Page 25 - Always Virginia

Always Virginia 13

restaurants.] No worthy cause has appealed in vain for
the Judge’s support and he is numbered among Calhoun
County’s most progressive and public-spirited citizens.

John T. Day, Junior’s children, the cousins and playmates of
Virginia Day Fritscher were, as noted: Mary Eleanor Day (Leo)
Roth; the doomed bride Loretta who married the dentist, Dr. Phil
A. Ritter, and died from pneumonia two months prior to child-
birth at 22; Catherine Felice Day (Renard) Hagen; and Judge John
William Day whose son, with Wannie Bell Day, John Patrick Day,
C.P., was ordained a Catholic priest in 1972.
After Judge John T. Day, Junior, married Addie Fowler, his
brother, Joe Day, married Addie’s sister, Ella. Joe was an accountant
and bookkeeper who could play a dozen instruments from the
violin to the slide trombone and in his teens traveled across the
country with various bands before settling down for several years
as a working-partner farming with his favorite brother, John T,
Junior, who was also musical. Joe and Ella ran a farm in Gresham
Hollow just a couple miles south of Hamburg.
Virginia Day Fritscher wrote in 1980: “Two of my daddy’s
brothers married sisters and their children always let us know they
were double-cousins more related to each other than to us. They
always called their parents ‘The Folks’ and when they’d come over
unexpectedly some Sunday afternoon, they’d tell us kids the ‘The
Folks’ were planning on staying for supper so we’d tell mom and
she’d have us go down to the store and get some choice cold cuts,
etc. as we had our big dinner of roast or chicken at noon, and need-
less to say after feeding seven, there wasn’t enough for four more....
They both, uncle John and uncle Joe [the two oldest brothers] ran
huge apple orchards.”
Virginia added in 1982: “My uncle John’s son, John W., my
cousin who married Wannie Bell, is now a judge in Granite City.
I’m also very proud that my brother Jimmy’s son [James W. Day]
is now a judge continuing our family heritage of three judges in