Charles Gardner Griste with his Aunt Forence and Uncle Lee Weaver in Toledo, Ohio 1918.

It was on 30 August 1914 in Toledo.Lucas County. Ohio, that my mother’s cousin, Charles Gardner Griste was born to Charles McKinley and Ethel Jeanette Koontz Griste.  To keep things simple and to keep with the German tradition of using the middle name as the person’s call name, he was always called Gardner.  Gardner was the first grandchild of C.P. (don’t call me Casmear) and Phebie Ann Gardner Koontz and therefore the first nephew of Aunt Ethel’s siblings (i.e. her sister, my grandmother, Florence).

Gardner married first, Loretta White, with whom he had one daughter, Mary Elizabeth (1947).  They were divorced on 2 March 1962.  Loretta died on 15 November 1991.  He later married Vera Emanuel.  Gardner died in Akron, Summit County, Ohio on 9 October 1998.

Gardner wrote the “Bean Man” essay about Uncle Heinie [Henry Allen Koontz] and his charitable work during the Great Depression among the less fortunate in Columbus, Ohio.  That essay was published with Uncle Heinie’s biographic information on 20 August 2018.