This is your life Etta Ida (part 1)

 Etta Ida Meinhardt was my great grandmother. For her 80th birthday party, some of the family got together and wrote out part of her life's story. They called it "This is your life Etta Ida". I've read it dozens of times. It's hysterical. I should really type it out again (once I find it). Well, in the same tradition, I'm going to write about Etta. Though she passed away just after I was a year old, I recognize a kindred spirit in the stories I've been told.

What I've learned most is that she had a personality that was larger than life. This is going to take a few posts.

Etta Ida Luebben was born April 6, 1897 to Fredericka (nee Messing) and Johann Elits Luebben. She was the youngest of six with three brothers (Peter, Frank, and Lewis) and two sisters (Lena and Louise). She grew up in Toledo, Ohio.

Some of the oldest pictures we have of her have been damaged by tape. I've done my best to restore them on my own. If there was a moral to this story, it would be NEVER EVER use tape on pictures. It eats the photo. Still, I've decided I might as well share them here. Wasn't she adorable? And I can imagine quite mischievous.

Her father passed away when she was eight. When she was a teenager, she and her mother moved in with her recently married sister, Louise, her husband, and their new baby. Grandma was working at a glove factory when she met Ernest Meinhardt through mutual friends. He lived on a farm in MI but not farm from Toledo. Back then there were commuter trains that ran.

The story goes that he used to drive the wagon to the stop and catch a train going into Toledo. Meanwhile, Etta would sneak out of work and meet up with him. They'd go to matinees or just run around Toledo. If Ernest was late getting back, the horse would head home without him and he'd have to walk.

It gets better though. When Etta was 19 and Ernest 20, he got it into his head to adopt her. His reasoning was so that he could get her out of that house with her "awful sister". Poor Louise has been painted the villain when in reality she was probably just a stressed out new mother with a younger sister who ran a little wild. I know for a fact that they had a good relationship, at least later in life. If they hadn't, there wouldn't be so many pictures of them together.

Anyway, Ernest (who was only a year older) took Etta off to the courthouse in Monroe, MI. They met Judge Frank in his offices and Ernest explained what his plans were. Judge Frank had a little more wisdom and asked Ernest "Are you planning on marrying her?"

Ernest replied with a yes, to which Judge Frank said "Well, why not just marry her now?" So they got married instead.

That part has me in stitches every time! When I was younger, I always thought he was so much older than her, but they were only a year apart. What in the world they had been thinking, I have no idea.  The story continues that they went dancing somewhere, but Louise and the rest of the family descended on the Meinhardt family farm demanding his head.

Etta in 6th grade (4th from the left)

One of their friends crawled along the porch and heard the whole thing so he ran off to warn them not to come home until it was safe. Obviously they came home eventually and it seems the family got over the apparent injustice of Ernest stealing Etta away.

With Frank and Lewis (on the far left)

When I think of a "happily ever after" couple, I actually don't think princes and princesses and fairy tales. I think of couples like them. Grandma never remarried after Grandpa passed away. She always said that no one would ever measure up to her Ernie. They were truly a pair of soul mates.

They lived in Toledo for a time. Ernest drove a milk wagon and they lived in an apartment complex with a few other young couples. They didn't have much money to go out and this was the early 1900's. Television was not a thing even if radio was. So, when they had nothing to do, they would play hide and seek with the other couples.

Hide and seek? Really? Yup, I'm completely serious. It sounds crazy, but I can imagine it. They would have found it as fun as rolling up the rugs and dancing.

Their first son, Melvin Ernest was born in 1917. Laura Irma followed in 1920. They had ten children altogether, but that's for another time. I'll leave you here for now, but stay tuned for more stories. I'll be writing about her again.