 Her husband, the "postelnic" Dumitrache Motăș, died sixteen years before Zeletin's birth.The latter's father is unknown (one possibility is the local mayor and well-off landowner Neculache Brăescu), and he remained sensitive to the fact of his illegitimate birth, adopting a pseudonym (after the Zeletin River that passes through Burdusaci) to distance himself from his mother's husband.He grew up in a peasant family of the bourgeoisie, which he would later analyze in his work.