Maria (Mary) Eva (Eve) Day

John Adam and Maria Eva (Martin) Day were the parents of 15 children: 1. Mary E. (1871, died in infancy), 2. Elizabeth M. (1872), 3. Mary Agnes Clara (1874), 4. Henry Louis (1875), 5. Katherine A. (1877), 6. Mary Margaret (1878), 7. Rose Irene (1879, baptized Anna Mary Rose), 8. William Joseph (1881), 9. Frank H. (1882), 10. Josephine Katherine (1884), 11. George Adam (1885), 12. Anna Mary (1888), 13. Maria Magdalena (1890), 14. Theresa Mary (1891, "Daisy"), 15. Infant Daughter (died at birth)

If one were asked to choose the member of the Martin family who would qualify as having rendered most distinguished community service and who was known, loved, and respected by the most people, this honor would most certainly be accorded Maria Eva Martin, second daughter and third child of John Martin and Elizabeth Bildheimer Martin. Born in Unterhaching, near Munich, Bavaria March 10, 1848, she died in Pilot Grove, Mo. March 9 1937. She came to America with her parents when she was seven years of age and lived most of the remainder of her life in Cooper County, Missouri. on Oct. 13, 1870 she married John Adam Day, native of Ruppertsberg, Bavaria, who was born Sept. 15, 1838 and died near Pilot Grove, Mo. July 23, 1911. John Adam Day came to Missouri in 1869 and in December, 1872 received his Certificate of Citizenship from the Howard County, Mo. Circuit Court, which document is still in the possession of members of his family.

From the obituary of Maria Eva Martin Day: "Following the death of her husband and the breaking up of her home, Mrs. Day became manager of a hotel at Choteau Springs, the well-known summer resort, where for eighteen years she operated the "Day Hotel" and endeared herself to the public who year after year returned to give her patronage and to seek her practical and motherly counsel. She was a woman of wide acquaintance and many warm friendships, a woman whose entire life had been spent serving others, not only her own large family but any who were less fortunate and needed aid."

She was affectionately known to all as "Grandma Day" and in her lifetime delivered more than a thousand babies, often walking three or four miles in sever cold weather. She would deliver the baby and stay a week or longer and care for the mother and family, doing all the necessary household chores. She was always a friend in need, never unwilling to lend a helping hand although she, herself, was mother of a family of fifteen children. Truly, a remarkable woman!

The following article from the Progress Edition of The Boonville Advertiser of July, 1929 will attest more eloquently to the character and achievements of this wonderful woman:

"Eighteen years ago Mrs. Mary E. Day, known as "Grandma Day" began serving chicken dinners at her little hotel at Choteau Springs, a well-known resort nine miles southwest of Boonville. A visit there was not complete without a dinner at her hotel. Not only did local people enjoy the fine food that graced the Day table; her fame spread and often she had folks "from a long way off," rich folks and distinguished who ate the golden brown fried chicken and praised the service.

Although she is now 81 years old, Mrs. Day is still serving chicken dinners. She likes the work. She enjoys having folks around and seeing them eat, even though the work of preparing the meals is arduous for one of her age. "My children don't want me to do it but I get a lot of pleasure out of it," she said.

Mrs. Day was born in Germany, near Munchen, the capital of Bavaria, March 10, 1848. She came to Cooper County in 1855 when she was only seven years old with her parents, grandparents, and five brothers and sisters. The party landed in New Orleans, and came by steamboat to St. Louis, and from there to Belleville, Illinois where they remained for a short time. From there they came to Cooper County, where her father purchased a farm near Clear Creek and later moved to a farm near Chouteau Springs.

On October 13, 1870 Mrs. Day married John Adam Day, a resident of Cooper County, also a native of Germany. The couple went to Howard County where Mr. Day worked on the railroad and lived for two years. Mrs. Day at that time began serving meals to boarders. In the spring of 1872 when construction of the Katy bridge at Boonville was started, they left Howard County and came to Boonville, where Mr. Day broke the first ground for the bridge approach. Later Mr. Day worked in Henry Vollrath's Pottery here, after which they moved to a farm which they bought near Buffalo Prairie. They then moved to a farm formerly owned by her father. Eighteen years later they bought what is now known as the Day Hotel from Homer Edson. Mr. Day died in 1911 and Mrs. Day continued to operate the hotel assisted by a daughter.

