A Plea from the daughter of "Old ACE" member, ACE 386

My Dad, Gilbert Schmidt was born 1926 and after 93 years on this earth, he passed away in October 2019. Gilbert always had a passion for art starting a very young age. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the then Milwaukee Teacher’s College (now University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee) and a Masters Degree in Art/Art History from the University of Iowa. Prior to college he served proudly in the United States Navy as a ship fitter. He served our country in WWII from 1943-1944. After College he got his first teaching job at Random Lake High School (RLHS) , in Random Lake, Wisconsin. He taught Art and Art History at RLHS for the next 36 years and then he retired at age 70. Throughout his entire life he ALWAYS was painting. His preferred medium was oil on canvas and his preferred subject matter was any thing that was Train related (steam engines) and anything related to Navy ships. When my Dad when to Heaven in 2019, as his only daughter and his only heir, I had the very difficult responsibility to go thru all his belongings and all of his artwork.

So now you may be thinking, how does ACE fit in? Well, much to my surprise and amazement, I now have 26 ACE envelopes (some with letters inside) from 1942-1943 that my Dad tucked away in a cabinet for safe keeping that I have never seen before. Imagine my delight when I found these ACE envelopes and letters. My Dad was part of the original ACE club and he is/was ACE #386. My goal here is simple – to connect with any/all ACE collectors to see if they have any of my Dad’s letters and Ace Envelopes. My hope is that someone out there has art envelopes from my Dad because I know he responded each person that wrote to him. I am willing to trade any of the Art Covers I have in exchange for my Dad’s.

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