Page 170 - Always Virginia

158 Virginia Day Fritscher

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