Glenn Allan Abbey was born June 12, 1898 in the City of Dodgeville, Iowa Co., WI and died January 28, 1962 in the City of San Antonio, Bexar Co., TX at age 63. He was the son of William Searle Abbey of Clarke Twp., Durham Co., Canada West and Ida Elmira Blake of Orion Twp., Richland Co., WI.
The 1900 U. S. Census taken on June 26, 1900 shows William Abbey (age 47) is a farm laborer born April 1853 in Canada of English and Canadian-born parents, and renting his home in Dodgeville, Dodgeville Twp., Iowa Co., WI. Living with him are his wife of twenty five years, Ida Abbey (age 48) born September 1858 in Wisconsin of Pennsylvania-born parents. All of their children (except for Iva who had married and Ruth who died) are living in the household in the city of Dodgeville, Iowa Co., WI. Irwin Abbey (age 24) born May 1876 is a traveling stationery salesman; Maude Abbey (age 18) born December 1881 is a dressmaker; Emma Abbey (age 16) born February 1884; Truman Abbey (age 14) born May 1886; Eda Abbey (age 5) born March 1895; and Allen Abbey (age 2) born June 1898. All of the children were born in Wisconsin.
The 1910 U. S. Census taken on April 21, 1910 shows William Abbey (age 57) born in Canada to Canadian and English-born parents and emigrating in 1860 is a farm laborer who owns his own home in 1st Ward, City of Dodgeville, Iowa Co., WI. Living with him are his wife Ida Abbey (age 51) born in Wisconsin to Pennsylvania-born parents with 7 of her 8 children still alive. Also at home: their unmarried daughter, Edna Abbey (age 21) born in Wisconsin; and unmarried son, Allen Abbey (age 11) born in Wisconsin.
The 1920 U. S. Census taken on January 5, 1920 shows Glen A. Abbey (age 21) born in Wisconsin to Wisconsin-born parents is an unmarried bookkeeper in a brass factory who is lodging with the F. D. and Amanda Ambrose family at 710 Dayton Street, Kenosha, Kenosha Co., WI.
The 1930 U. S. Census shows Glenn A. Abbey (age 32) born in Wisconsin of Canadian and U.S. parents is an American Vice Consul in the Foreign Service of the U. S. A. living in Johannesburg, Transvaal, Union of South Africa as a boarder in the Edward Lawson household.
Glenn Allan Abbey died January 28, 1962 in San Antonio, Bexar Co., TX at age 63. He is buried in Mission Burial Park, San Antonio, Bexar Co., TX.
Please click on the birth certificate for Glenn A. Abbey, found in the Iowa County, Wisconsin courthouse in Dodgeville: PDF File of birth Glenn Allan Abbey
Proof picture of Glenn A. Abbey
News and Views of Glenn Allan Abbey
HISTORY OF GLENN ALLAN ABBEY
Edited reflections of Atty. Albert M. McNeel, Jr. - Son-in-law of C. T. Abbey
Glenn was a boy about 10 years old when Mr.
C. T. Abbey left home. C. T.
Abbey was very private with his business, and he definitely did not like anyone
prying into his affairs. Glenn said that one day C. T. left the house, and that
he, Glenn, went upstairs to go through C. T. Abbey's drawers to see if he could
read some papers that he thought Mr. Abbey had put up there. Glenn heard the
front door open and realized that C. T. had returned for some reason. Glenn knew
that C. T. would really get tough on him so Glenn jumped from the top to the
bottom of the stairs in one jump and ran out of the house so he wouldn't get
caught.
Glenn Abbey, compared to his two brothers, was not at all athletic,
and instead of playing baseball in the afternoon, he liked to go by and visit
the old ladies with his mother and get some chocolate and cookies. Glenn Abbey
was born in 1898, so in 1917 or 1918 he was drafted into the Army. However, not
being athletic, he fell while jumping across a ditch and hurt himself. As a
result of this disability there was some provision for the government to pay for
some education for him so Glenn went to Chicago and went to a business school
where he learned short hand. He then went to Washington, D.C. and went to
Georgetown University there to study up so that he could go in the Foreign
Service. In order to support himself he taught at a school there. One time the
man he taught for didn't pay his salary when it was due, but Glenn also drove
the school bus so Glenn said he hid the school bus and didn't give it back until
the man paid his salary up to date. Anyway, Glenn also tutored some of the
senator's sons and this made some good connections for him, and in 1926 he
obtained a job as some kind of a civilian advisor to the army in Haiti and then
the next year he obtained an appointment as a Foreign Service officer.
