Benjamin Theodore Glanzer

1910-1997

Ben Glanzer was a pastor and singing evangelist for forty years in the United States, Canada, and England. He joined the Voice of Prophecy King's Heralds Quartet as first tenor in 1944 at the age of 33 and became a favorite soloist with listeners, who particularly enjoyed his singing of "Keep Looking Up." Glanzer left the quartet in late 1948, after singing for nearly five years, but continued at the VOP as editor of the Voice of Prophecy News before serving for seven years in the Ministerial department of the General Conference.

Ben was born in the Black Hills at Wall, North Dakota, on August 19, 1910, the oldest of six children of Peter Jensen and Katie Kiehlbauch Glanzer. His family moved to Alberta, Canada, where they farmed, when he was very young. He was the oldest of six children in a family that enjoyed singing, often under the direction of their father, who would lead them with a pencil as a baton. By age ten, he was plowing fields with a four-horse team and, a short time after this, when his mother became ill, he filled in by cooking and baking in the kitchen, doing the laundry, and sewing.

He entered Canadian Junior College, now Burman University, at age 14 and became a printer, working in that trade for almost 20 years. While at CJC, he and another student, Jack Hardy, single-handedly saved the school's new Chickering 9-foot grand when a fire destroyed the Administration Building in May 1930. Two years later he married Suzanne (Susie)Baerg, school nurse at the college from 1930 to 1935.

During his time at CJC, he had pursued his interest in music by directing church choirs and singing as a soloist and in quartets. Shortly after starting to seriously study voice, he was invited to join the VOP quartet in 1944. When asked about the high range of his voice, Glanzer would respond that he never recalled having had a change of voice as he entered manhood.

During his lifetime he served as a pastor and singing evangelist for forty years in the United States, Canada, and England. He eventually served for seven years in the General Conference Ministerial Association and later was active in evangelism in southern California.

The Glanzers were living in Los Angeles when Nettie died on April 14, 1970, at age 63. Following her death, Glanzer married Bertha Sullberg Appleton, who occasionally served as his accompanist. They were residing in Yucaipa, California, when he died on February 3, 1997, at age 86. She was living in Takoma Park, Maryland, when she died on May 19, 2011, at age 95. 

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Sources: South Dakota Birth Index, 1856-1917, Ancestry.com; Obituaries, R&H, 24 July 1997 and Pacific Union Recorder, 4 August 1997. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; Changing Lives, The Hilltop Experience, Canadian University College centennial history, Edith Fitch and Denise Dick Herr, 2007. Benjamin Glanzer, South Dakota Birth Index, 1856-1917, Ancestry.com; Roy F. Cottrell, Forward in Faith, Pacific Press, 1945, pgs. 47, 49; Robert E. Edwards, H.M.S. Richards, 1998, Review and Herald Publishing Association, p. 198, 202, 205, 210, 218, 219, 225; J.H. Roth, “They Twain Shall be One Flesh,” Canadian Union Messenger, August 2, 1932, 2; Nettie Glanzer, Obituary, Pacific Union Recorder, June 18, 1970, 7; listing of teachers and staff at the school, Fitch and Herr, 220; Ben and Nettie wrote about their experience in England in a series of articles in three issues of The Youth’s Instructor in the summer of 1953, June 30, 12, 13, 19, 20, 22; July 7, 11, 12, 19; and July 14, 11, 20; Marin Family Tree, Ancestry.com.