A little degree of uncertainty surrounds Ed Gein’s familial history. What is known is that George, his father, was a turbulent individual who frequently mistreated his wife Augusta and his kids.

In addition, George was a big drinker, which might have influenced his aggressive actions. Augusta, Ed’s mother, was a devout woman who raised her kids with rigorous moral principles.

Augusta Wilhelmine Gein’s cause of death: What happened to Ed Gein’s mother?

Augusta Wilhelmine Lehrke, the mother of Ed Gein, was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1878 across the Mississippi River from Minnesota. She was one of the eight children raised by Amalia and Frederick Lehrke, German immigrants from Prussia who fled their own country during the mid-19th-century Great Old Lutheran Exodus.

On their 160-acre farm outside Plainfield, Wisconsin, their mother raised Ed Gein and his brother Henry. After Gein’s father went away in 1940, his brother perished in a fire in 1944 under strange circumstances, and his cherished mother died of health issues in 1945.