Ernest Schirm was born in Woolstock, Iowa, the son of Anna Bohy and Michael Schirm. He attended grade school in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he was unable to finish beyond the eighth grade; however, he did attend Marquette University during the last years of his life and was the oldest registered student. By vocation a carpenter, and by avocation a sketch artist, Schirm never married. He was a veteran of World War I, a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, and an active participant for many years in Republican Party Politics in Wisconsin. He resided in Milwaukee for most of his life, including his last years.
Schirm began keeping a diary while a soldier in France during World War I. When he returned to the United States in 1919, he protested by letter and by telegram to the U.S. Army that his discharge was being unduly delayed. Both the letters and the diary were but harbingers of many years of such activity. Throughout the remainder of his life, Schirm kept up a fairly lively correspondence with his congressmen and with the editors of his local press. Considering his educational and vocational background, both the number and the articulateness of his letters is surprising. In addition, he continued to keep a diary. Even though he wrote nothing at all for some years, he did create at least one diary during each decade of his life from 1919 to 1969, thus adequately and regularly documenting the activities and affairs that interested him.
In 1954 Schirm contacted the State Historical Society of Wisconsin to ascertain the extent of our interest in his “Working Man's Diary of Hard Times”, which he hoped would “show some of the problems of the working people, not as a herd of work animals, but as a personality with [their] . . .own problems.” (See Box 1, Folder 1). A representative of the Society examined his papers, expressed interest in them, and his sister, Margaret Quackenbush, transferred the papers to the Society after Schirm's death on August 23, 1969.
Some information supplied by Lorna Semrad.
