Kenneth Leon or Lee Gustin (1941 - 2020)

Born Feb 1941 in Ohio

Ancestors

Son of Jesse LeRoy Gustin and Ethel Marie Smith

Died Aug 2020 at age 79 in Ohio

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Glenda Gustin [send private message]

Kenneth Lee was born in 1930 in Ohio. The family was very poor. His father had gotten into an argument with a police officer which resulted in a blow to the head with a police baton, which in turn resulted in deafness which made it hard for him to find work in that area. On the other hand, it resulted in Roy being found unfit for service, so during the time when other boys were growing up during wartime without their fathers, Kenneth had his at home with the family. There was an age gap between himself and the prior brother, so he said in some ways it was like growing up an only child.

Uncle Ken said that once they were so poor they were living in a tent in someone's back yard in the winter. There were times that neighbors took pity on the family and gave them food.

Uncle Ken married once and had one son, who married and had one daughter.

His mother died of complications of diabetes and her death hit the family hard. He was the only one still living at home at the time; his next oldest brother was my father Charles 'Charlie' who was sixteen at the time, and promptly went into the military. Ken was nine years old when Ethel Marie died. He stated repeatedly that he believed she would have lived longer had they lived in a larger town with more medical care available.

Roy was devastated by Ethel Marie's death. He did go to work every day (he worked nights at a factory) but wasn't able to properly care for Ken, so Ken went to live at a group home for vulnerable children. Life wasn't easy there, but he made friends and finished school. He went into the military but I forget which branch.

In his later years he survived cancer twice, one of which was lung cancer caused by asbestos from his work. Toward the end of his life he developed diabetes just like his mother and two brothers. He said that if my father had lived longer, he probably would have developed diabetes too. Uncle Ken always lived in the same area where he was born, and so did his son.

My father had to move away from the area for a while to get a better job, and so he and Uncle Ken weren't close during that time or after. Uncle Ken knew about their first child, a girl whio died young, but not about the second child or about me. We discovered each other just over a year ago when he came onto the internet and facebook. When he heard from me, he had to go to family members to verify who I was because he had no knowlege of another daughter of Charlie's.

We planned for me to go back there and meet, but he died before we could. We had to live sixty years in the space of one.

Thank you Uncle Ken for everything.