Homeless, part two

Leta had no plan. She had no focus. She only knew that she did what she had to do. After they arrived home from school, she took her beloved children Vivian and Dale to live with their father. She could see no alternative. Their living situation had become unbearable—for all of them. Her marriage to Leech Hoose was a disaster, and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. Unfortunately, leaving him meant that she could no longer provide for her children. She had tried before, when she left the man to whom she was married before she married Leech. When she left that man, she and the children moved into a garret, where they lived on toast, oatmeal and eggs, and she wondered from day-to-day if she would be able to remain in the place. Leech was supposed to be their rescuer. He had a good job. He had a home for them. He seemed to care for her.

But he didn’t, at least not in the ways that she needed him to, so she left him. In doing so, she had to transfer the upbringing and care of her children to their father, a man for whom she had little respect. After leaving them, her heart broke, causing her entire body to ache. In a near delirium from the hurt, she wandered for a short time before ending up in this drinking establishment. It was dark and dingy. She was not in the most reputable of places, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She simply wanted all this debilitating grief to go away.

By her third drink, Leta was starting to forget, not forget exactly, but feel the vexation of her situation and her decisions seem less overpowering. The conflict and confusion was still there, but as more of a memory than a current state of being.

Gradually more patrons had arrived, and the drinking establishment was becoming more lively. Being one of few women, Leta began drawing attention, and after her second whiskey, which she had nursed slowly as the server encouraged, she no longer was responsible for paying for her own drinks.

Her first drink was paid for by a rather unpleasant individual, who presumed she was a prostitute. He was obviously married; he kept looking at his watch. He was also impatient, fidgeting as she slowly sipped her drink. She asked him first about his frequency at the saloon. He responded shortly. Then she asked him about his employment, and he recoiled.

“Look, Miss,” he sputtered, “I just want a quick roll in the hay. Are you game or not?”

Leta was still sober enough to understand what he meant and glared at him.

“I got a little money, but I ain’t got much time,” he continued.

“I beg your pardon?” she snapped. “I am not that kind of woman!”

The man was obviously surprised, and then angry.

“Then what the hell are you doing here? Alone?” he snarled. “A decent woman would never spend her time in this kind of place.”

Leta calmly turned away. She was in no mood to be talked to in such a way. If she wanted to be disrespected and degraded, she would be at home with her husband.

Exasperated, the man paid for the drinks and left. A moment later, realizing she was alone before she knew she was alone, her grief gripped her once again. Instead of nursing what remained of her whiskey, she gulped it down in one swallow.

“Hey, now, little lady, that was one powerful sip.”

To be continued.

Homeless, part one

The realization that she had nowhere to go startled Leta. It was early morning. The stranger she had spent her night with was dressing in the other room and expecting her to be dong the same. She was sitting in her slip on the bed, the very one she had been sleeping so soundly in only thirty minutes before.

How had she slept so soundly? she asked herself. The sour taste in her mouth and the dull throbbing in her head gave her the answer.

She had started to drink early in the evening, afternoon really. The speakeasy wasn’t even officially open, but the door was unlocked. When she sat at the bar, one of the two servers that were bustling around took one look at her and asked her what she wanted. The options, as they were at other establishments at different times, were few: gin, whiskey or, since she was a lady, brick wine. Leta selected whiskey.

A mirror on the back wall reflected her image back to her, but she refused to look. If she looked anywhere near how she felt, then she didn’t want to see herself at all. She was rumpled, stiff and exhausted. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks wan, her lips in a grim line. In fact, her entire face had seemed to fall at least half an inch while remaining in place only by the sheer effort of her equally tired skin. She had been crying hard. In fact, she spent a full fifteen minutes in the alley behind the speakeasy convulsing in large sobs before she approached the door.

She had left her husband after only a few months of marriage, and more devastating, she had taken her children to live with their father—a former husband—because having left her current husband, she would have no way to take care of them. A year ago at this time, before she married Leech Hoose, she and the children were living in poverty. She did not want to put them through the same struggle again.

Although Leech had a steady income, he maintained the strictest control over the money. He paid all the bills, even when she or the children needed new socks or something for school, he would make the purchase. He didn’t even give her an allowance for personal items, such as cosmetics. Once her daughter asked for a nickel to go to the moving pictures with her friends. He gave her permission to go, but walked with her to the cinema and paid for the ticket himself.

Leech hated that Leta took in sewing for a few pennies. His reasoning was that she had enough to do taking care of him and the children, and further a married woman should not take away employment from someone who needed it. Although she told him she stopped, she still continued to do accept some projects that she could do secretly, when he was at work. This was the only way she could start to save money of her own, which she kept hidden in the kitchen. Leech would have nothing to do with the kitchen, except to eat there. Unfortunately, she had not had much time to accumulate very much, only three dollars, before she realized that continuing to live with him was impossible. On a Friday in September, she packed her children’s things, and took them to their father right after they arrived home from school. Her husband was still at work. She checked her watch. He would be there for at least another hour.

