A photo of Shtirka, who is unrelated to our family, turned up in a collection of family photos. Don't have it in front of me at the moment, but it must have been shown as taken in Oberlin, Ohio, where a number of my husband's family, it turns out, attended. In 2001, I had written to the Oberlin College Archives about family associated with Oberlin, and also asked about Shtirka. The Archives responded with her birth date and place, that she studied at Oberlin College from 1905-1908 in the Class of 1909, but left to attend the Moody Bible Training School in Chicago, IL. (Oberlin Archives letter shows her as born in "Haskovo, Bulgaria."
Also just discovered a letter from Shtirka to my husband's grandmother, Ethel Patterson Hopkins, thanking her for money to go toward her tuition, and for naming Ethel's baby daughter Esther, after Shtirka. So Esther must have been a name Shtirka took on. Shtirka was likely a friend of Ethel's younger sister at Oberlin, Faye Patterson. This is all I know about Shtirka, but am posting it in case it is of use to someone. I've also placed her data in "thefarm" family tree at
www.rootsweb.com, even though she does not connect to anyone else in that tree by way of being family.