Margaret E Lelle

Margaret Eloise Lelle 2/18/1926 - 6/7/2021

(By Anita Houle Becker and Ryan David Schreiber, her Daughter and Son)

Our beloved mother, Margaret Eloise Hicks Lelle was born February 18, 1926 to a young couple 18 and 22 years old in Titusville, Florida. Her parents, Corine and Floyd Hicks, were 15 and 19 when they eloped from Dothan, Alabama, to Florida, to get married by a Justice of the Peace. She would have 2 more siblings born, a brother, Robert Wayne, in 1928, and a sister, Joyce, in 1931.

At age 3, the Great Depression hit, and she remembered her childhood as one of never having enough food, and her father rarely having a job. The family moved back to Alabama to find work, where her brother and sister were born. After a few years, the family moved back to Florida, St. Petersburg, where her father was a car salesman and later owned a real estate company. Her parents divorced when she was 13, after Floyd met his second wife, Frances.

She graduated from St. Petersburg High School the year before WWII ended in 1944 and she ultimately enjoyed attending class reunions for 70 years.

After high school, she had a part-time job at the Dime Store, called Kress, followed by a career at Florida Power as a bookkeeper. She loved to go dancing at the coliseum, where she met Alfred (Freddie) Houle, a French Canadian from New Jersey. They ultimately married and 3 years later had a daughter they named Anita Arlene. They moved into a trailer in St. Pete and then Trailers on the Gulf in Redington Shores. They then purchased a small home across the street until he contracted pneumonia and passed away at age 32.

Left with a 5-year old daughter, Margaret moved the family to Tampa in a trailer, as she couldn’t bring herself to live in the house. There she met second husband, Fred Schreiber, of German heritage, who was enlisted in the Army, so they married and moved to New Jersey where he was stationed for 3 years. She counted the days to be able to return to Florida. They returned to Florida when Anita was 10, happily moved back into the beach house she still owned on Redington Shores, which they fixed up in order to move to a bigger waterfront home on Redington Beach, when Anita was 11. She loved swimming and walking the beach and they enjoyed lots of waterskiing and parties. At age 41 ½ Margaret gave birth to Ryan David Schreiber, when Anita was 16.

Six months later, they divorced and she was awarded the duplex that they owned on Madeira Beach, where she moved to with her 2 children. She had a long-time best friend named Pam. She took many part-time jobs and managed the rental of her duplex while receiving much help from her mother. One job was delivering flowers, one was demonstrating Kirby Vacuum Cleaners, and one was delivering newspapers.

David had many visitations with Fred and his grandparents during this time. Margaret was dating Arnold Lelle, who was born in Estonia, for several years, and she and Dave moved to Miami for a year to be near Arnold who was working in Miami. When she came back to St. Pete, Arnold also came back very quickly and finally became her 3rd husband and helped raise David as his stepfather. They moved from Arnold’s house in St. Pete to her final residence in Redington Beach where they enjoyed the beach, friends and bike riding the neighborhood twice daily. The couple went on a lovely cruise ship vacation and traveled to Orlando to dance in cowboy boots on many weekends.

One of the highlights of her life was traveling by train to Michigan in January to see her first granddaughter, who was born with Down Syndrome. She had 2 granddaughters born to Anita and Glynn, and enjoyed them regularly after they moved back to Florida into their new home only a few blocks away. She enjoyed taking David to many organ lessons and watching him kayaking at the beach. She walked and swam the beach every morning before daylight with her friend, Rose, until Rose passed away. She managed the care of her own elderly parents and Arnold’s elderly mother until they passed away. Arnold passed away in 2004 at age 81 on his last day of work. After his death, David moved back into the family home to help his elderly mother at 78, as she was very lonely. Fortunately, she was introduced by a friend to a nice gentleman named Nathan, who visited her often and took her out to restaurants and to the beach. She enjoyed his companionship. She also had several friends who met with her regularly at McDonalds. She was so grateful for her son and daughter and family’s help, as her health continued to deteriorate over the next several years with 2-3 compression fractures of her back.

She was very sad that she outlived all her friends, as well as her brother and sister who passed after she was in her 90’s. She loved driving her car and riding her 2-wheel bike and dancing at the American Legion until she was 92. She loved all these activities so much that it was very hard to give them up. David bought her a mobility scooter which she enjoyed for as long as she was able. She was not comfortable on a tricycle, no matter how much we tried. She got very attached to her rolling walker in the later years as a wonderful assistant to her daily walk around the block.

It was her wish to remain in her home, in which her loved ones cared for her with much love until she passed in her home on June 7, 2021, in their loving care.

A TRIP FULL OF SURPRISES:

(WRITTEN BY MARGARET LELLE IN HER OWN WORDS)

My boyfriend had to go to Orlando to find work. He came back for a visit every weekend, but this weekend, he had car trouble and probably couldn’t make it, and he sure would like to see me.

I thought I would surprise him and make the trip to see him, and take my younger sister and a couple of her friends. We had never driven on a trip before—so we got a map. In those days in the 40’s a trip to Orlando from St. Petersburg was quite a trip.

On the way to Gandy Bridge—there was no Howard Franklin Bridge in those days—a car with about eight or ten fellows started following us. We were anxious to start on the trip, so we drove a little faster, but the fellows wanted to flirt with us girls, and kept on coming. All of a sudden we realized their car had flipped over. We were so scared and turned back to see if they were hurt since their car was upside down, but luckily, they were all fine. Then we continued on with our trip.

After a couple of miles later, my sister was hungry. We stopped to get her a hamburger at a little stand that we knew nothing about, and later she got sick for a while. There were no McDonald’s then.

About halfway there, we stopped at a stoplight in one of the little Florida towns. A young sailor evidently in the Navy said hi to the girls in the back seat, and I thought they knew him. He got in the car. I told him we were on a trip to Orlando and might not come back this way. He said O.K. He said he didn’t care and gave me a story about how he didn’t have long to live and wanted to go to Orlando with us for some enjoyment. We thought, “yeah, right!”

When we finally got to Orlando and found out where my boyfriend was staying, the people he was staying with told us he had gone to St. Pete to surprise his girlfriend. Then we had to drive all the way back to St. Pete. The sailor continued to stay with us all the way back. When we got back to my mother’s house where we lived, my boyfriend was still at his mother’s house and had not come over to our house, yet. We were all hungry--the sailor was a cook in the Service and went in the kitchen and prepared us all a wonderful breakfast.

Then, I thought, “What would I be able to explain to my boyfriend about having a sailor there. About then he was knocking at my door and was very surprised that we had been all the way to Orlando to visit him, and he was visiting me in St. Pete, after all.

Then he told me he came also for me to help him bring his car that was here, back to Orlando. He had breakfast with us. Then he, I, and the sailor—don’t know if I ever knew his name--drove back with us, and we ended up dropping him off at the same town, where I had picked him up.

Upon arriving back in Orlando—the second time in one day—I slept on their couch for a couple hours, then drove back to St. Pete as I had to go to work the next day.

After a couple of years, I ended up marrying the boyfriend, and his granddaughter who is writing this story never got to meet him as he died of pneumonia at a young age 32.

Signed: Margaret Lelle

(Side Note from Anita): I actually just found the original letter regarding this incident that my dad wrote to my mom where he begged her to come to Orlando to see him that very weekend! I’m very glad my daughter, Ryanna and I asked mom to put this cute story in her own handwriting a few years ago so we could share it with everyone on her obituary site.

Arrangements were made under the direction of Garden Sanctuary Funeral Home, 7950 131st Street, Seminole, FL 33776 / 727-391-0121.