Vivian Faye Chetister

Vivian Faye Chetister was born to Leta Scott and Ralph Chetister on December 29, 1913 in Toledo, Ohio. When her parents divorced in 1922, she remained with her mother, who subsequently married Albert Mohr. The family lived in Toledo, Ohio. Vivian was baptized and confirmed in the Christian church. Photographs confirm this; however, I have uncovered no data indicating which denomination. Sometime after the death of Albert Mohr, Vivian and her younger brother Dale moved in with their father Ralph Chetister, who was living with his parents, Lewis and Ida (Gerringer) Chetister in East Toledo. She attended Waite High School, where she was an honor student whose education focused on office assistance. She graduated in 1931.

Vivian married Edward Roy Metzker on September 5, 1936 in Lucas County, Ohio. She was 23 years old, and he was 22. He was a glasscutter, and she worked in an attorney’s office. Shortly after their marriage under the recommendation of Vivian’s employer, they bought a $300 plot of land in Oregon Township, in a neighborhood that was eventually called Eastmoreland. The newlyweds, however, took up residence in a rented house on Dearborn Avenue in Oregon Township, very near to the home or Edward’s parents, William and Anna Metzker. The pair attended First St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located on Grasser Street not too far from their home on Dearborn Avenue.

On January 17, 1939, Vivian gave birth to their first child, Donald Edward Metzker. In her young adult life, Vivian held a number of jobs, including serving as an au pair for a family that traveled and as a secretary in an attorney’s office. From the time Donald was born, she became a full-time mother and homemaker.

While Edward served as a contractor with the Navy from 1942-1945, Vivian and Donald lived sometimes with her mother Leta (who was married to Robert Fields), sometimes with Edward’s parents William and Anna, and sometimes on their own.

In 1948, Edward and his father William (called “Pop”) built a 1,750 square foot house on the piece of land Edward and Vivian had purchased after their marriage.

On June 30, 1951, Vivian gave birth to their second child, Larry Alan, and on August 24, 1953, she gave birth to their daughter Linda Leigh.

Vivian and Ed Metzker were prominent members of First St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, in Oregon Township, and subsequently in the City of Oregon. She was active in social clubs.

In 1960, Donald married Patricia Jean Curry, daughter of William and Laura Ellen Curry. The couple had three children—Jeffrey (1961), Jerry (1963), and Michelle (1965). In June of 1973, Larry married Linda Jo Phipps. The couple had two children—Courtney (1979) and Ryan (1982).

In 1967, Vivian joined Ed on a trip to Europe. His purpose was to visit several Champion Spark Plug factories, but they also used the time for an extended tour, visiting Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and England. The trip was cut short when Ed’s mother Anna Metzker passed away and the couple returned home.

On February 27, 1976, four days after hip replacement surgery, Vivian died of a blood clot in her lungs.

Aaron's Death

although it was full of people, the room seemed empty. The many voices of the guests and relatives merged together into a hum that rose and fell, that buzzed about her ears and then flew away, but stayed close enough that she could sense its presence. Leta sat in a chair against the wall in the corner of the living room, nearly hidden from view, watching the figures move about, most familiar, but at this time strangers. Her sisters were thanking the guests and sharing stories. Her brothers-in-law—and her husband, she presumed—were huddled together around the corner in the dining room, where she could not see them, chatting about automobiles, employment, or whether or not they would be having a hard winter. Her daughter Vivian was in the kitchen, helping keep order in their delicate situation. Vivian’s husband Ed had already taken their son Don home. The two ate, stayed for a few minutes, and then left. Her son Dale, daughter-in-law Kathryn, and their daughter Connie had done the same thing, but they had their own grief. Their little boy Sonny was gone only a year, so their pain was fresh with the memory.

Leta’s niece June was also in the kitchen, back and forth as the gathering necessitated, Her older niece Lucille had gone into a bedroom some time ago. For the past three weeks, the young woman had been inconsolable. She had too much regret to bear in front of company, almost too much to address on her own.

Florence was sitting on the couch in front of her. Leta could see the back of her sister-in-law’s head as it swayed with the conversations she was having with the other mourners. Sometimes she became very still, and in those moments, Leta felt as through they truly were sisters.

Leta’s brother Aaron, Florence’s husband, father of Lucille and June, had been ill for months. Florence did her best to take care of him at home by herself. There were times that the pain was so great that he screamed throughout the night, and during the day, moaned in his sleep. Once in an agonizing flailing, he inadvertently gave her a black eye, but she accepted it. There was little else that she could do. Aaron was her husband.

