Andrejs Zekants was the second child and eldest son of Jekob Zekants and Magreete Latīnis. Andrejs was born in 1879 near the town of Talsi in north-western Latvia. He had an older sister, Lizette, and three younger brothers: Karl, Teodors and Žanis. He was the first in his family to study to become a sailor. He attended the Engure Sailing School in the coastal town of Engure and graduated in 1902 as a 2nd Mate/Navigator. Andrejs spent the next 4-5 years working on small sailing vessels like the Alfred buying and selling goods up and down the Baltic coast, but also further afield like Norway and the UK.
In 1906, Andrejs married Lizette Rozenbergs (no relation to the Rozentals/Rozenvalds family elsewhere in this story). They were married at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church. They set up home in the Iļģuciems neighbourhood in Riga. This was an industrial area on the west bank of the Daugava River. In 1908, the couple welcomed a daughter into the world, Emilija Apolonija Marta Zekants. I believe it was around this time that Andrejs and his wife decided to start running a pub on Nordeki Street across from the huge “Rīgas Tekstil” factory.
From 1908 until 1912, Andrejs balanced running the pub with continuing his sailing missions. This life must have been hard. The time away from his business and his family must have been difficult to deal with.
One fateful night in February 1912, a drunk and angry customer named Karlis Upmanis burst into the pub demanding free beer. Andrejs refused. Upmanis was not going to take ‘No’ for an answer and become aggressive. He stumbled down the front stairs, breaking the glass on the pub’s front door as he did so. Andrejs followed him out into the dark, snowy street and yelled at him, saying he would have to pay for the damage. Upmanis pulled a small pistol out of his bag and shot Andrejs in the stomach. His wife Lizette came running outside and was also shot in the leg. Upmanis fled the scene but eventually went to trial a year later. He was given nothing more than a slap on the wrist and was given into the care of his wife. Such was the justice system in those times.
Andrejs was rushed to the hospital but died of his injuries before he even arrived. He was buried under in St. Martin’s Cemetery with a beautiful gravestone engraved with the words ‘Saldu dusu’, which loosely mean ‘Sweet Dreams’. Lizette survived the attack and from then on life for her and her daughter would never be the same. Lizette remarried in 1917 and had a son a few years later. Andrejs’s daughter, Emilija, kept her father’s blood-stained pants for many years until they too become long lost memories.