Glenn, after Haiti, went to Nicaragua with the Marines and was there
for a year or so, and then he was sent to Venezuela where he was some kind of a
third secretary in the embassy and was also a consulate official. Glenn said at
one point that the ambassador was supposed to go to some very important,
official function with the dictator Gomez, but the Ambassador could not speak
Spanish at all, so he had Glenn go with him as an interpreter. Glenn said the
only problem was that the day that he got there he had a severe case of
dysentery and that he was not in good shape, but that he got through it. He said
one thing to begin with the dictator decided to tell jokes, and he told some
jokes, and Glenn said that it is impossible to translate a joke from one
language to another and that he was supposed to tell the dictator some jokes so
he just told him some Spanish jokes that he knew, and did not attempt to tell
him any English jokes, but it was a great success. After this Glenn was brought
back to Washington, D. C. probably in 1933 or 1934 where he was entitled to stay
for about two years, and he purchased an automobile. Glenn had never owned an
automobile before because he had always lived in a foreign country since he had
been old enough to drive and had enough money to buy a car. However,
immediately, he was ordered to go to Paraguay because Glenn was single, and
Paraguay was a very bad post. The reason he was sent to Paraguay was that the
Ambassador was the son of the Republican Whip in the United States Senate, and
the Embassy residence was also the same place where the Embassy was located, and
one morning about 10:00 a.m. an American lady had gone to the Embassy to do some
business when the Ambassador came down the stairs of the Embassy naked.
Apparently the Ambassador had a serious drinking problem and had been very drunk
the night before, and didn't know what he was doing. Anyway, the lady reported
this to the government and thought that the Ambassador should be fired. This got
back to the Ambassador, but the State Department could not fire him because his
father was so prominent in the Senate. The story is that the Ambassador thought
that the First Secretary is the one, who had caused all this trouble, and he
hated the First Secretary, and the First Secretary had instructions to leave on
the first boat after his replacement arrived. So, it was in this atmosphere that
Glenn was appointed as the First Secretary in Paraguay to replace the man who
had to depart. Glenn enjoyed being in Paraguay and was there for a couple of
years I believe. When Glenn arrived in Paraguay it apparently was just after the
second Chaco War between Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and some of the other South
American countries. Evidently, back in the 1800's, Paraguay had been one of the
largest countries in South America, but the neighboring countries had made war
on them. I believe that the first Chaco War had been about 1880.
Without the benefit of documents, the following is a brief history of
the later events in the life of Glenn Abbey.
After being in Paraguay for a couple of years, Mr. Glenn Abbey
probably served briefly in Uruguay and perhaps Argentina. In 1938 he was
transferred back to Washington and put to work as one of the people charged with
codifying the protocol of the Foreign Service. Mr. Abbey lived in Washington and
worked there until 1940. About the summer of 1940 he was transferred as a Third
Secretary to the Embassy in London. Mr. Abbey was in London during the Blitz and
until 1943. While in London, Mr. Abbey never went to a bomb shelter, preferring
to take his chances in his apartment where he was more comfortable. This was a
very busy time. He first served under Ambassador Joseph Kennedy. In that time,
he became friendly with the Kennedy children, and evidently was instrumental in
assisting one of the daughters in her marriage to a British officer. Also during
that time Joe Kennedy ordered Mr. Abbey to do something which Mr. Abbey thought
was not correct, and upon being threatened with discharge or efforts to obtain
his discharge, Mr. Abbey finally told Joe Kennedy that he would do what Mr.
Kennedy ordered him to do if Mr. Kennedy would put it in writing, but Mr.
Kennedy never would do that. In 1943 Glenn Abbey was ordered to New Delhi, India
where he served for one year. Apparently the people in the consulate there or
mission, whatever they had in New Delhi at the time, died or retired, and Glenn
was sent there principally to reorganize the mission. He was very impressed by
how many people there were in India at the time. Of course, Mr. Glenn Abbey, in
his position as a Foreign Service office and a bachelor, was constantly being
invited and giving parties in order to meet the people. And, of course, he met
all of the top people almost everywhere. In 1944 he was sent into Burma to help
set up the consulate there and we have a silver washed and hammered bowl given
to him in memory of the deep affection that the Burmese people have for the
Americans. Albert McNeel tried to give this bowl to the State Department, but
they advised that they had too many artifacts already, and that at the present
time, the relationship with the country that was Burma is so bad that there was
nothing that they would be able to do with the bowl that would help anything.
