At The Gathering Place, everyone knew Marlena Lechman as a gregarious woman who, during her upswings, was maternal, hardworking and an enthusiastic member of a homeless commission, personally appointed by Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Homeless on and off for at least 10 years, Lechman recently was hired at The Gathering Place, a day shelter where she had been a longtime client.
But in her off cycles, she disappeared for months on end, foundering in an abyss of alcohol-fueled misery.
Friends knew nearly nothing about those times, apart from oblique remarks about abusive boyfriends and blackouts.
Upon hearing that Lechman was found dead in her Capitol Hill apartment Nov. 12, nobody at The Gathering Place quite trusted the report. As shelter staffer Terrell Curtis put it, “The women we know don’t always die so peacefully.”
Her friends, meanwhile, learned about puzzling disconnects between what Lechman told them, and the truths she buried.
She lied about her age. She tweaked her name, changing Marlene to Marlena and sometimes Mariane. Her younger son, Steve Lechman, was living in Denver.
When Marlene Lechman filled out her employment papers last July, she told Gathering Place staff that she had no family nearby.
Apart from offhand remarks, Lechman rarely spoke of the children she hadn’t seen for nearly 22 years. She led people to believe that one son was in prison, and another was dead.
“People who have Marlena’s kind of life experiences might make up things as they go along,” Curtis said. “There was always a barrier, and a big, deep well behind that wall.”
Lechman was born July 20, 1952, as Marlene Mae Matiska. She grew up on a farm in Minnesota. She lived in economy apartments when life was good, and in shelters or worse when times were bad.
In 1995, she failed to appear at a Denver court hearing on charges of prostitution and soliciting. In early 2002, she served time in the Arapahoe County Jail following charges of felony menacing, with a gun, while intoxicated.
Yet when Lechman was at The Gathering Place, she was a model client. She wore discreet makeup. In photographs, her hair is styled, and her face is almost unlined, showing no trace of her hard life.
She often was the first person to arrive at the shelter in the morning and last to leave in the evening. Even before she was hired, she helped fix meals, keep the place tidy and would chastise messy clients.
“She could get pretty (prickly) if other women weren’t doing the very basic things and expecting the staff to do everything,” said Josette Sandoval, who worked with Lechman in the shelter’s kitchen.
“She didn’t let people get away with anything.”
Following Lechman’s 2002 appointment to the homeless commission, where she was among a handful of homeless advisers, The Gathering Place newsletter published an interview with her.
“It’s already hard to admit that you are homeless,” said Lechman, who gave her age at the time as 62. “But I have experience at this, and we’re not going to get what we need unless the commission can hear from women who’ve walked in these shoes.”
Lechman spoke up at the commission’s meetings, apologizing when she thought her words sounded like criticism.
“A true advocate for the needs of homeless women and children,” Hickenlooper said upon learning of her death.
Her friends and colleagues at the shelter mourn the relationship Lechman never revived with her sons, and wish that Lechman had known she had a new granddaughter.
“She would have loved being a grandmother, and she would have been so proud of her son,” Curtis said.
Besides Steve Lechman, who declined comment for this story, survivors include another son in Montana; sisters Shirley Keranen and Marion Osterholm, both of Jackson, Mich., Ellen Swanson of Toledo, Ohio, and Virginia Bjork and Ellen Matiska, whose whereabouts are unknown; and brothers John Matiska of Ironwood, Mich., Jerry Matiska of Jackson, Mich., and Eino Matiska of Bessemer, Mich. Her marriage to Stephen J. Lechman ended in 1984.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