The strain on Florence was relieved near the end of the summer by the participation of her sisters-in-law in the care of their brother. Nellie, Louise, and Leta created a rotation in which each spent three days during a two-week period nursing their brother and helping Florence with whatever she needed. They cleaned, they cooked, and they did the laundry—whatever she needed. By the end of October, they all knew that Aaron had few days left to spend with them. The doctor paid his last visit on November 20, informing them that he would be gone within a week, and he died on November 25, 1949. Florence and Leta were with him. He had been sleeping, and then his breathing changed. The women instinctively went to opposite sides of the bed. He seemed to reach out a hand to Florence, and she took it. Leta took his other hand. He gripped them slightly and then eased back into the permanent sleep.

The women looked at each other, and in silent agreement, they relaxed and simultaneously knelt beside the bed, folding their hands in prayer.

A few days later, after Aaron had been laid to rest, Leta sat during the post-funeral gathering. It was late in the afternoon, turning dark outside, and gradually the guests were leaving. Shortly after Vivian’s departure, Leta left her place in the corner of the living room and assumed the responsibilities that her daughter had been undertaking. Most of the food had either been consumed or reorganized onto a few serving platters. The kitchen was fairly spotless. Leta put on a pot of coffee. From experience, she knew that Florence was in for a long night.

As she stood in the kitchen, Leta again reminisced. Aaron had not only been her brother, but he was also a friend, and in some ways, a father, their father having deserted the family for many years when she was a child. He gave her shelter when she had nowhere else to go. He loaned her money. He gave her advice. He stood by her through all the ups and downs of her life. His passing was a great loss.

Don's Memories

My dad--Donald Metzker, grandson of Leta and son of Vivian--is now the oldest member of his family. He’s only 77, not that old really, and in very good health. He is also 12 years older than his brother Larry and 14 years older than his sister Linda. (Ironically, Larry is closer in age to my brother Jeff and Linda closer in age to me than to their own brother.) Don was born in 1939 and actually lived through four of Leta’s marriages: Robert Fields (1937-1946), Claud Bassett (1948-1952), the mysterious Curtis, and Richard Eckman (1960-1963). His memory, however, has not been very helpful in the construction of the story about his grandmother Leta. But I keep trying to jar his memory, and in doing so, I occasionally am surprised by some new piece of information. 

For example, when Leta was married to Claud Bassett (whose name she whited out in her Bible), Don remembered two things: 1) that Claud was present on occasion in 1948 when Ed and his father William (called “Pop”) Metzker built the house on Robindale Avenue in Oregon, Ohio, in which Ed, Vivian, Don, Larry, Linda, and after the death of Vivian, Ethel Metzker, would all live (Ed and Ethel until their deaths in 1996 and 2004, respectively); and 2) that at the end of the street where Leta and Claud lived together was a blind pony. Don’s face lit up when that memory returned. 

He also remembered that during the time his father Ed was serving as a contractor to the U.S. Air Force during World War II, he and his mother Vivian lived with Leta and her husband Robert Fields. On Friday nights, they would take him to a local bar where he could have “all the root beer I could drink."

When I asked him how close his family was to Vivian’s brother Dale’s family, he didn’t remember much. His next oldest cousin on that side of the family is Connie. She was born in April of 1943, making her only 3½ years younger. He doesn’t recall spending much time with her. What he does remember, however, is that when he was in high school (and driving), he would go to Dale’s home and lift weights. This would have been in the 1950s, when Dale’s only son Alan was only five or six years old. Uncle Dale was not a very large man, but Don reported that he was very strong. (Incidentally, this is more evidence for me that the size of one’s muscles does not necessarily indicate how strong a person is.)

Most recently, in speaking to my father, I learned more information about his father/my grandfather Ed’s family. As I have been writing the book, the Metzkers have been on the periphery, appearing on occasion when the story warrants it. Thus, I have been picking up information here and there about them as I’ve been going along. In the storytelling, questions have arisen. (For examples: How did my grandparents and their family spend holidays? Was there anything significant that my grandfather Ed’s sister Doris was 8½ years younger? How much time did my grandparents spend with each of their parents?) So I’ve found out a few things about the Metzkers.

My Great-Aunt Doris Metzker Meier, of course, went to the same high school as her brother (and the rest of our family up to the present.) What I learned doing research was that her future husband John Meier not only went to high school with her, but was also in the same graduating class. Sharing this with my father, I noted that meant Uncle John lived in Oregon, Ohio. Then my dad told me that the Meier’s owned a farm on Bury Road until he sold it and they moved to a farm in Bowling Green, Ohio.

I was stunned. As far as I knew, there was only one big farm on Bury Road. It was owned by the Ackerman family. One of the Ackermans—Glenn—was one of my junior high buddies (who also went to high school and graduated with me). In fact, he was in my drivers’ education car when we were high school sophomores. I believe that Glenn still lives on that same farm. I’m fairly tickled by this and hope to talk to Glenn about it some day. (The farm is very close to where my mother and stepfather still live.) 

