Can You Help Us Return Photos to This Family?

OK, genealogy detectives, we have another mystery for you to solve. You may remember that in early December, we posted some military documents from a soldier named James Ronald that needed to be returned to his family. We got several responses with suggestions of things for us to do, but, luckily, one of our members, Norm Miller, recognized the surname. He made some phone calls, and, amazingly, discovered that a relative of the Ronald family was related to his own family. Several more phone calls later, and the documents were on their way to Arnold, Missouri, where they will be forwarded to the Texas family who has been eagerly awaiting their return. Kudos and many thanks to Norm for reaching out and making the contact!

Now, here’s another good deed waiting for the right person to step up. During the heart of the pandemic, we received an envelope of photos and documents from the St. Louis area that wound up in an antique mall in Michigan. Our resident photo volunteer, Shirley Wadell, has spent time working with the photos, but she has been unable to find a family for this treasure trove. 

The surnames for the photos and documents are Day, Garrett, Wright, Carlson, Fortier, and Schirmer. We have about two dozen photos, mostly labeled with names and dates, and four large rolled-up certificates from the nineteen-teens through the 1940s. Here's a brief synopsis of what we know.

• Charles Francis Day was living in St. Louis for most of his adult life. He was born in Chicago in 1892 and became a carpenter. 
• He married Eva Estella Garrett, and in the 1920 federal census, they had four young children: Eva Frances, Margaret, Maria, and Charles Jr. They had three more children before Eva Estella died: Regina, Francis, and Clement.
• In 1930, Charles Sr. was widowed and was raising all seven children in St. Louis City. 
• Charles remarried to Alma Hoeche, and in 1940, he and his new wife and four of the younger children resided in Jefferson County. 
• Alma died in 1945, and Charles married a third time to Catherine Marie Kreitner. 
• Charles is buried with his first wife, Eva, and some of the children at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
• The oldest of the Day daughters, Eva F., married Herbert Schirmer and then Edward Neff. 
• Margaret Day married John Zanski. 
• Regina Day married Frank Bell.
• Martha Day married Robin Wright. This large collection of photos found its way to Michigan because Martha and Robin Wright lived there. Someone, likely Martha, saved and neatly labeled the photos, explaining family relationships.

Charles Francis Day Sr. and his daughter Regina

Herbert Schirmer Jr., son of Eva (Day) Schirmer Neff

There are Find a Grave pages for many members of this family, and our original donor researched additional information on them using Ancestry.com. What we don’t have, however, is an actual family member who wants these beautiful old photos and certificates. 

If you would like to help, please will you reach out in whatever way you feel comfortable to anyone who is related to this family? If you can find someone in this large, extended family who wants these items, we’ll gladly return them. What we cannot do, however, is pursue this any further. We can't follow any new research leads; there just aren’t enough volunteer hours for the society to do that and still get our work completed, so we are relying on you to please do that for us. Thank you! And if/when you find a person who would like these items, please send an email to publications@stlgs.org, and we’ll take it from there.