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THE WEDDING
Jacksonville Journal and Courier
July 12, 1938
Virginia Day Weds
George Fritscher Here This Morning
Ceremony Performed at Church of Our Saviour
Before Large Audience
Virginia Claire Day, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bart Day, 517 South Church Street, and George Fritscher, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Fritscher of Heron Lake, Minnesota, were married Tuesday morning at 8:00 o’clock at the Church of Our Saviour in an impressive ceremony. Rev. John B. Day, brother of the bride, and assistant pastor at St. Peter and St. Paul’s church, Collinsville, officiated at the ceremony and the Nuptial Mass.
Miss Day was attended by her sister, Miss Norine Day, as maid of honor, and Harold Day, brother of the bride, served as best man for the groom.
Miss Stella Ring presided at the organ and gave a short recital as the bridal party entered and left the church. During the Mass, Mrs. Edward J. Flynn sang the following solos: “Ave Maria,” Charles Gounod, and “Panis Angelicus,” Cesar Franck.
The bridal party entered from the rear of the church with the maid of honor preceding the bride who with her father was met by the groom at the altar, where the bride was given in marriage. The maid of honor was met at the sanctuary by the best man forming an impressive group before the altar.
The bride was attired in white marquisette over white satin, designed floor length, princess style with long train. The puffed sleeves, pointed over the hand were trimmed with inserts of butterflies. She wore a long veil of tulle arranged in bonnet effect with orange blossoms and pearls. The bride’s flowers were a large arm-bouquet of white lilies, baby breath, and white roses tied with a bride’s bow of white tulle.
Miss Norine Day, as maid of honor, wore a peach-colored net dress over taffeta with white slippers, made floor length. Her short veil in halo arrangement was of peach color and transparent. Her arm bouquet was of tea roses and baby breath, tied with blue tulle.
The groom and his best man were attired in white and wore boutonnieres.
Following the ceremony a wedding breakfast was served at the Dunlap Hotel to 25 guests, the members of the wedding party, the immediate family, and a few friends. The color scheme carried out was peach and white, arranged on the tables which were T-shaped with the bride and groom, also with the attendants, with Father Day, at the head of the long table. A bride’s cake in two lovely tiers was cut by the bride who served it to the guests.
After the breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Fritscher left for a wedding trip to Minnesota. The bride wore for her going-away outfit a light blue lace dress over satin with white accessories.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Fritscher graduated from Routt college. Mr. Fritscher later attended Mankato Business college in Minnesota. He is employed at the Producer’s Dairy in this city as an accountant.
Out-of-town guests were: Miss Mayme McNulty of St. Louis; Mrs. Hasen Mueller, Davenport, Iowa; Mr. and Mrs. W. Horn, Mrs. E. Ruyle and daughter, and Mrs. W. C. Cross, all of Carrollton.
OBITUARY
George Fritscher
July 29, 1916—November 6, 1976
Peoria Journal Star
Monday, November 8, 1976
Services for George Fritscher, 60, of 921 Willow Lane, will be tomorrow at Wilton Mortuary and at 10 at St. Philomena’s Catholic Church, with the Rev. John M. Lohan officiating.
Visitation will be from 7 to 9 tonight at the mortuary where the Rosary will be recited at 8.
Mr. Fritscher died at 1:20 p.m. Saturday, November 6, in St. Francis Hospital where he was admitted October 23, after many such admittances during a twelve-year illness.
He was born at Heron Lake, Minn., July 29, 1916, the youngest son of Joseph Eugene Fritscher and Amelia Haberman Pieschel Fritscher. He married Virginia Day on July 12, 1938, in Jacksonville.
He last worked for Trend Kitchens where he was employed since 1969. He was a former manager of the Carson Pirie Scott & Co. appliance department for 18 years.
Mr. Fritscher was a member of St. Philomena’s Catholic Church and the Men’s Club of the church. He was treasurer of the Boy Scout troop at the church and was on the board of directors of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Surviving are his wife; two sons, Dr. John J. of San Francisco, Calif., and S.Sgt. G. Robert of Washington, D.C.; and one daughter, Miss Mary Claire of Berkeley, Calif.
