Lawrence W. Stromgren
HALLSVILLE — Lawrence William Stromgren, a World War II veteran of Hallsville, died Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010, at Heritage Hall Nursing Center in Centralia. He was 96.
Born on Dec. 24, 1914, in Minneapolis to John and Marie (Haag) Stromgren, Mr. Stromgren was the second oldest of four.
“He was very quiet,” his sister, Elsie Schultz, said. “He was a normal guy.”
Schultz said they called him “Iceman” because he delivered ice to homes in the summer during the Great Depression. He also delivered coal in the winter.
In the mid-1930s, his family moved to California, but Mr. Stromgren, a bachelor at the time, stayed in Minnesota and worked for Western Electric as a telephone engineer. He traveled around Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and other states for his job. Upon his arrival in California one year for Christmas, his father greeted him with Army draft papers. He was stationed in Australia and New Guinea setting up communications.
As a veteran, he took great pride in his country, his son Roger Stromgren said. He was a member of the Veteran Foreign Wars (VFW) in California.
After a couple of years in the service, Mr. Stromgren returned home to California, where he met Dorothy Gold, his wife, who was working at his brother’s dry-cleaning business. “He was still in his uniform,” his wife said.
He was a family man. “He took very good care of the family and our house,” his wife said. “If the lawn needed to be mowed or something in the house needed to be fixed, he did it.”
“The entire family used to go camping,” his son, Roger Stromgren, said.
He would take his sons, Roger and Kenneth, fishing on the river. They would visit different sites in California and camp in Nevada.
Mr. Stromgren belonged to a rock collecting club. His wife says he collected and polished hundreds of rocks throughout his life.
“Keep it simple was the lesson I learned from him, and it worked,” his son, Kenneth Stromgren said.
In 1982, a couple years after his retirement from Western Electric, he and his wife moved to Missouri to be with her family.
He is survived by his wife; two sons, Kenneth Stromgren of Pleasanton, Calif., and Roger Stromgren of Brentwood, Calif.; a sister Elsie Schultz of San Leandro, Calif.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Two brothers died earlier.
Services, conducted by the Rev. Charles Butcher, will be held at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, at Friendship Cemetery in Hallsville.
Memorial contributions may be sent to the American Heart Association, 2600 I-70 Drive S.W., Columbia, MO 65203.
