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.

Larry and Linda Arrive, part four

"I'm going to have a baby."

Leta could hardly believe what she heard. Her daughter Vivian was 37 years old. She had only one child—Don—who had just turned 12. Her doctor had told her after her last miscarriage that it was not wise for her to continue to try. After that, she had developed the symptoms of being pregnant, but it was a false pregnancy. Vivian and her husband Ed both agreed to stop trying. Now, several years later, Vivian was actually pregnant.

There was joy and anxiety. Vivian and Ed always wanted more children, and now this was about to occur. However, Vivian’s body might react strongly. When she was pregnant with Don, she had to be careful, and with this new pregnancy, the doctor gave her strict orders about rest, activity and stress. She mostly needed to relax as much as she could.

And Leta declared that she would assist her. Two days per week, she had her husband Claud take her to her daughter’s home, where she would clean for Vivian and keep her company. Even though Leta offered to cook, Vivian insisted that she continue with those duties. Both her husband and her son were particular about their meals, and Vivian spent many years developing an assortment of foods they would eat. Leta thought it was all a bit too finicky, especially under the circumstances, but she agreed. On the days she was there, she helped Vivian as much as she could in the kitchen. And she joined them for supper. In the evening, after they had finished, and Leta washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, Ed would drive her home while Vivian rested.

This went on for four months. Vivian was uncomfortable, but careful. She rested, she ate well, and she walked to keep her blood flowing. Twice she was checked for bleeding, but the baby was fine, had a heartbeat, and even moved around quite a bit. In her last six weeks, after one bout of false labor, the doctor ordered her to bed rest.

Initially, Leta only increased her time there to four days per week. Ed was at work, and Don was in school. This gave Leta plenty of time to do the housework and prepare the meals, and Vivian obviously relished the company. One afternoon, however, Don returned from school and promptly asked his mother how she was faring on his school project. Leta was in the kitchen, pouring him a glass of milk to have with the cookies she made and overheard the reminder that the project was due in three days, and he was getting anxious about the sewing she was doing for him. While sewing by hand was a task that Vivian could do in her state, the project required use of her sewing machine, which was in the basement. With Don’s assistance, Vivian rose from bed immediately. Leta met them at the end of the hall. She had a kitchen towel in her hands.

“What’s going on here?” Leta inquired.

“Mom’s helping me make a banner for school,” Don answered.

Leta scowled and gripped the towel tightly.

“Using the sewing machine? In the basement?”

“How else is she going to do it?” Don asked.

“It’s just a little project, Ma,” Vivian said sheepishly.

“You’re going up and down them stairs in your condition?” Leta demanded. Vivian did not need to answer.

“Not any more you’re not,” Leta declared. “Donald Edward, help your mother sit on the sofa.”

“But, Grandma—“ Don whined.

“Do as I say, right this minute,” Leta snapped. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You know your mother isn’t supposed to be going up and down the stairs. It could hurt her or the baby. Or both of them. I’m ashamed of you. You’re supposed to be helping your mother. And now I learn that I can’t leave the two of you alone at all!”

“But, Grandma,“ Don whined again, “what about my project?”

“That’s enough,” Leta interrupted. “Do as I say. I’m going to make your mother a cup of tea, and you’re going to take it to her. Do you understand me?”

Don had turned away. Using her hands, Leta turned his face toward her.

“Do you understand, Donald?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

Then Leta turned to her daughter. Vivian was also embarrassed, but getting weak from standing so long.

“Either you can tell Ed or I can that I’m moving in until this baby is born,” Leta stated. “I’m not going to have any more of these kinds of shenanigans.”

If Ed protested, he never did to Leta’s face, and the following Sunday evening after supper, her husband Claud left on his own. Ed and Don disappeared to the second floor where Ed had his ham radio equipment, and Don had been relocated, so the baby could have the first floor bedroom. For the next month, Leta took over the household, and Vivian stayed safe.

On June 30, 1951, in the early morning, Larry Alan was born. He was a bit small, but healthy, and Vivian had no complications with the delivery. A little over a year later, just after he started walking, Vivian learned that she was pregnant once again, and on August 24, 1953, she gave birth to Linda Leigh, her first girl and third child.