Once she left her children and her heart behind, she walked directly to this speakeasy. She had never been to this one, which is what she wanted. Here she could drown her sorrows without being questioned or noticed by anyone she knew.

The barkeep brought her the drink. She drank it down in one gulp, the warm liquid stretching through her entire body as it went down.

“Ma’am?” the server questioned. She put the glass down.

“Another,” she ordered.

“Maybe I should put some ice in it,” he suggested as he lifted the glass. “That’s some pretty strong stuff.”

Leta looked him right in the eye. “No, thank you,” she said. “Straight up.”

He paused a moment to size her up. She returned his gaze, while she felt her entire body relax from the first drink. Finally, he sighed and turned away. A few minutes later, he gave her another glass.

“I need to step away for about fifteen minutes,” he said. “Do you think this will last you?”

“Yes, I think so,” she answered with a smile.

To be continued.

Ora Shows Up

Leta had been separated from her husband Ora Freeman since July. Although the divorce summons had been delivered to him, there had been no response. She had neither heard from or about him in all that time. Right after she filed for divorce, she and her children Vivian (age 14) and Dale (age 11) moved into an attic apartment of a large boarding house. The neighborhood was filled with a rough class of people, but their small garrett was all she could afford, having no official employment and no financial support from her estranged husband. The situation was a challenge, but with her own resolve and the assistance of her family, she and the children were getting by.

One early October afternoon she and the children had met after school at their usual place a few blocks from their home. (Leta did not like the children to walk alone down their street.) As they continued to their house, Dale was chattering about his friends and day, while Vivian walked with her own thoughts kept private. Every so often, she would comment on her brother’s stream of thought. So would Leta. Mostly, Leta was keeping a watchful eye on the other individuals in their neighborhood. She would smile at the other women with their children or on their own, and occasionally nod to the more respectable men.

“Stop!” she commanded two blocks from their residence.The children froze.

“What is it, Ma?” Vivian asked after a couple of moments.

Leta was looking hard up the street. While she could not be sure of what she saw, she was not going to take any chances. She turned her children in the opposite direction to face her.

“I want you both to go to the library until I come to get you,” she instructed.

“But, Ma!” Dale protested. He had formed some plan of how to spend the rest of his afternoon and had recently begun to express his dismay at spending so much time at the library.

“Do as I say!” she insisted sternly, and after a mment, Dale sighed in agreement. “Go on now.”

She watched her children until they turned the corner. Dale looked back once, but she gestured immediately. He turned and proceeded with his sister.

Leta turned back toward the boarding house, stood up straight, adjusted her hat and pressed her dress with her hands. She took a deep breath and proceeded down the street. When she was a couple of buildings away, she could see him. He must have been sitting on the porch and grown restless. He walked down a few steps toward the sidewalk, looked in the opposite direction down the street and then turned toward her. Of course, he saw her.

She had recognized the truck parked in the street, or thought she had. Somehow her soon-to-be-ex-husband Ora had found her. Her pace slowed as she drew nearer, and he waited.

When she finally reached him, he was standing on the sidewalk between the house and the street. She had forgotten how much taller he was than she, but it made no difference. She would remain firm. Their separation and her certainty in severing their relationship gave her strength.

“Hello, Leta,’ he finally said.

“Good afternoon,” she responded, almost instinctively. At least, she didn’t sound friendly.

“How are you?”

Leta looked at him with disdain.

“What do you want, Ora?” she asked coldly. “Unless you’ve come to tell me that you’ve signed the divorce papers, then we have nothing really to talk about.”

He stepped back in surprise.

 “Leta…” he said in his sweetest voice, almost singing her name. He also opened his arms slightly. She stepped back defensively and put up her hands. Was he going to try to hug her?

“What’s this?” he questioned. “Is that how you greet your husband?”

“You are not my husband any more.”

“As far as me and the law are concerned, I am,” he said. “I want you and the children to come home.”

“What?” Leta was astonished.

“I’m working now. Things are going well, and it’s time you gave up this foolishness and came home,” he clarified.

Leta felt a rage growing within her, the same rage she felt when he made other such declarations, yet never fulfilled the responsibility of them.

“Ora, please,” she said as gently but as firmly as she could, “just sign the papers, so we can both move on.”

His voice grew deeper and more resonant.

“Leta, I know you’ve been with that other man, and I understand why you would do such a thing. But enough is enough. You’re my wife, and you belong home with me. Now where are the chidlren?”

By this time, Leta was gritting her teeth. Her shoulders had tensed, and she had made her hands into fists.

“Ora,” she declared, “for all intents and purposes, I am no longer your wife. The only way I want to see you is at the courthouse. Aside from that, I want you to leave me alone.”

His face turned red, and suddenly she realized that he had been drinking.

