Edward Roy Metzker

Edward Roy Metzker was born to William B. and Anna (Haas) Metzker on November 10, 1914. According to the 1920 census, the family lived on Dearborn Avenue in Oregon Township. William was a salesman in a hardware store. William and Anna had one other child—Doris Jane, born June 17, 1923.

Edward attended Clay High School in Oregon Township and graduated in 1932. After graduating, he became a ham radio operator and enjoyed conversations with other enthusiasts all over the world.

On September 5, 1936, Edward married Vivian Faye Chetister in Lucas County, Ohio. She was 23 years old, and he was 22. He was a glass cutter, and she worked in an attorney’s office. Their first child, Donald Edward Metzker, was born on January 17, 1939. Edward and Vivian had two other children: Larry Alan, born on June 30, 1951, and Linda Leigh, born on August 24, 1953.

According to the 1940 census, Vivian and Ed lived on Dearborn Avenue in Oregon Township. Donald was one year old. Ed was an office clerk.

During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, he was a Civilian Naval Personnel, helping design and install radar systems for aircraft. In 1948, Ed and his father built a house at 608 Robindale Avenue in Oregon, Ohio, where he would spend the rest of his days. He also began working for Champion Spark Plug and remained with the company as a research and development engineer until his retirement in 1980.

In 1953, he joined the Oregon Board of Education. In August 1957, the people of Oregon Township voted to incorporate as a city; Edward was one of the individuals that spearheaded this vote. The timing was crucial, as the neighbor city of Toledo was aggressively seeking to annex parts of the township. Ed was elected Interim Charter Commissioner and chaired the finance committee. In 1958, Oregon adopted a charter to make the city official, and Edward stepped off the Commission rather than take a post as a City Councilmember. He assumed the post of head of the new city’s Civil Service Commission.

Edward, Vivian and their family were members of First St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, where Ed served on the Church Council for several years.

On February 23, 1976, Vivian went into the hospital for hip replacement surgery. Following the surgery, she began to recover as expected. For the surgery, she stopped taking her Coumadin, a medication that prevents blood clotting. On Friday morning, February 27, during her physical therapy she noted that she was having trouble breathing. By afternoon, she had died of a blood clot in her lungs. She was 62 years old.

On October 27, 1979, Edward married Ethel Dora Amsler Swope, whose husband Forrest had died in 1976. He was 64, and she was 65. They had known each other since high school. Ethel moved into the Robindale house with him, and the couple merged their families. Ethel had two sons, Ray and Ron, and eight grandchildren. Ed had four grandchildren and a fifth on the way.

Edward died of congestive heart failure on August 12, 1996. He was 81 years old. He left behind his wife Ethel, sister Doris Meier, three children, two stepsons, 13 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. Ethel died on September 4, 2004, at age 90.