as it was destroyed, there is no 1900 census (when she would have been eight) to note whether or not she lived with the Scott family. She is not listed as a resident child of Julia (separated from David) in the 1910 census, when she was 18 years old.

The second puzzle is about Leta’s brother Fred. He’s mentioned in both Julia’s and Aaron’s obituaries, but I can find no specific birth record for him, mention in any census or any death record. According to the research I have found, there are two brothers whose life trajectory is unknown: Stephen (born in 1878 or 1879) and David (with a birth record of March 26, 1883). Either one of these fellows could also be Fred.

The third puzzle is where and when did Leta’s father David die. Julia died in 1924 and is buried in the same cemetery as many of her children, but alone. Her death record notes that she was married to David at the time, but he is not mentioned in her obituary. Meanwhile, the 1920 census reports a David Scott living in Santa Margarita, CA. He was born in 1855/56 in Ohio with parents born in Pennsylvania. All this fits Leta’s father, except how did he get to Santa Margarita in California, and why is he described as a widow if Julia was alive until 1924? Also, I have been unable to unearth a death record for him.

The fourth puzzle is several puzzles in one: divorce dates and marriage dates. In 1927, Albert Mohr (husband #2) was killed, and she married Ora Freeman (husband #3) in Lucas County, Ohio. The next record I have is the recorded marriage of Mrs. Leta Freeman to Leech Hoose on March 2, 1929. Somewhere in there for reasons yet unknown, Leta and Ora divorced. And the next record I have is the death of (husband #4) Robert Fields on November 21, 1948. However, I do not know when the marriage began, and whether or not there were additional marriages in between (although I suspect that there was at least one).

Four puzzles—that’s where I am.

Cancer of the esophagus

Leta Scott Chetister Mohr Freeman Hoose Fields Bassett Eckman died on April 12, 1985, just two days shy of her 90th birthday. The official cause of death was cancer of the esophagus. I was a junior in college at the time, and thought she died of old age. When visiting her, I mostly witnessed dementia and muscle/strength deterioration. This seemed standard enough to me for someone of her years.

For the last ten years of her life or so, I recall this debilitation more than anything else. When she entered the senior residence/nursing facility in 1972 at age 76, she was not only mobile, but also active. She treated the place more like a home than a place to “live out her final years,” as we said back then, and although she didn’t drive, she did leave pretty regularly—for meals, shopping, local family visits and trips to visit other family members. Even as the years went by, many of our visits included walks both inside and outside the facility. Now, she wasn’t always well enough to do that. Sometimes she felt lousy, and we would simply sit in one of the lounges or at a dining room table and chat. Other times she felt worse and would be in bed. Our visits were short then. Again, as a child and teenager, I believed she was just, well, old.

According to Wikipedia, the initial symptom of cancer of the esophagus is difficulty swallowing (or dysphagia) or more painful swallowing (odynophagia). There is also pain like heartburn and a husky, raspy or hoarse cough (which indicates a tumor obstructing the airway).  Since these symptoms are very similar to a viral infection—i.e. sore throat—or common for smokers, it’s not hard to believe that a person suffering from this form of cancer would not be overly concerned, especially if the symptoms regularly waned. The coughing up of blood, another symptom, would cause concern.

Esophageal cancer is relatively rare form of cancer more common in men than women, more common in African American men than other races and generally strikes those over age 60, with a median age of 67.  Tobacco smoking and heavy alcohol use increase the risk and more prominently when together than individually. Tobacco and/or alcohol account for 90% of esophageal carcinomas. Those with gastroesophageal reflux disease or acid reflux also have a higher likelihood, because of the chronic irritation of the mucosal lining.

The disease is usually diagnosed after a barium swallow and/or esophagogastroduodenoscopy (or endoscopy)—that is, a tube inserted into the throat. Physicians then take biopsies of the tumors, most of which are malignant. Treatments include radiation and chemotherapy, esophagectomy (removal of part of the esophagus) and the insertion of a stent to help the sufferer eat and swallow.

As far as I knew, my great-grandmother never had radiation or chemotherapy.

Prognosis for this type of cancer is quite poor, because most patients are not diagnosed until the disease is advanced. The five-year survival rate is less than 20%. Most die within the first year of diagnosis. This, I suspect, is because most folks think that they have a viral infection or smoker’s cough, gradually eating softer foods and liquids.

