Glaser, August Family

By Ann Chrissos

Franz Joseph (1833-1876) and Louisa Hatz (1839-1932) Glaser emigrated from Baden Germany.  They had six children:  Joseph, who married Susan Wardenburg; Frank, who married Emma Saunders; John who died as a teenager; Rose, who married Louis Fick; George, who married Louisa Fanter; and August,  (b. 1870, d. 1940) who married Mary Sander (1871-1907) in 1896. They had three sons:  Harry Louis (1897-1979), Charles (1899-1967) and Homer (1904-1970).  Harry married Ethel Kroenung (b. Jan 1904, d. 29 Jan 1999) in 1923 and they had four sons:  Norvell (Nor), Warren, Elwin and Gerald.  Ethel had worked at the Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Co. in St. Louis.  She named her first child Norvell because she liked the name.  Her husband, Harry, had polio as a child which left him with a limp making farm work impossible.  Consequently, Harry and his brother Homer bought a general merchandise store from D. C. Kroenung in 1924.  Kroenung, Ethel’s father, had opened the store, then after operating it for many years, he sold it to Fred Essen.  A year later he bought it back, and then sold it to the Glasers.   Norvell (Nor) August Glaser (b. 5 Jan 1925, d. 17 Feb 2012) married Mildred (Mil) Alberta Bauer (b. 12 Jan 1923) and they had four children:  Barbara, Gayle, Linda and Neil.  Nor, Mil and their children lived in a house on Wild Horse Creek Road and the children attended Chesterfield Elementary School and Lafayette High School.  Nor went to Eureka High School and Mil went to Normandy High School.  They took over the store from Nor’s parents Harry and Ethyl, who continued to live above the store and to help out.  After Nor sold the store in 1971, he bought a Charles Chip dealership and sold potato chips in a can, pretzels and candy.  When he had a heart attack in 1979, his children kept the business going by driving the truck to make the deliveries.  Nor sold the business in 1986 and retired.  While Nor operated his dealership, Mil worked as a secretary at a sculptor’s studio, Scopia, in Chesterfield Valley.  She has a sculpture of John the Baptist carved from walnut wood and a bronze sculpture of milkweed created by artists William Severson and Saunders Schultz.   For more information, see the Bauer and Kroenung interviews.

Joseph and Louisa Glaser are buried in a private cemetery in Babler State Park. August is buried in St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery.

                   
 

Norvell  (Nor)and Mildred (Mil) Glaser in the 1990s.  Courtesy of Mil Glaser

                     

The Glaser store circa 1930s.  Courtesy of Mil Glaser



Sources
Mil Glaser was interviewed by George and Ann Chrissos on 10 February 2016.

www.ancestry.com

www.myheritage.com