Larry and Linda Arrive, part three

Leta's entire week dragged slowly. The cold weather and snow trapped her in the house, and she spent many afternoons sitting in the living room, listening to the radio and attempting to crochet. While she had always been a seamstress, making and repairing clothes, and as a girl, decorated hats, she had never tried knitting, needlepoint or crocheting. Her daughter-in-law Kathryn liked to crochet, so on a couple of occasions, Leta and her daughter Vivian took lessons.

However, she mostly found herself distracted from the task at hand. She would start a row and then lose her concentration. When she looked down at her handiwork, she learned that everything she had done would have to be undone. The stitching was off. Sometimes she would tear out the bad stitches, and sometimes she would simply put her work down in frustration and pace from room to room.

By Saturday, she was fit to be tied and looking forward to getting out of the house, no matter how cold or how much snow awaited her. She had arranged to go shopping with Vivian, rose and dressed early, made her bed, had her coffee and toast, and was again biding her time, when the telephone rang. Leta rushed from her place on the couch to the small stand to answer immediately.

It was Vivian. She had to cancel their plans for the day, because her 12-year-old son Don had contracted a virus, and she needed to stay with him. They would have to postpone their excursion.

“But have you heard anything from the doctor?” Leta inquired.

Vivian sighed. She, too, was anxious.

“No,” she answered. “I thought I might get the call yesterday, but I didn’t.”

“All right,” Leta said compassionately. “Let me know when you hear or if you need anything. I think I’m going to make some pies today.”

“I will, Ma,” Vivian answered. “Pie sounds good.”

After she finished the telephone call, Leta collapsed again on the couch and did not stir for more than two hours. While she had never been much of a brooder, this time she let the darkness of her mood overtake her. She desperately wanted good news for Vivian, but she feared that once again, the news would be negative. Even though Vivian was a strong woman who had plenty of heartache before, this time she seemed more vulnerable.

Leta was roused by a knock on the door. It was the postman. He was so bundled in his winter clothes that she barely recognized him. He had a small package for her from her sister Mabel. In December, Mabel had sent her a Christmas card, informing her that the package would be coming in January, but she had forgotten. She asked the postman if he wanted a cup of coffee to warm himself, but he declined, explaining that he had many other deliveries to make. She thanked him and sent him on his way before she opened the package. It was a pillow decorated with parakeets and roses. Mabel enjoyed needlepoint and had made it herself. The bright colors made Leta smile. She returned to the sofa and held the pillow in her lap for a long while.

There was comfort in that gesture. It wasn’t quite like Mabel was with her, but Leta felt a peaceful sense that all would work out.

She still needed to do some shopping, so after lunch, she bundled herself up and walked out the door and down the street to the market. She was gone less than two hours and returned with all the fixings for a large pot of bean soup. When she arrived home, she was chilled and brewed herself a cup of tea. She had learned from her own mother that when one was particularly cold, a cup of hot tea was a better warm up than coffee. While she waited for the water to boil, she put away her groceries and filled another pot with water to soak the beans.

When the telephone rang, she was warming her hands near the flame.

“Hello, Ma,” Vivian said when she answered. For a moment, Leta feared her grandson may have become sicker, but Vivian’s tone indicated otherwise. “I received a call from the doctor.”

To be continued.

Larry and Linda arrive, part two

Leta was waiting for her daughter Vivian in the lobby of the doctor’s office. When she made the appointment, Vivian asked her mother to accompany her, and Leta agreed. Of course, Leta already knew the reason for this medical visit. Vivian told her on Sunday afternoon when they ate their weekly Sunday dinner together at Leta’s. Vivian was exhibiting symptoms of being pregnant. This was not the first time she had done so, but since the birth of her 12-year-old son Don, every other pregnancy failed. The last time, Vivian seemed to be pregnant—after three months of morning sickness and bloating, she learned that she was not with child at all. She had wanted too much to have another child that her mind convinced her body that she was pregnant. For Vivian, pregnancy always resulted in heartbreak, and they anticipated that this would be no different. After all, she was now thirty-seven years old and had not even been pregnant in at least six years.

When Leta first saw her daughter’s face as she opened the door from the inner offices to the waiting room, she observed a combination of uncertainty and happiness. Leta put the magazine she had been scanning down and stood. Vivian walked across the room to her.

“Ma—“she started, but Leta could not help herself.

“—You are pregnant!” Leta gasped incredulously. Vivian’s face flushed and tears gathered in her eyes.

“Yes, it looks that way,” she answered, her breath heavy and loud. “We won’t know for sure until the test results come back, but the doctor believes I am.”