Also surviving are three half-brothers, Henry Fritscher of Santa Rosa, Calif., Arthur J. Fritscher of Long Beach, Calif., and Clarence Pieschel of Dixon; two half-sisters, Mrs. Theresa Kummeth of Cogswell, N.D., Mrs. Agnes Tschohl of Mankato, Minn., and one sister, Mrs. Beatrice Brooks of Columbus, Neb., and three grandchildren. Three brothers preceded him in death.
Eulogy for Virginia Day Fritscher
July 12, 1919—November 14, 2004
December 4, 2004
Jack Fritscher
“Here we are as in Olden Days,
Happy golden days of Yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
gather near to us once more…”
My mother was a force of nature. She was good, smart, witty, and sophisticated. When alive, she lived. She had two declarations of independence: “I want to go where I want to go and do what I want to do.” And, “I don’t care what anyone does as long as they don’t expect me to do it.” She loved her parents who named her Virginia Claire Day, after the Virgin Mary and after County Clare in Ireland. She loved her three brothers and sister. She loved her husband through sickness and health. She was his care-giver for 12 years, from 1965 to 1976, during his 22 operations and six months at a time in ICU at the same time she raised a daughter from 6 years old to 18. Many of you here witnessed that 12-year ordeal and you were there to support my Mom and our family. Without you, faithful friends who are dear to us, this family could not have survived that 12-year tragedy and its post-traumatic stress. I have thanked you before, and I thank you again in the same way my Mom remained always grateful to you.
In adversity, she never lost her cheerfulness. From the age of 15, selling hosiery for 10 cents an hour at Mace’s Drug Store, through the Commercial Bank and Block and Kuhl’s in the 1950s, up through her career in marketing until she was 80, she was a working woman with a job and her job always involved talking with people. She was one of the world’s great talkers. I listened to her on the phone nearly every night for the last 40 years. She loved the telephone. She was also a prolific writer of thousands of letters, most of them to me, and I have saved them all.
She was a photographer since she was 15; her last roll of film was shot 70 years later this last October 31 at a Halloween party where she won first prize for best costume. She was a cook and a baker who was famous for her banana cream pies with six-inch meringue. Her house was white-glove clean. She was a fashion plate who collected clothes. My father’s favorite color for her was blue. So blue was always her favorite color. She modeled her wedding dress at a fashion show for charity here at St Philomena’s thirty-five years after her wedding. She donated her dinner-dance dresses from the 1950s and 1960s to the costume department of a community theater group. For years, at the orphanage out on Heading Avenue, she weekly volunteered to hold unwanted babies in her arms. In 1954, she took a foster son into our home to care for him. In the 1960s, she was caregiver to her grandchildren Scott, Dianna, and Laura.
She loved movies and plays and the actress Alice Faye and Andy Williams. She was an Irish princess whose father had a rare blood condition found only in Irish kings. When she was 73, she flew to Ireland and she hung upside down by her heels, out of a castle window, ten stories up, to kiss the Blarney Stone. She bragged, “Irish and Catholic, thank God.” Yet she understood that for a thousand years before her family was a thousand-years Catholic they were Irish Druids. She knew who she was and she accepted her identity.
Like many of you, she was a St. Philomena pioneer who helped found and build this parish with funds and volunteer work. I was one of the first St. Phil’s altar boys for 16 years from 1947-1963, and when I needed a ride to early mass when I was too young to drive, my mom who never liked to get up early, drove me to serve. She was afraid of cats and mice. Even though she lit up her house on Willow Lane with so many spotlights that we called it “Virginia’s Little Waco,” she was a progressive person.
She was an intelligent woman who changed with the changing times of the complicated world of today. She was a progressive Democrat who voted 12 days before she died. She marched in the streets against war carrying a sign that read “No Blood for Oil.” She was a progressive Catholic who said the rosary, made Cursillos, and prayed nightly novenas. She stood for individual rights for each person. She was free of bias based on religion, race, and gender. She believed racism and sexism and homophobia are mortal sins; but she judged no one while accepting everyone. She didn’t tell you, or me, or anyone, what to think, but she’d sweetly tell those who asked what she thought. She taught me tolerance. She taught me to be myself. No matter what.