“You ARE my wife!” he declared. “You belong in my house, preparing my meals, taking care of me, not whoring around with any Tom, Dick or Harry you meet in a saloon. What kind of message does that send to the children?”

Leta was aware that several neighbors had been drawn to the argument.

“Ora, please?” she whispered. His voice only grew louder.

“You were nothing when I married you,” he continued, entirely disregarding her quiet plea. “A widow with two spoiled children, penniless, unable to take care of yourself, nearly thrown out onto the street. But I took you in. I put a roof over your head. I gave you food to eat and warm beds for you and your brats. And then, what? You up and leave me. You leave my house a disaster. You leave me in debt up to my ears.”

“Ora,” Leta protested, “there was never any money!”

“Bah!” he snarled, “There was plenty of money until you spent it all. You lived beyond your means. You spoiled them children.No matter what I did or how much I worked, I couldn’t satisfy you. You were greedy and selfish.You ARE greedy and selfish.”

“If I’m so horrible,” Leta snapped, “then why do you want me back!”

“Because you’re my wife, for better or worse, and you belong with me. Look at this dump.” He gestured toward the house. “Is this really how you want to live? The wind could blow this place to the ground. Don’t you miss having a real man.”

“I don’t miss you,” she declared strongly.

He reached toward her and grabbed her arm hard.

“Ow! You’re hurting me,” she cried, trying to pull herself away. But he held onto her even tighter. He pulled her to his face, where she could smell his rancid breath.

“You’re going to regret this,” he hissed. “It’s going to get colder, and in that attic apartment, when the temperature drops to freezing, snow is blowing in through the window, and that rinky-dink stove won’t put out enough heat to make toast, then you’re going to freeze your ass off. And then—oh yes, and then—you are going to come begging me to take you back.”

He pushed her away, and she nearly fell.

“You wait and see, Leta. You…wait…and…see.”

With those words, he walked across the street to his truck and a few moments later drove off.

Leta watched him. Her arm ached where he gripped it. She wanted to collapse onto the ground and cry. But instead, she straightened her spine to stand as tall as she could. Long after he was gone, she remained standing. Little did he know that his appearance that day and his verbal attack made her more resolute than she had been previously to be finished with him once and for all.

The Nitty Gritty on Giving Up Vivian & Dale

For a while now I have been trying to figure out a timeline placement in the life of my great-grandmother Leta. I know that at some point her children Vivian (my grandmother) and Dale moved in with their father Ralph. Ralph was Leta’s first husband. She had no other children.

I know approximately when this happened from a variety of sources. First, she was married to her third husband Ora Freeman from December 27, 1927 to February 23, 1929. She filed for divorce on July 23, 1928. This indicates that the couple was separated from July to February. After her divorce, Leta almost immediately married Leech Hoose. This occurred on March 2, 1929. (This was one week actually.) Although he did not file for divorce from her until October 8, 1931, he claimed in the divorce filing that she left him “six months” after they married. This would be about September 1929. (There is no explanation as to why he waited a year to file for divorce.)

According to copies of her report cards, Vivian completed eighth grade at Sherman School in Toledo, Ohio, in June 1928. Her report cards were signed by her mother, Leta Freeman, as were her ninth grade report cards from September 1928 until June 1929. Although the report cards for this year do not indicate the school Vivian attended, simply nothing that she attended Toledo High Schools, the report cards were signed by “Leta Freeman.” For tenth grade (1929-1930), Vivian attended Waite High School in East Toledo, and her father, Ralph Chetister, signed her report cards. We have three yearbooks from Waite High School, 1930-1932 (10^th-12^th grades).

This information leads me to believe that sometime during the summer of 1929, most likely late in the summer, Leta delivered her children to their father’s care, and she subsequently left her husband Leech Hoose. Although she was officially Leta Hoose in June 1929, she signed Vivian’s report card as Leta Freeman. Perhaps she did not want to complicate matters at the school, or her marriage to Leech Hoose was already rocky.

In any case, Leta never lived with her children again.

What Leta did and how she lived from fall 1929 to her marriage to Robert Fields on September 17, 1937, has been a matter of speculation in the family. I have a few stories about it, which will be incorporated into that chapter of the book. Perhaps she did get married once or twice. Her niece June Scott (daughter of her brother Aaron) told me that she believed Leta was married a total of 12 times. If so, I have yet to find marriage records for four of these marriages. I searched in Lucas County (where she lived most of her adult life) and Wood County (which was adjacent), using all of her last names (primarily Mohr, Freeman and Hoose). Of course, some of the marriage records (in other counties) may not be available online yet. Only recently did I find a marriage record for a marriage for which I already had the divorce documents. However, I keep checking.

I appreciate your patience in reading my thinking-out-loud analysis, so to speak, and now think that my initial planning of Leta and her children’s transition from her separation from Ora Freeman to her transferring her children to their father’s primary care was most accurate.