“Oh my!” Leta exclaimed, gently slapping her hands on her cheeks.

“I can hardly believe it,” Vivian agreed. For the next few moments, mother and daughter stood in the waiting room, facing each other and smiling without a word.

“Come,” Leta finally said, taking Vivian by the wrist and walking her to the coat rack.

By the time they reached the car on that cold January morning, however, Vivian had become stiff and somber. They were walking arm-in-arm, and Vivian freed herself at the passenger door.

“Ma,” she said and paused.

Leta looked at her.

“Yes, darling?”

“I think it’s best that for right now, we don’t say anything,” Vivian stated. “Not until we know for sure. It doesn’t make sense to trouble anyone for no reason.”

Vivian’s face was clear and determined. Gone were the brief features of joy.

“Of course, darling,” Leta said and nodded. “Mums the word.”

“Thank you,” Vivian said and started to turn.

“But you’ll let me know right after you hear, won’t you?” Leta requested.

“Yes. Certainly,” she said and then continued on her way.

It’s going to be a long few days, Leta said to herself.

To be continued.

Linda and Larry arrive, part one

Vivian was astounded and afraid. The doctor confirmed her pregnancy. But this happened before. After Don was born in 1939, she had at least six miscarriages. After the last one several years earlier, her bleeding would not stop, so she stayed two nights in the hospital. From that point on, she and her husband Ed decided that trying for another child was no longer prudent.

When he spoke with her, the doctor even expressed concern.

“I don’t need to tell you this, Vivian,” he said, “but you are treading in uncertain waters. You are thirty-six years old, and—

“—Thirty-seven,” Vivian corrected. Her birthday was only a week earlier.

“—And you waited a long time to see me. You’re nearly through your first trimester.”

“Yes, I know, doctor,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure at first. There was that time I thought I was pregnant, started gaining weight and so on, and actually wasn’t.”

The doctor sighed. “I remember.”

Vivian had first considered that she might be pregnant around Thanksgiving. As usual, she prepared a feast and entertained her mother Leta and husband Ed’s entire family. She had not been feeling well the entire week, but for the holiday, she rose at dawn to stuff the turkey and put it into the oven. Living in a house with two men meant she did all of the work herself. Having her mother there was helpful. Leta had arrived the previous evening and spent the night. But Vivian never woke her mother for such things. Leta would help her later, but getting the turkey in the oven was a one-person task.

Her stomach was so upset that morning that she made three trips to the bathroom in under an hour. It seemed like morning sickness, she told herself, but that would be impossible. When the family sat down at two in the afternoon for the meal, she was perfectly fine.

In mid-December, she had missed her period for the second or third time. This was difficult to ascertain, as her cycle was very irregular. When she reviewed the calendar one afternoon when a sudden spell of fatigue forced her to sit down, she considered for the first time she that she might be pregnant. She also felt bloated, and her dresses started to become snug at the waist.

At Christmas, her mother asked her if she was putting on weight, and she had to answer that she felt as though she was. While she was no longer the petite young woman she was in 1936 when she married Ed, she was still a rather trim woman. That she had not felt that she was eating more, she was as active as she always was, and she had been sick several mornings each week for a month convinced her that she needed to see the doctor. Her resolve was strengthened during a family visit to meet her new nephew Alan, born nine days before Christmas. Although she had been busy decorating the house the previous day, she had not expected to be so tired. And as she took the baby from his mother to hold, Kathryn noted that Vivian seemed to be different.

“Vivian, did you change your hair?” Kate inquired.

“No,” Vivian answered.

“Are you wearing more make-up than usual?”

“No,” Vivian said. “But Ed gave me these lovely pearl earrings for Christmas.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Kate said. “There’s just something different about you.”

Both let the matter drop and talked of other things. After a few minutes, Vivian stood to change the newborn, and as she knelt to address baby Alan’s needs on the sofa, Kate returned to her prior line of questioning.

“Have you gained weight?”

Vivian sighed.

“Just a little, I think,” she answered, over the holidays. I am hungry all the time.”

Although Kate did not pursue the matter, her demeanor altered slightly. Vivian surmised that she suspected the same thing.

Shortly after she returned home from her visit, Vivian telephoned her doctor’s office to make the appointment.

To be continued.