She was always upbeat, positive, and the life of the party. She was a musical-comedy kind of woman who was a complex and real human being. Her parents adored her. Her brothers and sisters loved her. You, her friends who are indeed so dear to us from our auld lang syne, enjoyed her because she was never boring. She was a great care-giver who, at times during her life, needed some care which was given by her granddaughters Laura and Dianna who called her almost nightly; by Becky Mohn and her parents Chuck and Dot; by Pat Mullane; and especially by Pam Perrilles and her family, Marie and Jennie.
People sometimes joked that I was her only child, but for the last 26 years she was also cared for by the son-in-law she loved, Mark Hemry, who, most people said, looked more like her than anyone. I am so thankful to see my mother-in-law, Claudine Thomas, here today.
I took care of my mom from the onset of my father’s illness 40 years ago, but really she took care of me from our wild adventures before and during World War II to the present day. She was and always will be my Irish good luck charm. The last thing she said to me before she went into her last surgery was, “I love you, honey. Thank you for everything.” She was a lovely, glamourous person to whom I can only say, standing in front of you all as witness…she was a lovely lady to whom I can only say thanks, my dear, my mother, my mom, I love you. “Angels guard thee, Sweet Love, till morn.”
Funeral Program
Alive, She Lived!
Virginia Claire Day Fritscher
July 12, 1919 – November 14, 2004
A Mass of Eternal Life
Saturday, 11 AM, December 4, 2004
Reverend John Patrick Day, C. P.,
cousin of Virginia Day Fritscher, Celebrant
St. Philomena Church
3300 Twelve Oaks Drive
Peoria Illinois 61604
309-682-8642
Inurnment
Noon, December 4, 2004
Resurrection Mausoleum
7519 N. Allen Road
Peoria Illinois 61614
309-645-2500
Gathering of Friends and Family
at the home of Virginia’s dear friend, Pam Perrilles
1 PM Saturday, December 4, 2004
Entrance Carol
(Recorded)
“Seacht Suailci na Maighdine Muire”
(“The Seven Joys of Mary”)
14th Century Christmas Carol, A Real Irish Christmas
Gaelic Singers, Ronan Browne, Sean Corcoran, Desi Wilkinson
English Lyric Translation ©2004 Jack Fritscher
The first joy of Mary was her woman’s joy
to see her Blessed Baby Son
on Christmas born.
Mary’s further joys
were to see her Son
make the lame to walk,
to make the blind to see,
to make the unloved loved,
to make the young and old
safe and secure,
to comfort the sick
and make the dead to rise.
Mary’s seventh joy
was that her Son
carried her to heaven.
Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Sung Live
Camille McCarty, Soprano
“On Eagle’s Wings,” Michael Joncas
“Ave Maria,” Charles Gounod, J. S. Bach
Virginia Claire Day Fritscher
Holy Mass, Celtic Celebration of Life,
December 4, 2004
Father John Patrick Day, C. P.
Farewell Carol (Recorded)
“Angels Guard Thee”
Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)
Kenneth McKellar, Irish Tenor
Beneath the quivering leaves where shelter comes at last.
All sadness sinks to rest,
or glides into the past.
Her sweet eyes prismed now, in the soft, silken boughs.
O, My Love, calm she sleeps
beneath the trembling stars.
Ah! Wake not yet from thy repose.
A fair dream spirit hovers near thee,
weaving a web of golden rose
through Dreamland’s happy isles to bear thee.
Sleep, Love, it is not yet the dawn.
Angels guard thee, Sweet Love, till morn.
How from the noisy throng, by songbirds lulled to rest
where rock the branches high, by breezes soft caressed.
Softly the “Days” go on,
by sorrow all unharmed.
Thus may life be to thee: a sweet existence charmed.
Angels guard thee, Sweet Love, till morn.
Final Carol (Sung Live by All)
“Auld Lang Syne”
Robert Burns