To decreased risk, the potential sufferer should taking regular aspirin, adopt a diet rich in cruciferous (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower) green and yellow vegetables and fruits and enjoy a moderate coffee consumption.

I believe my great-grandmother was diagnosed very late and refused more than the basic treatment.

Unsettled, part two

Her life had come to this: leaving her children—Vivian, age 15 and Dale, age 12—with their father Ralph, his mother Ida and Ralph’s new wife Eunice. She had rather have been run over by a locomotive, and well, she had, a locomotive named Leach Hoose, whom she had married foolishly and only a few months later divorced for the sake of her children. This also, she reminded herself as she left them on the front porch of their father’s house, was for the sake of her children. But she had a hard time believing or accepting. So far in the thirty-four years of her life, this was the hardest thing she ever did.

And she knew so little of her ex-husband’s new, older wife.

Eunice, Leta surmised, was a simple woman. Vivian noted once that she didn’t know how to sew, embroider, knit or even crochet, prompting Leta to inquire, “Then what does she do all day?”

While Vivian simply shrugged her shoulders, Dale innocently offered, “eats chocolates.”

Leta learned later that she was in charge of her husband Ralph’s wardrobe—washing and ironing his clothes, polishing his shoes and making sure he was presentable at work and to the world.

“Well, that’s something,” Leta told her sister Nellie, who rolled her eyes.

Eunice also provided comfort to her husband. She made sure the kitchen was stocked with his favorite foods and beverages and brought them to him when he asked. While he performed such chores as mowing the lawn or raking leaves, she was on hand with a glass of lemonade when he wanted it.

Had Leta known Eunice was sickly, she would have pursued other options. That after a year of living with her father, Vivian would become nurse to a weak and needy stepmother would have been supremely unacceptable at this time.

However, this was not the time to think about Eunice in any other way than would she be good to her daughter and son. And if she wasn’t good, Leta would know and make necessary adjustments. At least she knew their grandmother, who also lived with her son and daughter-in-law, and ruled the home with a Spartan attitude, would make sure her children were well-fed, clean and had all their basic needs met.

The young woman and boy she was dropping off at the father’s home were still looking at her, imploring her with their hearts to change her mind, to take them with her to wherever she needed to go. But she couldn’t do that to them. Leaving them here in a home they didn’t know, with family that was basically strangers, was against her will. But once again in her life, she was in a position where her limited options required a sacrifice. This time, that sacrifice was her children.

“I will see you soon, my darlings,” she said, mustering all of the cheer she could at this solemn event. “And if you need me, I will be staying with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Florence. Your cousin June has already asked when you will be coming for a visit, and I promised her it would be soon. I promise you, too.”

She told them to be strong, to stand tall, and looking them right in the eyes stated clearly, “Mother loves you.”

Then she took her handkerchief, one Vivian had laced and embroidered for her, and dabbed Dale’s overflowing eyes, smiled, and turned away down the stairs, leaving them to watch her walk away.

Even as she headed down the street to the bus, she realized that this was a mistake. No child should ever watch her mother walk away. Instead, she should have sent them into the house first.

Another mistake. Another regret. The story of her life.

She didn’t know how long they watched her walk away, and she didn’t want to know. Her heart was too heavy. And while surrounded by her internal darkness, she walked and walked and walked, past the point where the sun and her exertion warmed her to perspiration, past the point where her feet ached and past the point where she became weak with thirst. When she came back to her present, as much as a woman in her tormented mental state could, she found herself at a secret drinking establishment she knew near the neighborhood where it all happened—near the house she, her late husband Albert, Vivian and Dale lived in so happily.

As if by reflex, she tapped the proper code on the door and waited for the doorman. She needed something to wash that vision of her children standing dejectedly on the porch from her mind, if only for a little while. She didn’t hear him slide the panel away, nor open the door when he recognized her.

“Mrs. Mohr?” he repeated. “Are you coming in?”

She started. She had not been called Mrs. Mohr in a very long time, and she nearly didn’t recognize the name as her own, even though she rarely considered herself anyone but, even when she was Mrs. Ora Freeman and Mrs. Leech Hoose. While she went by their names, her identity remained Mrs. Albert Mohr.

