Former wrangler looks back on nearly 99 years of experiences

John Schlosser has managed to fill his almost 99 years with a variety of careers and experiences.

From his childhood days on a Montana ranch, to a stint in Florida building warships, to the construction of buildings in Washington, D.C., Schlosser got a first-hand look at history.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” Schlosser said.

“He said he wishes everybody could live to be 98 and be as happy in all phases of life,” said Margaret Schlosser, John’s second wife, to whom he’s been married for 35 years.

John Schlosser, who will turn 99 on April 22, was born and raised in Knowlton, Mont., a small community in Custer County in the southeastern part of the state. There was a post office, a two-room schoolhouse, a small store and gas station in a half-mile section.

Schlosser was born in 1913, the youngest of three sons of Harry and Mildred Schlosser. He grew up on a ranch four miles from his maternal grandmother’s home in Miles City.

He still has memorabilia from his childhood that his mother saved for him, including a set of spurs, a suede cowboy hat, rope he used for lassoing and a framed piece showing the family’s plot of land, among other items.

“He was the son that loved to get up early and work on the ranch with his father,” Margaret Schlosser said.

“I was the youngest, so I was the wrangler,” John Schlosser said.

Growing up on a ranch, he was a natural on horseback.

“I had to do an awful lot of riding to round up stock, and for roundups fall and spring,” Schlosser said.

When he was 7, his father put extensions on handles and pedals of farm equipment so John could help.

He also made a “ladder” of leather straps that John used to get up on his horse.
“I could do man’s work,” Schlosser said. 

To heat the house, the family used coal from a mine on their property. They cut up and split wood for the cook stove. When the pond froze over in the winter, they cut it into blocks and stored it in the ice house for cooling in the summer, Schlosser said.

His father had a variety of shops on the self-sustaining ranch for all kinds of work. There was also a two-room bunkhouse that was used for housing the men who were hired to help with haying, harvest and roundup.

John’s mother, who was a school teacher, fixed up a room in their home with school desks and blackboards so she could teach her children at home for several years. When she returned to teaching in 1922 or 1923, when John was 9 or 10, he would stay with his mother in the “teachery” — the room built onto the schoolhouse for the teacher’s quarters.

“His mother was someone who could never get enough of education. She was taking correspondence courses until age 97,” Margaret Schlosser said.

After Mildred Schlosser retired from teaching, she worked in nearby Miles City as a librarian.

“She must have been a very interesting lady. In her last diary entry, she wrote that she was baking three cakes in the morning and going out to pick tea roses,” Margaret said. 

John attended high school in Miles City, living with his grandparents during those years. He graduated in 1932.