The bowl is probably brass, bronze or copper and then washed in silver. It is
very pretty and about 10" in diameter and about 6" high and not heavy.
In any event, from Burma Mr. Abbey was sent into Japan with General MacArthur in
order to set up the consulate there. Glenn may have been given a rank of
Brigadier General because in order to deal with the Japanese it was necessary to
have an army rank. A picture shows him at his desk in Tokyo. After Japan, Mr.
Abbey was sent to Indonesia to try to discover who and where the government of
Indonesia was. It was fairly perilous duty, but he managed to have a good time
and meet a lot of Indonesian people that were part Dutch and part native
Indonesian.
From Indonesia Mr. Abbey was transferred to Salonica, Greece as the
Consul General in 1948. He served in Salonica until 1950 when he was sent as
Deputy Chief of Mission to Saudi Arabia. He had many interesting experiences
both in Greece and in Saudi Arabia. In 1952 or 1953 Mr. Abbey had several
stomach infections, which would come and go, and he was sent back to Walter Reed
Hospital for treatment. Finally in 1954 he was retired at the age of 56
for medical reasons.
After retirement, Glenn Abbey came to San Antonio and visited for a
little while on his way to Mexico City. Two of his very closest friends had been
George and Marion Messersmith. George Messersmith had just retired as the
Ambassador to Mexico and was at the time the president of a big utility company
called Mexlight. George Messersmith had been the Consul General in Berlin in the
early 30's during the rise of Hitler, and later was the Minister to Austria at
the time that the Austrian Prime Minister Dolphos was killed. After that time
Mr. Messersmith was a very senior person at the State Department in Washington,
and later was Ambassador to Argentina, and then to Mexico. Mr. and Mrs.
Messersmith had no children, and they were about 20 years older than Glenn
Abbey, and they had a very close relationship with him. Mr. Messersmith died
before Glenn Abbey did, but Mrs. Messersmith survived him.
At first Mr. Abbey lived in Mexico City on a temporary visa but later
he obtained permanent resident status as a "rentista". In Mexico
City Glenn Abbey had a cook and a maid and had a very comfortable life similar
to that which he was used to in the Foreign Service because he had mostly spent
his time out of the United States and in a foreign country. There is a large
Anglo-American colony in Mexico City, and Glenn Abbey still knew many people in
the Foreign Service. The Ambassador to Mexico, at the time that Glenn Abbey
moved there in 1955, had served under him in India. Glenn Abbey would write two,
three or four letters every day to his friends in the Foreign Service all over
the world, and kept in close touch with them. In a way, they were part of his
family, and he was acquainted with their marital lives, their children, and
their job experiences. Glenn Abbey was a great reader of history, he was very
knowledgeable about music and art, and he could play bridge as well as any of
the professional bridge players. He always played for money if it was
appropriate, but he would never play for much money. Glenn Abbey really had a
good time in Mexico and lived very comfortably. At the time of the Suez crisis,
he was recalled to Washington in order to be debriefed about certain persons
that he had met in Greece and in Saudi Arabia. Whatever country Glenn Abbey went
to, he began learning the language of the country, having the habit of
attempting to learn twelve new words every day on his morning walk. He was
fluent in Spanish, and was fairly fluent in Greek, at least to the extent that
he could speak with some local restaurant owners of Greek ascendancy who spoke
Greek. Part of his job as a Foreign Service officer was to get to know everybody
that he could and to observe everything about a country. Accordingly, he was a
very interesting person to be with and talk to. In his job, Mr. Abbey was
required to go to many parties & to have a drink of liquor at each one. He
could drink a lot of liquor, and Albert McNeel never saw him stagger or stammer.
One evening he came by the McNeel house for dinner in San Antonio, having had
about five martinis before he got there, and you could not tell it. He sat and
visited and drank whiskey until about 2:00 a.m. By 2:00 a.m. he was fairly
tired, but he never let down his guard in any way. As the evening wore on, he
would always have a "half" of a drink. The McNeels visited him in
Mexico City each year after he moved there until his death, and discovered that
he always took a nap after lunch for about 3 hours. This is one reason that he
could stay up until 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. without showing much fatigue.
He was on a trip back to Washington in 1949 or 1950 while June was at
Sweetbriar, and it was arranged that she would go to Washington and meet him
there. When she got off the train he met her and took her to the home of Wally
Simpson's aunt, Aunt Bessie. Wally Simpson's aunt held a court almost every day,
and Glenn was sought after as an entertaining and knowledgeable person who was
very charming and who could play bridge very well. In any event, June was very
impressed at being at one of the very great social places in Washington at the
time. Of course, at the time Wally Simpson was married to the Duke of Windsor,
but she was not there. Glenn Abbey in his Will left all of his property in
Mexico to June, but he left a handwritten list with Albert McNeel giving certain
things to certain people, including a set of silver sent to Mr. Wilbur Larson
and another set to Robert Anderson, and a lot of silver trays.