Dale and Kathryn Chetister

I don't recall that my family was very close to the family of my grandmother Vivian's brother, Great-Uncle Dale and Great-Aunt Kate Chetister. All through my life, I knew them, of course. If I were to see them out and about, I would recognize them. But we didn’t see them very often. They lived in their neighborhood in Rossford, and we lived in ours in Oregon.  (My grandparents Vivian and Ed’s house was three blocks away from ours.)

I don’t ever remember being at Uncle Dale’s house. A year or so before she passed away, my dad and I paid a visit to Aunt Kate at home. She was in her late 80s. I think I drove, but he provided he directions. I did not recognize the outside or inside of the house.

My dad admitted that he did not spend much time with them either, as a child or an adult. When he was a teenager and drove his own automobile, he would lift weights with Uncle Dale, and he went hunting with him a few times. Although Uncle Dale was not a large man (I think of him as being smaller in stature than I), he was a very strong man.

I only once remember meeting one of their three adult children. It was a summer—maybe early autumn—day. I was just coming home from playing or school. I remember that it was a pleasant day. My dad was in the driveway talking to a woman he introduced as his cousin Christine Chetister. As she died in May of 1975, this was mostly likely the summer or fall of 1974. I remember thinking that she was pretty, kind of shy and young. As she was born in 1947, she would have been 26 years old. That was the only time I remember meeting her. I don’t recall having ever met either of her siblings Connie (who has four children) or Alan, who was the youngest. There was another boy named Duane, who they called Sonny. He died in 1948 at age four, long before I was born.

I was more familiar with my grandfather Ed Metzker’s sister’s family. Grandpa had one younger sister—Doris. She married a farmer named John Meier and moved to Bowling Green, Ohio. They had three children—Beverly, Richard and Ronald. I mostly remember that Ron lived was kind of a clown who lived with his parents long after his siblings married and moved out. They had a recreation room with a pool table, and we would play.

I do recall when Uncle Dale and Aunt Kate attended my older brother Jeff’s first wedding in 1983. They were laughing hysterically about their new Buick. It had childproof doors that they had not yet figured out, so Aunt Kate was locked in all the time.

After my grandmother Vivian died in 1976, and my parents divorced and subsequently remarried that same year, my mother still maintained a relationship with my great-grandmother and made sure that my brother, sister and I did, too. (As much as she could, that is. Jeff was 16, driving, and owned a car; I was 13; and Michelle was 11. We were all fairly independent in many ways.) Michelle and I enjoyed visiting with Leta and over the years made many different visits, sometimes with our mother, or on our own, or with our friends. Once I could drive, we went several times a year.

Upon Vivian’s death, whether he was willing or not, Uncle Dale became responsible for Leta. For him, this meant visiting at least twice per week, doing her shopping, taking her to doctor appointments and for other activities, and managing what remained of her finances. (When she went into the nursing home, she was required to forfeit all of her assets, as well as her social security and any pension she may have been receiving. Before she did this, she and my grandmother moved some of her money into an account in my grandmother’s name, so she would still have some ready cash as she needed it.)

As far as I know, Uncle Dale fully accepted his responsibility. I remember that there was some talk about how big of a challenge it was for him to travel from his home in Rossford to the nursing home in Oregon. (The residence was only a couple of miles from my grandparents’ house, making it easier for my grandmother to pop over at a moment’s notice.) However, Uncle Dale retired in 1972, four years before my grandmother’s death, so working every day did not hamper him. Also, as I realized later, Rossford isn’t that far away.

After Leta died in 1985, I don’t remember being in contact with Uncle Dale and Aunt Kate much at all. We had a couple of weddings in my immediate family (both my brother and sister were married in the 1980s that they attended, and of course, my grandfather Ed’s funeral in 1996. My dad and his siblings paid a visit here and there to them that I would hear about in passing. By this time, I was an adult. Although I visited my home community, I no longer lived there. I moved away for college and then graduate school. When Uncle Dale died in 1998, I was living in California, so I wasn’t able to attend the funeral. There was the visit with Aunt Kate a year or so before she died, so I could gather information from her about her own and Uncle Dale’s relationship with Leta. She was nearly 90 at the time, but remembered several things, which are being incorporated into the book. I am glad for that conversation. Since then I have spoken with both of my dad’s surviving cousins—Connie and Alan—who also provided their own stories. All this information, all this family history is being woven into the story of the life of the remarkable woman we all have in common. We are the fortunate ones.