“Yes, of course,” she stammered and stepped gingerly through the door.

Unsettled, part one

She could see it in their eyes. She was abandoning them. While her daughter Vivian—stoic, solid, mature Vivian—stood with her body tense and arms crossed, her son Dale’s lip kept quivering, the moisture in his eyes welling like a creek about to overflow its banks. He always was more outwardly emotional, perhaps because of all that he had seen so far in his young life, including the murder of the man she loved.

Damn Albert!

No, she didn’t mean that; Albert had not intended to be killed on their front porch and send her reeling into uncharted life waters, grasping at anything she could for stability—emotional, family, financial—whatever worked in her furtive brain. She had not even had time to grieve properly, so she felt that her life had become one lengthy moan of despair.

She made mistakes. They were big ones, and they brought her little family to an end, especially after Hoose. She would never think of him as other than the man who destroyed her family. But she was the one who took her children into his house, where he welcomed them with open arms, and open pants. Thanks to a bit of fortuitous timing and Vivian’s personal strength, a horrible situation was deflected, but even so, she had to remove her children.

And there she was penniless, jobless and with two mouths to feed in addition to her own.

She had no alternative. They must stay with their father. How she hated making that decision. Children belong with their mother. But more specifically, children belong with a mother who can take care of them, and she knew she couldn’t.

The conversation she had with Ralph only one week earlier was one of the hardest she had ever had in her life. When he filed for custody of their children only a few years earlier, during the happiest time of her life, she had mocked him. He was jealous, she told him. She and Albert were providing a good home for Vivian and Dale, and Ralph knew it. He also knew that they called Albert “Daddy,” that he was more of a father than Ralph could ever be. And she told Ralph that. Even the judge could see that Ralph was in no position to take custody. Further, she knew the children wanted to be with her, their mother. Quietly, unceremoniously, Ralph withdrew his petition, and the children never knew.

Yet now, here they were. Here she was—a divorced woman no longer able to take care of her children. And she was leaving them with their father, a man they barely knew.

She told them it would be temporary. She would soon have them back with her. They must be patient and good for their father, his new wife and their grandmother. At least, she knew their grandmother Ida would see that they were well fed, clean and finished their homework. And she would see them. They would have chores. They would be fine.

While they stood on the porch, Ralph had sensibly left them alone, her children and her. And thankfully, she never saw his new wife. Eunice. Vivian and Dale shared with her that after a quick courtship, Ralph had proposed to the thrice-married widow, and with his own mother grimly accepting, moved her into the home they shared.

“She’s quiet,” Vivian had told her after meeting Eunice for the first time, and over the two years she had known her step-mother, Vivian’s initial observation never changed. Dale, his mother’s devoted son, provided her with many other details. Her former mother-in-law Ida remained in charge domestically—cooking, housework and managing the household. Eunice served somewhat as a hired girl, helping as much as Ida allowed, and mostly, serving as a devoted wife to her husband. Actually, per Dale’s description, she was closer to servile, waiting on him hand and foot when he was home from work. This didn’t surprise Leta. After all, she had never been servile, even though she was a good wife and mother during their marriage.

She remembered his impotent anger when she attended a couple of women’s suffrage marches when Vivian was a baby, and she was carrying Dale. He even tried to prevent her from voting after the Constitutional Amendment was passed.

“A woman has no business voting,” Ralph declared while he and Leta were eating supper with his parents. “It distracts from her housework.” While his parents agreed, Leta liked to think that her mother-in-law who ruled her roost with an iron hand was more sympathetic. Ida may not have voted, but her husband Lewis knew her opinions on any number of politically related subjects.

To Be Continued.

One true love

It seems to me that there is an instigating moment or an inciting incident that propelled my great-grandmother Leta into her unsettled much-married life. On one of my favorite television shows, Criminal Minds, the FBI agents call this a “trigger.” Although I believe she had a propensity toward her own sexual enthusiasm, I also believe that the social mores of the time and her own sturdy personal strength and understanding would have enabled her to both fulfill her needs and live a “respectable” life had she not been triggered.

Of course, this is all surmising. After all, she was pregnant in 1913 when she married the first time. But surmising is what I can do, and here goes.

