Everyone is from Toledo, they just don’t know it. And I have the evidence.

My hometown, Toledo, Ohio, has a population of 279,800. I asked my husband Bernard, a Harvard Ph.D. mathematician, what the chances were of my encountering people with connections to Toledo in random conversations with strangers in Washington D.C. and New York City. He did some fancy statistical work and came up with one in 600.

I question my husband’s math ability because my experience does not bear out his calculation. I estimate two in 10 of the people I meet are connected to that metropolis at the western end of Lake Erie, the 71st largest city in the United States.

In 1986, after I had lived all over the U.S. and in South America, we moved to the Washington D.C. area. Meeting new people, I mentioned I was from Toledo, sometimes adding that my great-great-grandparents had lived there and my great-grandfather had been drafted from Toledo into the Spanish-American War.

A strange thing began happening. Often, my new acquaintance either (A) was from Toledo, (B) had a parent or close relative born and raised in Toledo, or (C) had attended the University of Toledo. I would ask if the person knew the Toledo song. Often, we would sing it together. Every Toledoan of a certain age knows the song. We grew up with it. My grandmother sang it to put me to sleep, though it is hardly a lullaby.

Here is our sacred hymn of Toledo solidarity. I sing it while I am dusting my living room.

THE TOLEDO SONG

We’re strong for Toledo

T-O-L-E-D-O

The girls are the fairest

The boys are the squarest

Of any old town that I know

We’re strong for Toledo

T-O-L-E-D-O

We’ll all stick together

In all kinds of weather

In T-O-L-E-D-O

During my 28 years in the Washington area, my encounters with Toledo-connected people proceeded apace in social settings, medical interventions, car maintenance, what have you. In the middle of an unpleasant biopsy, I was lying on an examining table. The technician tried to calm me. “Where are you from?” she asked casually. I responded “Toledo” in as strong a voice as I could muster. “Oh,” she said, “so am I.” We sang the Toledo Song together while the doctor poked me with sharp instruments.

I found Toledoans at my husband’s Harvard gatherings. I attended a Bennington College event and met the husband of a classmate, a University of Toledo alum.

My Pilates instructor was originally from Toledo. Her mother and I had studied ballet with Marie Bollinger Vogt, the legendary founder of the Toledo Ballet.

The head of the Toyota service department gave me a good deal because he had fished on Lake Erie with my uncle. A former French teacher from my high school — Ottawa Hills — bought a condo four floors above mine.

On and on it went. Toledo people everywhere in the Washington area. Then, two years ago, we moved to Manhattan. The Toledo pace picked up.

My pulmonary specialist at New York University Medical Center had done her residency at Mercy Hospital where I was born. My internist’s patient before me was from Toledo. “She was lovely,” he said. “Toledo must be a nice place.”

At a wedding reception I was delighted to meet the bride’s brother. He had a job in Moscow, Russia, where he had a colleague who grew up in Toledo. “Every day the guy wears a T-shirt with the name ‘Tony Packo’s Cafe’ on it. I guess he misses his hometown restaurant.”

At a performance of Ballet Hispanico I struck up a conversation with my seatmate. I told her I was from Toledo. “Do you know Judge Franklin?” she asked. “Of course,” I said, “there isn’t anyone in Toledo who hasn’t heard about Judge Franklin. He was a distinguished jurist, one of Ohio’s first African-American judges. My grandfather and the judge were friends.” Judge Franklin was her first cousin.

People often exclaim “Holy Toledo!” to express surprise or shock. Corporal Klinger, a fictional Toledoan played by Toledo native Jamie Farr, used it liberally on M*A*S*H. There are several theories about its origin. Perhaps it was a reference to the holy city of Toledo, Spain. After King Alfonso VI of Castile kicked the Moors out of Toledo, it was a surprise that a city so steeped in Moorish culture became one of the great centers of Christianity.

I prefer another possibility reported in 2014 by The Press, attributed to “a former policeman who joined the city police force in 1931. At that time, there was an alleged agreement between the police and underworld safecrackers (also known as box blowers and nitromen). Safecrackers would not be harassed if they would refrain from their activities in Toledo. Consequently, they could complete a job in Detroit or Cleveland or elsewhere and then retreat to Toledo — the ‘Holy Land’.”

“Everyone is from Toledo,” I often say to Bernard as we are drifting off to sleep. “Yes, dear,” he answers patiently and sleepily. I met my husband in Salt Lake City. His father was born and raised in Toledo.

Roa Lynn was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. Her writing has appared in the New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek.

First Published April 27, 2018, 8:45 p.m.