Cousin Connie Chetister

Constance Chetister is my cousin, more specifically my dad’s cousin. She is the daughter of Dale Chetister, who is the brother of my grandmother Vivian Metzker. Vivian and Dale are the two children of my great-grandmother Leta, the subject of my novel.

 

For a long time, I have been trying to contact Constance (Connie) for a couple of reasons: 1) she is most likely the keeper of her parents’ and Leta’s final documents, photos and so on; and 2) next to my dad (and mom), she is the oldest living family relation with memories of Leta and potentially several of her husbands. I recently reached her via phone and learned quite a bit in a conversation about her life, her family and her feelings toward Leta.

First, of course, is Leta. Sadly, Connie didn’t have much new information to provide. In fact, she only remembered husband number eight, Richard Eckman and then only vaguely. Memory, she noted, is not her strong suit. However, she, like everyone else I have talked to (aside from my grandfather, Vivian’s husband) was very fond of Leta: “I adored my grandmother,” she said, “and I learned a lot from her, especially about faith. Grandma told me when I complained something about going to church that it’s not going to church that makes a person; it’s how she behaves during the rest of the week that counts.”

She also shared with me some tidbits about her parents—Leta’s son Dale and daughter-in-law Kathryn. Most telling is that she recalled not growing up in a household with much affection, particularly from her mother. With her own children, she vowed and then practiced a policy to hug and hold them all the time. She also noted that her parents didn’t talk much about themselves or their parents. In fact, she had no idea that Leta was married eight times (at least). She also shared that her father Dale suffered all his life from injuries he sustained when several others beat him up. This prompted my father to recall that for a time, Dale was a vagabond of sorts beginning his late teen years and before he joined the navy during World War II.

Dale and Kate had four children. Connie is the oldest, and then came Duane, who died of infantile paralysis when he was barely four years old. Next was Christine, who died of cerebral palsy at age 27. Their fourth child was Alan who lives in Arkansas (and is next on my list of family members to contact.) Losing two children is a lot of grief for parents to bear.

Connie was also very open about herself. Currently, she is the primary caregiver of her third husband Lillard (Lee), who is in the early-to-mid-stages of Alzheimer’s. She also has several of her own medical issues and seemed a bit older via telephone than she actually was. However, as my dad noted, she was always attracted to older men. This is borne out in the ages of her second and third husbands. Her second husband was sixteen years older. She married her first husband Ed in 1962, and good Catholics that they were, they immediately began having children—four total: Christopher, Jennifer, Eric and Nicholas. She and Ed divorced in 1979, shortly after she learned that he was gay. While he loved her and married her believing the Catholic teaching that she could change him, he just couldn’t hide his own emotional/sexual feelings and needs any longer. Initially, this was quite an upset, but over time, they became friendly until his death in 2010.