Page 148 - Always Virginia

136 Virginia Day Fritscher

Shortie and Norine went out to Liberty. Had lots of fun. I got my
new coat and hat. George thinks its swell.
November 6. Shortie, Norine, Jimmie, George, and I went to
Carrollton after Mildred. Came home. Went to Merrigan’s. Then
George and I went riding.

November 7. I worked. George met me. Rode around and then
went out to Julienne. Came home. Went to bed.

Inside the front cover of the Diary, is a tiny scrap of a yel-
lowed clipping torn out of the Jacksonville newspaper, dated
November 10, 1936. The headline reads, “To Return North.”
The four-line text reads, “George Fritcher [misspelled] expects
to leave this week for his home in Heron Lake, Minn., after
spending several days with relatives and friends here.” Virginia’s
note on the clipping, handwritten in ink, says, “Jimmie’s trick,”
meaning her brother Jimmie Day, who, to tease the young dating
couple, had sent in a notice to the Jacksonville social column.
Dating for a year, George leaves for Minnesota to attend
Mankato State College from November 1936 to return in the
summer of 1937 when he came back to Jacksonville to become
engaged to Virginia, and worked for three months with future
brother-in-law Jim Chumley’s dad’s construction company. Jim
was the son of Alderman Thomas C. Chumley, 1231 South Clay
Avenue, Jacksonville. In the fall of 1937, George returned to
Minnesota, and in the early winter of 1938 his fiancée Virginia
took a train to Mankato and stayed a month with George’s
sister, Agnes Tschohl, and her husband Harry, and their chil-
dren. She paid special attention to their then youngest, Bill, on
whom she doted. That month cemented the positive certainty
of the relationship. George returned to Jacksonville on April
12, 1938, the very day Aunt Mag (Day-Stelbrink died) and
George said, “Let’s get married on July 12 on your birthday
and your parents’ anniversary.” So he got a job at Producer’s