He was born in Dinglingen, in western Baden-Württemberg, Germany, on December 16, 1892.  Dinglingen was absorbed into Lahr in 1933.  His family were farmers, and had acerage on the outskirts of town.  He studied horticulture at a local school.

When he first came to the US, he stayed with his uncle, who owned a tavern in New York City.  He spent some time bicycling around the eastern US.  He eventually ended up in Coshocton, Ohio, where he married Florence Bailey in 1917.

They had three children; Martha (1919), Willaim Oscar (my fahter, 1924), and Emma Jean (1927).

They lived in various cities in Ohio, and moved to Thermopolis, Wyoming, in 1933. He built his own house, and hunted for meat for the winter.

My father rode a horse to school.  He graduated from High School in 1941, enlisted in the Navy, and served as an aviator, flying fighters from aircraft carriers.  He was later called into service in the Korean War, where he commanded PB-Ys doing weather and reconnaissance runs, and was later a test pilot.  He joined Aerojet in 1955, which was the first commercial manufacturer of rocket engines.  He was an executive in contract administration.

Oscar was a horticulturist and landscape architect for most of his career.  He was instrumental in the design of the Will Rogers State park in California, specializing in finding appropriate native plants.  During the second World War, he went to work for the Navy, who had created a test center for weapns in China Lake, an ancient lakebed in the Mojave Desert.  They had hundreds of families living on base, and needed someone to transform the barren desert into a pleasant living space.  He was able to find grasses, shrubs, and trees that would thrive in the harsh conditions and minimal water there. I always remember it as a kind of oasis.

He was an organic gardener all his life, and swore by traditional methods.  He said he tried the chemical fertilizers and pesticides when they were first introduced, but found the results unsatisfactory. He taught me to compost and recycle, and respect the ways of nature.  He always had a huge backyard garden, with rich loam from his years of applying chicken compost and shredding every bit of garden waste. His fruits and vegetables were the gold standard for me.

He took up oil painting in his later years, and was an active member of the Shrine. He was proud to be a citizen of the US, but never forgot his German heritage.  He made his own sausages, and kept a beer stein close at hand.  In 1968, my cousing visited Germany, and decided to look for his old village. She discovered not only his old family farm, but a brother sitll living there that Oscar had not heard from since the 1930s.  He and my grandmother went to Germany for a happy reunion. 

I have two sons, Ezra and Isaiah, who will be carrying the Glatz name into the 21^st century and beyond.