Her second husband, Albert Mohr, is her one true love. She obviously met and became infatuated with him while she was still married to her first husband Ralph Chetister, since they married only three weeks after the divorce in 1922. Or she may have meet Albert after the separation, since that was official in February, and they married in November.

While she and Albert were only married only three and a half years, I consider that there was some strength to it. During that time, Leta’s mother died, and visitation occurred at their home. Her ex-husband Ralph petitioned for custody of their children Vivian and Dale, but withdrew his petition only two weeks later. Plus, I learned that Dale called Albert “Daddy.”

So she married for love, and whether or not that love would have waned and dissolved, like her nine-year marriage to Ralph did, I will never know for sure. What I do know, however, is that the marriage, the relationship, the family—the love—was cut short when Albert was killed by an old enemy on a summer evening in June…after only four and a half years of marriage.

This upset, I believe, sent Leta into a tailspin. Her life became one of desperately seeking a deep, mutually respectful love. Here are the facts: 1) she married two men right after the other within a period of three years, both of which ended in divorce; 2) she sent her children to live with their father Ralph; 3) she moved in for a time with her older brother Aaron to become a barfly and woman who went with a lot of different men; 4) while her fifth (or sixth) marriage seemed to be stable, her husband died unexpectedly; and 5) her seventh marriage was a disaster.

I believe that throughout her life Leta was desperately seeking the kind of intense love, feeling, fun and joy that she felt toward with second husband Albert, and this “one true love” mentality, combined with her own personality propelled her into a life she lived as best as she could. After all, who could live up to a man with whom she had never grown disenchanted in any way, whose life was abruptly ripped from hers, whose sudden absence pushed her into the necessity of taking care of her children the only way she knew how—by being married?

Life is simply reckless with some people.

The Scott family wild streak

As I learn more about my great-grandmother Leta and reflect on her in relation to her (and my) family—the Scott family—and their descendants, it seems to me that there is a kind of hereditary wild streak. While I don’t have information on every member of the Scott family, I do know about several in different generations upon which to investigate this theory.

There’s no question that Leta had a kind of wild streak in her. Her several marriages, being pregnant before her first marriage, and the stories from her niece June of her dating life in the 1930s are proof of that. According to June (daughter of Leta’s brother Aaron), she used to love to watch her Aunt Leta get all dolled up before going out. “She looked like she stepped right out of the band box,” June said. When she returned later (sometimes much later), she looked as though “she’d been dragged through the mud.”

Aaron also had a wild streak in him. He spent several years as an itinerant bar tender and learned how to deal poker in Reno, Nevada. Upon his return to Ohio (after prohibition) and marriage to Florence, he continued to deal cards in the back room of the Flat Iron Bar and another establishment.

Aaron’s daughter June, a great admirer of her Aunt Leta, had her own adventurous life with men. She dated her second husband Russell when she was 14, but married Edgar instead. After having one child, June divorced Edgar, married Russell and had three children with him. After he died and while she was living in Arizona during her later years, June became enamored of another fellow. He was separated from his wife and lived with June. According to her daughter Margery, he lived off her for several years, and with rather expensive tastes and extensive needs, he spent much of her money, leaving her nearly destitute at the time of her death. No amount of conversation, reasoning, threat or argument would convince her to throw him out.

Aaron’s older daughter Lucille became pregnant in 1934 and married the father afterward. Her father was so distressed that they had a fractured relationship until her little girl died. Incidentally, Lucille is still alive, but suffers from nearly complete dementia.

My father (married three times) and sister also expressed a wild streak from their teens into their thirties. They had some difficulty settling down with a chosen partner. One of my father’s cousins/Leta’s granddaughter has also been married three times. Although I have yet to speak with her for more detail, I strongly suspect her behavior falls within this wild streak.

And in spite of my rather proper—and some might say judgmental—demeanor, I also have a wild streak. I consider myself a bit of an adventurer—in several ways. As I learn more about Leta and the Scott family, I anticipate I will find similar stories.

What about me?

Usually when I am asked why I have undertaken this project, I provide a simple answer: How could I not? My great-grandmother’s married life is fascinating. Even when all I had to go by was a few facts and a lot of innuendo, I wanted to know more. For a good while after her son-in-law/my grandfather told me about her past, I was rather stunned. After all, a person does not learn that his great-grandmother was married seven times every day! (And during the research, I am already up to eight marriages.)

