Page 42 - Always Virginia

30 Virginia Day Fritscher

Mass on April 9, 1967. Mom lived with him there in his rectory at
St. Cabrini’s parish house in Springfield, and she held him in her
arms on the bathroom floor. He was fifty-four; she was seventy-
eight. [This incident is fictionalized in the short story, “Silent
Mothers, Silent Sons,” in the book, Sweet Embraceable You: 8
Coffee-House Stories, by Jack Fritscher, published in May, 2000.]
John used to hitchhike home most every weekend as it was very
safe then to do so. He’d write a letter home and draw a cup with the
handle off with the caption, “Norine broke the last one.” And he’d
draw a donut as a big hint so Mom would have fresh raised donuts
when he came home. I don’t think I ever tasted any as good since.
My Mom was very ambitious for a girl who was raised in a
house with an adoring father and four brothers named Jim, Ed,
Jack, and Will who was a sleepwalker who once climbed a ladder
up the outside of the house with a lighted coal lantern. Her mother,
Honorah, made Mom do all the work. Mom said she herself used
to stand on a little stool to make the bread, while her Daddy “car-
ried her mother around in his hands,” as they used to say, because
she always had headaches, and whenever there was an argument
brewing, he’d put on his hat and go for a walk until the storm
front had cleared.
I can always recall those long, hazy days of summer when she’d
be canning twelve jars of everything for our family of seven and
making lots of jelly. (I used to run around saying, “Seven Days!
We’re a ‘week’ family!”) Daddy had two big lots where we grew a
big garden as we raised most of our food. Oh, those strawberries!
People would flock from St. Louis for a weekend in the country to
enjoy Aunt Pearl’s delicious strawberry pie, Uncle Bart’s delicious
sweet corn, potatoes, and cabbage, and to attend the dance at the
beach. Just the way years later people flocked up from St. Louis
to eat at my brother Jimmie’s famous Day’s Café in Carrollton.
My Mom used to have her wash on the line by 7 A.M., doing
it on a washboard, have a big dinner cooked, and when we came
home from school, she’d have something baked and be sitting