Glenn Abbey never had anything to begin with but he was thrifty, in
spite of the demands made upon him to give parties, and over the years beginning
with World War II he put aside money with Washington Mutual and Massachusetts
Mutual stock funds. At the time of his death he had accumulated quite a nice
estate. His Will was written by Atty. Albert McNeel, and was in charge of its administration.
The following was reprinted from Who Was Who in America, Volume IV, 1961 - 1968. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1968.
ABBEY, Glenn Allan, foreign service officer; born in Dodgeville, WI, June 11, 1898; son of William Sorrell and Ida Blake. B.S., Georgetown University, 1925; postgraduate University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1929-1930. Unmarried. Instructor at Devitt Preparatory School, Washington, DC 1924-1925. Secretary to American High Command to Haiti, 1925-1927. Appointed foreign service officer, U.S. Dept. of State in 1927. Vice Consul Johannesburg, Union of South Africa, 1928-1931. Served as 3rd Secretary in Managua, Nicaragua, 1931-1932. Served as 3rd Secretary in Caracas, Venezuela 1931-1932. Serves as 2nd Secretary in La Asuncion, Paraguay, 1936-1937. Served as Assistant Delegate to Chaco Peace Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1938. Served with the Department of State 1938-1941. Served as 2nd Secretary, American Embassy, London, England 1941-1944. Served as Secretary of the American Mission in New Delhi, India 1944-1945. Was Officer-in-Charge in Rangoon, Burma, 1945-1946. Served as Secretary General for the Allied Council in Tokyo, Japan, 1946-1947. Was Consul and Delegate on Good Offices Commission of United Nations in Djakarta, Indonesia in 1947-1949. Was Consul General in Salonika, Greece, 1949-1951, and also at Sa'ana, 1951. Was Counsellor of Embassy and Deputy Chief of Mission, American Embassy, Jidda, Saudi Arabia, 1951-1953 and at Quito, Ecuador 1953-1954. He served in the U.S. Army 1918-1919. Clubs he belonged to were: Army and Navy (Washington, DC); Imperial Delhi Gymkhama (New Delhi, India). His home was Dodgeville, WI. Died January 28, 1962; buried in Mission Burial Park, San Antonio, TX.
Shown here is the passenger list for a ship arriving in 1949 from Hong Kong to San Francisco.
U. S. Consuls in South Africa, The Political Graveyard
Johannesburg: Glenn A. Abbey (Vice Consul 1929)
Appointment to Foreign Service Officer of Class Five, effective October 20, 1942, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull on November 21, 1942
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt walking from the plane that carried her from the United States to England. Picture taken at Whitechurch Airdrome, five miles from Bristol, England, October 23, 1942. Shown: Unknown Woman, Glenn A. Abbey, Eleanor Roosevelt, W. Averell Harriman. Photo by U. S. Army Signal Corps.
Glenn Abbey, Adlai Stevenson and Ray Hall?, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 1953
The Post-Crescent, Appleton, WI Thursday, February 4, 1971
Looking Backward
25 Years Ago, Thursday, Jan. 31, 1946
Glenn Abbey, brother of two Waupaca residents and frequent visitor to the city, was named a member of the American mission at New Delhi, India. Abbey was former consul general in London. His sisters were Mrs. Maude Stratman and Mrs. Almo Larson.
San Antonio Light, Tuesday, January 30, 1962
Diplomat Dead in S. A.
Glenn Allan Abbey, 63, of 923 Cambridge Oval, a retired State Department official, died Sunday. Abbey, a native of Dodgeville, Wis., had lived in San Antonio seven years. Funeral services were held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Porter Loring chapel and interment was in Mission Park. Survivors include a brother, T. C. Abbey, San Antonio; four sisters, Mrs. Elmo Larson, Waupaca, Wis.; Mrs. Louis Anderson, Eau Claire, Wis.; Mrs. George Stratman, Waupaca, Wis.; and Mrs. Cyrus Mayfield, Dodgeville, Wis. Abbey was appointed to the foreign service in 1927 and retired in 1953 as counsellor of embassy and deputy chief of mission, American embassy, Jidda, Saudi Arabia.