From the start Mrs. Day had many guests. She charged only 25 cents per meal, and $4.50 for board and lodging for a week. Many people visited Chouteau Springs during those years and would make the Day Hotel their headquarters. When asked if she had any idea how many meals she served during those years, Mrs. Day replied: "A many, a many meal; one time I remember we had 101 for dinner one Saturday evening. We killed thirty-five chickens, a whole tub full of chicken, and we began frying at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and continued until 6 o'clock. I had five people helping me with the meal." When asked if she specialized in chicken dinners, she said, "Yes, that's what people like best."

Mrs. Day still grows all of her own vegetables and until last year produced all the poultry for the table. She still takes pride in serving chicken dinners to her patrons, and despite her advanced age bakes bread, pies, cakes, etc., and last fall canned seventeen gallons of sweet corn, besides vegetables, apples, blackberries, and many other fruits. Her cellar is well stocked with home-canned products for her table.

Incidents of the Civil War are still vivid to this active old lady. She recalls when three thousand soldiers under General Jo Shelby and General Sterling Price were camped in the vicinity of Chouteau Springs. "One time I remember well the bushwhackers and guerillas took everything we had, even the sauerkraut, and carried it away in their handkerchiefs and in paper. At those times young girls would not dare to walk anywhere by themselves, and we used to ride horseback, and when we passed the camps we would ride as hard as we could and sing 'Way Down in Dixie.' The bushwhackers and guerillas killed and took away much of the farmers' food, livestock, and poultry."

"Grandma" Day still drives her faithful horse and buggy to the Catholic Church at Martinsville, a distance of three miles each Sunday morning. She never lets anything interfere with her church going and regarding this she said: "One must feed the soul as well as the body." She also makes trips to Boonville with her horse and buggy, and when asked if she was not afraid to drive on the highway, she replied: "No, everyone knows I'm an old womans and no one would run over me." In speaking of education in the early days, Mrs. Day said that she did not get to attend school very long as it was too far to walk and after the Civil War began she did not get to go anymore.

"Grandma" Day is the owner of two spinning wheels on which she spun wool to knit into stockings for her family, and also to take on horseback a distance of six or seven miles to be woven into cloth for the family clothing. She also did all the sewing for her family, although she had no sewing machine, besides knitting all the stockings, and doing her other work. "Many a night I would doze while knitting, and would wake up and still find myself knitting." she said. After the wool was woven into cloth, it had to be dyed with walnut bark and indigo in two colors, light and dark, mostly in stripes like a zebra.

Breaking the virgin sod with three yoke of oxen was a man's job even in the early days but this pioneer mother would take her place behind the plow and help her husband in his farm work. "Yes, they were hard days and I would not want to live them over," she said, "and yet, it seems we were just as happy then as now." Mrs. Day is the mother of fifteen children, eleven of whom are living, two in Chicago, one in Texas, one in New Mexico, one in Montana, one in California, and five in Cooper County. She has thirty-five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Besides mothering her own large brood, Mrs. Day always found time to respond to the call of sickness and distress for miles around. "I always keep a supply of turpentine, quinine, camphor, and other medicines in my cabinet to answer the call of the sick," she says.

Some afternoon or evening when you want a few hours of recreation, drive over to Chouteau Springs and before you go telephone Grandma Day that you are hungry for one of her chicken dinners. You will not be disappointed.

Then, after dinner, go out and sit on the cool front porch near the old weeping silver maple tree and listen to the call of the whippoorwill and the plaintive coo of the turtle dove high in the tree top. It will be good for body and soul."

(Taken from "Bernhard Martin and His Descendants" by Agnes Immele Meriwether, 1962)