This week’s #FridayFind is… a romance-loving priest?

Written By Dmitri Schmidt

For close followers of our Friday Finds, you might recognize the Rev. Caesar Spigardi from our July post about an incestuous marriage. Before the Reverend accidentally became enfolded into marriage fraud, he was well known in the St. Louis Italian community for helping arrange brides for Italian workmen.

According to the St. Louis Globe Democrat, after exchanging letters with a young woman of his mother’s choosing, the workman would pay for her travel from his hometown in Italy to St. Louis. When she arrived, the groom-elect would meet his bride-to-be for the first time at Union Station and immediately escort her to Rev. Spigardi’s residence to prepare for the wedding. Talk about a quick turn around!

Did any of your ancestors have an arranged marriage? Let us know and send an email to emma@backlog-archivicts.com!

Dmitri Schmidt

Dmitri plays a pivotal role in coordinating Backlog’s outreach efforts. They curate our weekly #FridayFinds and #ArchivalTips social media posts, shedding light on items discovered in our genealogy work and providing tips and tricks to approaching problems in the archives.

Dmitri holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and German Studies from Saint Louis University. During their university years, they dedicated over 1000 hours to interning and volunteering at local St. Louis institutions, including the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis University Museum of Art. As the Collections Intern at the Science Center, Dmitri assisted in developing and installing the "Into the Vault" exhibit.

Before joining Backlog, Dmitri served as a Fulbright Grantee, teaching English as a second language in former East Germany. From guiding 11th graders in analyzing pop albums as poetry to discussing the significance of the civil rights movement with 8th graders, they covered a broad spectrum of subjects. While reveling in connecting with students and injecting fun into grammar lessons, Dmitri's deep passion for all things archival eventually drew them back home.

Today, Dmitri works as a Herbarium Assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden, helping digitize the millions of preserved plant specimens. After being scanned and transcribed, these images aid scholars around the globe in furthering botanical research. Dmitri also serves as the archivist for the Kirkwood Historical Society. They are currently overseeing the “Journeys into Kirkwood’s History” project, which aims to digitize documents related to Kirkwood’s early Black settlements.

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This week’s #FridayFind is… a surname distribution map!