IN LOVING MEMORY OF GLENN ELMORE
April 2, 1916 to October 24, 2009
Glenn Elmore was born on April 2, 1916 in Topeka, Kansas to his mother Geneva and his father Leo. Leo was the son of Freeman and Rose Elmore.
performance of the classic role of
“The Prince of Good Fellows”.
Freeman was the President of the Shawnee State Bank. Freeman was a boy during the civil war in Missouri and remembered Lincoln’s assassination. (Listen to his summary of his life in the audio section.) The Union army was stationed near Freeman’s log cabin and as a boy he wandered to the camp. The surgeon set him up with a bag and some sugar pills and called him Doc. The nick name stuck and he was always called Doc. Rose was musical and let Glenn play her records thus inspiring his lifelong love of music. She also wrote plays for Glenn and his brothers. Glenn was less than enthusiastic about those command performances.
Freeman and Rose had three children, Leo, Glenn’s father, Dick (See 4th of July picture with Glenn and Dick’s daughter Ernestine; later mother of cousin Rob.) and Lucille, called Aunt Luke. Lucille became a famous ventriloquist. (See her brochure [pdf 784k] and a picture of her visit with Glenn and family in Ohio, inside.)
Leo, Glenn’s father, also worked at the bank. Leo played the saxophone and marched with Marshall’s band. When Sousa came to town, Leo and his band played with the great Sousa. 
Geneva, Glenn’s mother, was a book keeper at Hill’s packing house. Glenn was the oldest of four boys. His brothers were Dale (deceased), Neil (deceased) and Wayne who now lives in Washington State. When Glenn was 11 he read the large headlines about Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic.
Glenn graduated from the newly built Topeka High School in 1934. He had studied piano and was the accompanist for the glee club. Also while there, he and four friends each put in $5 to buy a used Model T Ford. (Listen to what happened on a trip to Kansas City in that car.) Glenn was inducted into the Topeka High School Hall of Fame in 2007. A video of his acceptance speech is inside.
He went to Washburn College in Topeka and received his degree in Chemistry. After working for a year at Hill’s packing house he went on to Georgia Tech and received his Master’s Degree in Chemistry. He taught chemistry there for a year. He remembered the movie premiere parade for Gone With The Wind during that time.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor brought on WWII and Glenn found himself in the defense industry; first at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) working on gun cotton and then later at Oak Ridge, Tennessee working on the use of water as a coolant for the atomic reactor.
After the war and while still in Oak Ridge, Glenn met Bessie Cantrell, called Bess, a secretary for the Chairman of the Board of Education. It happened that Bess had recently moved to Oak Ridge from Detroit where she was a secretary for the President of Briggs Manufacturing, then manufacturing B-17 airplane wings. Bess’s father died and Bess returned to be near her mother Julia. 
Bess, Julia and Bess’s niece, June, moved into an apartment together. June had a boyfriend, Smitty. There was a new dance hall nearby and June and Smitty wanted to go there to dance but Smitty didn’t have a car. However, Smitty lived in a boarding house with a fellow named Glenn who had a car. June begged Bess to go on a blind date with Glenn so they could all go dancing. Bess finally agreed and she and Glenn married six weeks later. They were both 32.
In 1950 while once again working for the TVA in Florence, Alabama, Glenn and Bess had a baby boy called Van. Glenn’s career then took him to Ohio where he worked for the Kettering Foundation. While there he had an invention of a fuel cell that was eventually used in the Apollo Space Program (view the Fuel Cell patent [pdf 804k]). In 1962 the family moved to Vestal, NY where Glenn finished his Career working for IBM. During his tenure at IBM, Glenn had a sabbatical and taught chemistry at Spellman College in Atlanta.
After retirement in 1981, Glenn and Bess traveled to Europe. Unfortunately, Bess died in 1982 (read her life story [pdf 432k]). Glenn continued his travels and saw much of the world.
Glenn lived independently until November of 2008. He loved playing his organ and listening to classical music. In November of 2008 Glenn moved from Ft. Myers, Florida to be near his son, Van, in Denver, Colorado. He moved to his son’s home in Colorado in June of 2009. He died peacefully in his son’s home on October 24, 2009. He is survived by his son, Van, Van’s wife Kris, his brother Wayne and by many nieces, nephews and cousins.
Inside the website are pictures, recordings, a video and a slide show. You can download pictures and recordings. You can also leave a message in the guestbook that will be posted on the site after appropriate review. If you would like to add to the site, please contact me with your suggestion. Thank you for your memories of Glenn Elmore. Those memories and the way he interacted in all of our lives are his true legacy.