Mary Darlene Glaser
July 10, 1916 – March 9, 2014
A Tribute to Darlene Glaser
Darlene was the ultimate wife, homemaker and mother.
She was born in Iliff, Colorado and grew up on a farm. She graduated from Iliff High School and in 1937 moved to Colorado Springs. In 1938 she married Eugene Glaser and gave birth to two children, Barbara on August 1, 1939, and two years later, to the day, Burton. They purchased their home in 1943 where, 71 years later, she passed away at the age of 97.
She is survived by a sister, Dorothy Alcott of Fort Collins, Colorado; her daughter, Barbara Fairburn of Phoenix, Arizona; grandson, Christopher Glaser (wife Kathy) and 2 great-grandsons, Jadon and Micah, of Chandler, Arizona; daughter-in-law, Charolette Glaser, and granddaughters, Kimberley Glaser and Jacqueline Jensen (husband Tony) and 3 great-grandchildren, Ashley, Owen and Cecilia of Colorado Springs. She was preceded in death by her husband, Eugene Glaser; son, Burton Glaser; brother, Charles Atkinson (wife Gerty); sister, Lois Holly (husband Frank); and sister, Garnet Dargue (husband Donald).
Services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 14, 2014 at the Shrine of Remembrance “America the Beautiful” Chapel. A reception will follow at the Olympian Plaza Reception and Event Center, 975 South Union Boulevard.
BELOW IS HER EULOGY —-
Mother was the epitome of a wife, homemaker and mother. She is one of the last of the western pioneering woman. Born July 10, 1916, Mary Darlene Atkinson in Iliff, Colorado on a farm where she worked the fields along with the hired help. They ate only what they could grow. The chickens gave them eggs and meat and the cows produced the milk they drank. It was a sparse and barren life. Cold, cold winters and hot, hot summers. She left Iliff after graduating from high school for Colorado Springs looking for a better life. She was interested in the medical field so she got a job as a nurse’s aid at St. Francis hospital. In 1938 she met and married a young handsome man from Calhan, Colorado, Eugene Glaser. 1939 their first child was born, Barbara and two years later to the day, August 1st, their second child, Buddy was born.
She survived the disparate years of the Dust Bowl of the 20’s, the Depression of the 30’s and of World War II, which none of us today have had to endure. After starting her family just before the War started, times did not get any better. All efforts and manufacturing were directed toward building our armed forces for the war. It was very difficult to find housing, but they felt lucky to have rented a motel with a kitchenette, bathroom and one bedroom located on North Nevada where she lived, ate and slept with 2 babies to raise and a husband to care for who worked for Aircraft Mechanics building airplanes for the Army Air Corps. In 1942 her mother and father had to leave the farm in Iliff. They came to Colorado Springs but could not find a place to live so mother opened this tiny motel space for them… 4 adults and 2 babies in this one bedroom motel room. It was these hardships and conservative living that honed these people creating what has become known “The Greatest Generation.” We don’t think about the women so much being part of the Greatest Generation, but they were there partnering with their husbands, shopping for food with their allotted food rations, doing the cooking, scrubbing floors, hand washing clothes on a scrub board, ironing, raising kids on very little money! I regret not talking to and giving my mother credit about her being a large part too of the “Greatest Generation.”
In 1943 they bought the house at 1817 N. Wahsatch. They started H and G Welding business in 1945 and Mother did the bookkeeping for the company for many years along with her other jobs. Later the business grew under the direction of my brother, Buddy, and today is a successful steel and welding business, Glaser Steele.
She had a talent for many crafts like sewing clothes for herself and for my school clothes and many costumes for my school activities, needlepoint, knitting, china painting, leather tooling and crocheting. On the walls of her home you will see hanging many, many needlepoint creations. Ann McKissick now married name, Hastings, a childhood friend of mine remembers fondly a blouse she made for her because she liked a blouse mother had made for me. We all have samples of her china painting on dishes, pen holders, money clips, bookmarkers and other china pieces. She made moccasins, billfolds, belts using fine leathers for all of us in the family at that time. We didn’t give her the credit she deserved for the artistic talent she had. She was so very particular about the crafts and would not tolerate sloppiness in any of her crafts, especially sewing.
Her summer gardens were always the best and this is one talent she posed that rubbed off on her kids. Buddy and Charolette planted a garden for years and taught Kim, Chris and Jacque about growing vegetables, which they still do today. I plant a spring garden in Phoenix using the lessons I learned from childhood. Mother canned and froze the veggies she grew, not wasting a one. We will all miss her canned dill pickles, peaches, tomatoes and beans she stored in the old coal room in the basement. It is sad to go to that room and see the Kerr and Ball Mason jars on the shelves empty of all the fruits and vegetables we all enjoyed so much.
Mother was the true matriarch of the family. She was a great cook and had family gatherings always at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, all birthdays, Sundays and other occasions. She was a quiet private person but had many special friends especially her neighbors, one in particular Bob St. Helens who has lived next door for 32 years and had visited her every day. I believe he treated her as if she were his mother. We all appreciate Bob for his kind and loving interest in her and I know she was grateful for Bob’s daily visits. Every Tuesday was Popeye’s Chicken day. Bob went to Popeye’s and brought dark meat chicken legs for mother. You know you should eat white meat, the dark meat is full of cholesterol. She said “I am 97 years old, don’t tell me what to eat!”
Charolette has memories of the infamous Ross Auction days when she and mother went to the auction just to see what was for sale. She taught Charolette how to bid. That was the undoing of Charolette…
The grandchildren all have different memories of their grandmother. Kim will never forget the wonderful cooking aromas coming from her kitchen. Kim is a super chef in her own right, but was influenced by her grandmother’s ability to make everything she cooked taste wonderful. Jacque learned to sew, but what made an indelible lesson on her was that in sewing you must do it right, don’t be wasteful, or you redo it! Today Jacque makes clothes for her daughter. She also remembers the Greek Moussaka her grandmother prepared and special chocolate cookie and candy favors she made to decorate the table for Thanksgiving dinners. And as for me, I took mother’s artistic talents not in crafts of sewing, china painting or leather tooling, but in the direction of interior design and had a successful business in Arizona.
I really believe mother was one of the original environmentalists. She did not recall this lesson I learned from her, but I remember on camping trips when we fished the mountain streams, she would tell us not to spit into the streams because someone downstream might be drinking the water! I have respected the flowing waters ever since!
Mother was a true Broncos and Rockies fan. She never missed a game. During the baseball season her days were planned around the game… no matter what! I am sure she will be watching all the Rockies and all the Broncos games from where she will be residing.
The Atkinson blood is present across Colorado from the farms of Keensburg, to the cattle ranches in Fleming and as far away as Thailand where an Atkinson descendent has helped create a successful family abroad. Its strength and endurance has helped build successful family businesses of today where Buddy continued to build the welding and steel business until his death to farming and ranching.
We learned “Work is good.”
She was truly a large part of the Greatest Generation.