Writing this book is a constant learning experience. Halleluiah!

Ed's House

My grandfather Edward Metzker built his own house in 1948 in Oregon Township, Lucas County, Ohio. The area was once a farm, but the location was within walking distance of his parents’ home, and the rental properties where he lived with my grandmother Vivian and Dad for several years. I don’t know how much of the actual construction of the house my grandfather did, but I expected he did quite a bit of it, working evenings and weekends. He would have hired specialty services, like masonry. It is likely he did the electrical work himself, as he was an electrician.

The exterior of the new house was brick, more brown than red. I say it’s one and a half-stories, because the second floor had lower ceilings with the slanted roof making the space seem smaller. Three was also a full basement. Facing the house from the street, the driveway was on the right (or North side).

Three steps led to a small front porch that had a roof. Upon entering the house itself, there was a small foyer with closets on each side. This opened into a large living room that ran from the doorway to the driveway end of the house. A large picture window faced front, and on the interior wall opposite my grandmother hung a large mirror. A working fireplace, more for show than for heat was in the center of the driveway wall.

The living room led into a dining room with French doors that opened onto a back patio, which also had a full roof. During the summer, screened panels would be retrieved from the basement and create a cozy outdoor room that we always called the “screened in porch.” The dining room and small kitchen were behind the living room. The kitchen was a square room in the back corner with two outside walls. A small table pressed against the driveway wall. It would basically fit four when it was pulled out from the wall, but when being used, made for very little room to maneuver through the kitchen.

In the doorway between the living room and the kitchen was a small hallway that headed back toward the front of the house. In the front was the master bedroom, in the middle was a bathroom and in the back was a second bedroom. The second bedroom was my father’s room until my Uncle Larry was born. At that time, my father moved upstairs.

Opposite the entrance to the first floor bedroom area was a stairway, separated from the first floor by a door. The stairs were narrow and step, and ended on the driveway side of the house. At the top of the stairs to the immediate right was an open room with a closet on one side. From the time could remember, the room had a desk and a combination couch/day bed. When my grandfather first built the house, however, this was the room in which he spent time as a ham radio operator.

On the other side of the stairs was a hallway, taking a person back in the same direction and into a large bedroom. This was my father’s and uncle’s room. While it had a large floor space, it had a low ceiling. There was a half-bath above the first floor bathroom and a narrow section that led to the front of the house. All there was room for in that section was three three-foot high bookcases.

The back door was on the driveway side of the house between the kitchen and the living room. When a person entered, the flow led directly down the stairs to the basement and into a large family room. At the far end was a set of built-in cupboards, floor to waist-high. There was also a drawer with a turntable—a built-in record player. These cupboards ran the full length of the room. At each end, a bookcase, facing inward, rose to the ceiling. Opposite the cupboard wall, beside the stairway, was a built-in bar, complete with sink and full-size refrigerator. Above the refrigerator, my grandfather had also built in at least a 20-gallon fish tank (which from the time I could remember until shortly before his death) had tropical fish. When we were children, my brother and I also had 10-gallon tropical fish tanks. Jeff, being older, got his first, and I threw a ruckus to get my own. I started with guppies, but eventually had my own tank. (Later, that tank would house my hamsters.)

There were two other rooms in my grandfather’s basement. The first was a large multi-purpose room that one entered at the bottom of the stairs. It was at the front of the house, and ran the full length. Upon entering, on the left wall was the furnace, on the inside wall was the laundry area—washing machine, dryer, and large tub. There was also a clothes chute. On the opposite wall was my grandfather’s workbench. In the middle of the room was the family pool table. This could be converted to a ping-pong table by covering it with the two halves of the tabletop. Another door opposite the one that led into the multi-purpose room led into a cellar. We always called it the “fruit room.” This is where my grandmother kept her home and purchased canned goods, potatoes, onions, apples, etc. Although it would not have originally, by the time I came along, the room also had a large freezer.

My favorite part of the house was its milk box, a cabinet between the interior and exterior of the house near the back door. On the outside, the milkman could leave his products early in the morning, undisturbed. My grandmother could open from the inside to retrieve the items when she was ready. A latch on the inside was all that locked the milk box. The inside of the box was insulated, and it was about 12 square inches. In later years, they had Charlie’s chips and pretzels delivered, but I don’t recall that these were left in the milk box.

The narrow driveway started in the street and ran beside the entire length of the house to a one-car garage at the back of the property. It was built for smaller cars, but fit either a Cadillac or Lincoln Town Car (my grandfather’s automobiles of choice in his later years). This garage was made of the same brick as the house. From the time I remember, it had an automatic door opener. We operated it from the kitchen, holding the remote near the back window, so that the inside apparatus could read the signal.