This is one of those times. I have mentioned that when I
want to verify an historical event or a fact, there are getting to be fewer and
fewer resources. They keep dying on me.
Take Ted and Leeta. I think their last name was Mertz. I
think that is the way to spell her name. I know it rhymes with “Rita.”
My mother and Leeta were born on the same day about a mile
apart west of Genoa on the Belgrade road. This is not “they have the same
birthday,” but it was the SAME DAY! They were neighbors and it was October 31, 1910. Halloween. My mother often
tried to dignify it as All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints Day, but
it was Halloween just the same, a day of pranks and costumes.
Once each year, on a Sunday near their birthday, they would
get together. To my knowledge, they had no other connection and those Sunday
dinners at the Mertz home in Leigh, Nebraska, glow in my mind with extreme
discomfort. Those were the days when kids were not supposed to misbehave or be
rude. Or spill. Yech.
This was not something that would be memorialized in the
paper or anything. The only people who might remember are gone. They had a
daughter, Nadine, but she was just a myth to me—I never saw her. She was talked
about, canonized it seemed to me. What a perfect daughter. The fear
that has crept in revolves around the characters on the “I Love Lucy” show.
Fred and Ethel. Was their last name “Mertz?” Is that what I’m remembering? Was
it really “Ted?” Am I remembering this very minor event in a long life properly?
There is no one to ask. Maybe this is the first sign of dementia?
Regardless, I sure would like to know how the hell to spell
Leeta.
