Page 177 - Always Virginia

Always Virginia 165

MARY PEARL LAWLER DAY
Interview by Jack Fritscher
May 8, 1972

This interview of Mary Pearl Lawler Day, mother of Virginia Claire
Day Fritscher, and grandmother of Jack Fritscher, who conducted
the interview, was recorded on audiotape at Virginia’s 921 Willow
Lane home, Peoria, Illinois, on May 8, 1972, seven months before
Mary Day’s death on December 6, 1972.
Present at the taping: Mary Pearl’s daughter, Virginia Claire
Day Fritscher (age 52), and Virginia’s daughter, Mary Claire Frit-
scher (age 14).
Mary Pearl Lawler Day speaks, with great humor and warmth,
in a lilting South Midland Dialect, in which “or” is pronounced
“ar.” Her grandson, Jack, as an infant called her “Nanny” and the
name became another one of her names. To some, she was “Mary.”
To others, “Pearl,” a name she hated. To others, as the wife of Bart,
or the mother of the priest, Father John B. Day, she was “Mrs. Day.”
To her grandchildren, she was “Nanny” and “Nan.”
Mary Pearl Lawler, born October 2, 1888, married Bar-
tholomew Day, July 12, 1911, and was widowed February 13, 1954.
Of her five children, three are mentioned in this interview.
Her daughter, Virginia, with whom she lived in Peoria when she
was not living with her other daughter, Norine, in St. Louis. Her
son, John, was a Catholic priest with whom she lived from 1948
to his sudden death in the St. Cabrini Parish house rectory, May
9, 1967, Springfield, Illinois.
A short story partially based on information in this interview
is “Silent Mothers, Silent Sons” and appears in the fiction anthol-
ogy, Sweet Embraceable You: 8 Coffee-House Stories, written by Jack
Fritscher, published in May 2000. Other incidents in this interview