Siblings
Nori Muster - Tempe, Arizona. Writer/researcher, editor, counselor, real estate. See websites: Steamboats.com * Surrealist.org * NoriMuster.com * your writer in this ancestry.
Bill Muster - Phoenix, Arizona. Writer, General Manager of Consumer Products OmniMount Systems, Inc. See website: BeingtheBall.com * my brother.
Parents
Paula Hassler - Tempe, Arizona. Writer, former ad sales, etc. (our mother). Married to Don Hassler (1970 - present); working musician, retired businessman (see web pages - click here).
Bill Muster (6/18/1926 - 1/3/1989) Los Angeles, California. Our father was a writer, photographer, and businessman. See webpage: click here. Our parents were married 1950 - 1970.
Grandparents
Our mother's parents: This side of the family is already well documented elsewhere. To summarize: they were all Lutherans, including eighteen Lutheran ministers and school teachers going from the present back to the mid-1800s. For the most part, they came from Germany and Denmark; the Christiansen side traces back to the Vikings.
Our father's parents
Emma Moldenhauer (11/03/1886 - 10/10/1934)
Bill Muster (1868 - Jan. 1926)
This was the second marriage for both, Aug. 23, 1925 - Jan. 1926.
Emma Moldenhauer's first husband: Mr. Miller; son with first husband, Edward A. Miller (1/13/1914 - 5/11/2000), our "Uncle Ed."
Second husband: Bill Muster; his first wife: Etta, b. Dec. 1872, married 1891 (no known children from first marriage). Bill Muster was a constable, then worked for the U.S. Postal Service from 1910 until he died in 1926. He also raced surrey carts. Son with second husband: Bill Muster (our father). Bill Muster Sr. died six months before our father was born.
Great-Grandparents
Moldenhauer g-grandparents
Emma's parents were Ernest and Ottie Moldenhauer. Ernest b. 11/19/1857 Brumberg, Germany, d. 07/12/1930 Chicago, IL; Ottie aka Ottilie, Ottalie, nee Zogel/Zobel, b. 10/03/1860 Germany, d. 09/21/1934, Chicago, IL.
In 1929, Emma Moldenhauer (a widow) and her two sons, Ed Miller and Bill Muster, went to live with Ernest and Ottie in a South-side Chicago apartment. The 1930 Census shows our father living with his maternal grandparents, his mother and half brother, as well as an aunt and uncle and their daughter (William and Ella Moldenhauer, and daughter Elaine Schlismann). In total, eight people ages seventy-two down to age four (our father), lived in a small apartment in Chicago until Ottie and Emma died in 1934 (Ernest died prior to that in late 1930). After leaving his grandparents' apartment, an orphan at age nine during the Great Depression, our father lived in various orphanages and foster homes until age eighteen.
Muster g-grandparents
Barbara Muster - b. 7/27/1848 in the Kingdom of France, d. 10/10/1931 Valparasio, Indiana.
John Muster - Born in Switzerland, died in Valparasio, Indiana, c. 1897(98?)
They were married in 1866 and had 11 children, including our grandfather Bill Muster.
Contemporaries
During my father's lifetime, he was interested in finding his relatives, but never saw any of them after age nine. The one relative who did stay in contact (especially toward the end), was Uncle Ed Miller. He and his wife Lois had three children (Jeanne, Vicki, and Bob). Ed's grandchildren are now in their twenties; I have been in contact with one of them, my cousin Christina. She has a daughter born in 2005, so the family line continues.
While our mother and stepfather's families are all in contact with one another, we have never met anyone from our father's family except for Lois and Ed and their children/grandchildren. However, our father's mother was one of five siblings; his father was one of eleven siblings. There must be more Moldenhauer and Muster relatives out there.
Moldenhauer siblings:
Emma Moldenhauer (Miller, Muster) (our grandmother) 11/03/1886 - 10/10/1934
Anna Amelia Moldenhauer (Hillman) 05/14/1889 - 12/30/1966
William Moldenhauer d. Jan. 1974
Charles Moldenhauer aka Ernest d. 05/31/1942
Arthur J. Moldenhauer 11/30/1899 - 12/05/1943
Muster grandchildren (present at our great-grandmother Barbara Muster's funeral, 1931):
Bruce Stansell
Mason Muster
DeForest Muster
George Howser, Jr.
John Muster
Emmett Muster
Helen Fitzgerald
Leota Daniels
Florence Martin
Alberta Harding
Barbara Alice Muster
Margaret Muster
Nearly all of these people are from Chicago, Illinois, or Valparasio, Indiana. If you believe you could be related to Bill Muster of Los Angeles, please contact me, Nori (contact info. - click here). I have ancestry information and photos to share.
Bill Muster, c. 1976