I believe I was in graduate school at the time, because upon my return to school, I recall a conversation I had with my friend Esther and a couple of other folks at a party. I don’t know what prompted my revealing this newly learned information, but doing completely altered the conversation. That’s all Esther in particular wanted to talk about. She was fascinated, she’s quite an erudite person and her own life was filled with intense drama. If she could drop everything to learn more about Leta, then there was something there to explore.

However, my life circumstance meant that while I had this powerful initial reaction and incentive—thanks, Esther—I needed to put my knowledge, notes and curiosity into my writer’s “trunk” for the time being. Graduate school, making theater, working, writing for a magazine, going to the theater and simply surviving were enough to occupy myself for the time. Of course, from time to time, I did think about Grandma Eckman’s life, especially when I began to put together family trees for my aging grandparents and as several friends began to share their own family history projects.

But it was not until years later, after I had been through a great number of life experiences, that I began considering Grandma Eckman’s life again. Truly, I cannot recall an instigating moment, but I do know that a burning curiosity began to grow inside of me. And it had a pivotal connection.

Was I like her?

Leta, greatgrandsons Jeff & baby Jerry.

Was my own relationship (and I use the word loosely) and sexual life akin to hers? Were her feelings about her life and herself similar to mine? Of course, there are hugely different expectations and standards for a gay man in our age than for a woman living, loving and marrying from 1916-1963. Most specifically, I don’t have to get married to have a sexual relationship or even a tryst. However, the internal emotional life, the search perhaps, and/or even the concern for satisfaction of desire fascinates me. And we are both devout Christians with the prevailing understanding (basically oppressive) of proper sexual behavior being slapped in our faces.

Why did I start writing this book? Here is the most honest answer I can think of right now: I wanted to learn about and investigate my beloved great-grandmother’s life, because I want to know more about myself. Now that I am in the midst of it, there is far more going on than that.

Scott family at the cemetery

As I wrote previously, my great-grandmother Leta Scott was one of six surviving children of David Scott and Julia Snyder. And during my most recent trip to Northwestern Ohio, I explored a local cemetery and poured through several obituaries. While very informative, this excursion also presented several conflicts, particularly with regard to Leta's siblings.

According to the census reports, the surviving children of David and Julia were (oldest to youngest) Stephen, Aaron, David, Nellie, Louise and Leta. However, there were several indications that there was another sister named Mabel, but no birth or census records of her. Leta's obituary only notes that she was the last surviving sibling.

During this trip, I was able to locate the obituaries of mother Julia Scott and brother Aaron Scott. Both note that their survivors include six Scott children: Aaron (except for in his own obituary, of course), Nellie, Louise and Leta, as are included in the census reports, but instead of Stephen and David, acknowledge Fred and Mabel. Neither of the latter were local residents. Fred is listed as living in California (in Julia's, 1924) and Oregon (in Aaron's, 1949). Mabel is noted as living in British Columbia, which is consistent with family information.

While I cannot account for the discrepancy between this and the census, my next step in historical research is to find out more about the births and movements of Mabel and Fred. I also hope to find the death information of Stephen and David and wonder if one of them might also be Fred.

Several members of the Scott family are buried in the same cemetery—Lake Township Cemetery in Walbridge, Ohio. Aaron and Florence are there; as well as Nellie and her husband Franklin Jaquillard, son Lyle and daughter-in-law; Louise and her husband Hiram Wescotte and daughter Leta.

Leta Wescotte was named after her aunt, and the family called her "little Leta." She never married and lived with her parents until they passed away. She was also the Dean of Girls at Clay High School for many years. This is the high school that my dad, his siblings, my siblings and I, and my sister’s children attended. My grandfather Ed (Leta's son-in-law) also attended and graduated from Clay High School (in its third graduating class, no less), but this would have been before Leta Wescotte was there. Apparently, she wasn't a very happy person.

A host of other Scotts are also buried in the Lake Township Cemetery; these may or may not be part of David's family.

The most intriguing discovery I made is that while Julia Snyder Scott is buried in this cemetery, she is not buried with her husband David. I have no idea yet why this is, where he is buried or even when he died, since they presumably lived together until death. Well, maybe not.