LEATRICE YOKAY GREASER HOME AFTER MONTH IN HOSPITALS

 

Leatrice Yokay Greaser, Class of 1950, spent about a month in hospitals after having a heart attack. She left the hospitals three weeks ago.

Leatrice is no stranger to hospitals, as are most of us in our 80s.

 

In late 2015, Leatrice wound up in ER after sliding on her floor.

 

In 2014, Leatrice had two stays in Fairmont hospitals to deal with an adverse reaction to antibiotics she was taking for her sinus infections.

The Kathryn Grayson of Monongah High, as I call her because of her great singing voice during my MHS days, says medical help shows up at her house several days a week to check her blood glucose reading.

For those too young to remember, Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was an opera singer who acted in movies with Mario Lanza, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Mickey Rooney and was in “Show Boat” (1951) and “Kiss Me, Kate” (1953).  

A janitor heard 12-year-old Kathryn singing in an empty stage in the St. Louis Municipal Opera House and introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera, who gave Kathryn voice lessons.

Leatrice recalls “climbing up that hill” to Fairmont radio station WMMN (MMN for Senator Matthew M. Neely, who got WMMN a favorable spot in the middle of the dial) with Mary Jo Forte Richards, Class of 1948, when the two of them sang (Leatrice) and played the piano (Mary Jo) with their own radio show.

Mary Jo later moved to Las Vegas. Her parents were Patsy Forte, who ran the drug store in the center of the Monongah business district, and Mary Romino Forte.

 

Leatrice has trouble with her balance so she relies on a cane or, at times, a wheelchair to move from one room to another.

Physical therapists come to her Fairmont home so often that Leatrice, a feisty one, calls it “crazy time.”

She was in J.W. Ruby Hospital, part of the WVU Medicine complex across from Mountaineer Field.

Leatrice had been divorced from Bill Talkington for 8 years when Bob Greaser showed up at her doorstep. Leatrice’s son accompanied Bob because told her son, “I’ll give you my paycheck if you’ll take me to your mother.”

 

Bob and Leatrice were married until Bob passed away in 2013.

 

Leatrice’s brother, John Yokay, Class of 1953, calls often and they “talk of old times in Carolina,” where they lived when they were attending Monongah High. And sometimes sings to her in Hungarian, their ethnic background.

John played for the 1952 state champ Monongah High football team and once worked at St. John’s School of Boys in Deep River, Connecticut. He lives in Mount Airy, Maryland.

Their sister, Patty Yokay Maddox, Class of 1948, passed away.

John’s son, Steven, a senior paralegal at Astra Zeneca in Gaithersburg, Maryland who lives near his father John in Mount Airy, 20 miles from Steven’s work, has been a big help, Leatrice said, even though Steven lives 3½ hours away. He came from Maryland to drive Leatrice home from the hospital after her weeks-long stays for medical and rehab care and set up a hospital bed ln her home.

Steven has won world national and state wrestling titles in America and in Japan,  including the North American
Grappling Association crown for his weight.

Steven sold his house to live near his father, John.

John has 3 other children, including another John Yokay, a Barrackville High and WVU grad who retired as a teacher in Sacramento City Unified School District in California.

Leatrice chats by phone with Patty Urban Utz, Class of 1950, who lives in Springfield, Virginia; Nathaleen Cameron Oliverio, Class of 1948; and Rose Commodore Cain, Class of 1950, who lives in Fairmont.