TILIW – Ott Jasper, 105-year-old WW2 Vet

Augusta Branch Library_Diane Jasper Kessler_Sherman tank_St. Francis Borgia_Carol Jasper Riegel_International and Deb_Roseland Ballroom

Gentle readers, sometimes things just fall into place. On the Thursday after Veterans Day (Nov. 13, 2025), I stopped at the Augusta Branch Library and noticed that the coffee clutch was still going on, so I asked the ladies what they were chatting about. Immediately, Diane Jasper Kessler handed me her cellphone which was playing a video of a Channel 4 story about her 105-year-old father, Ott (Othmar) Jasper, a World War II veteran. He had been featured on a Veterans Day piece on KMOV-TV on November 11. Ott was a gunner who fought the Nazis in Europe from within a tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHRwzJPPSP8  Naturally, I asked Diane if I could interview her dad.

Diane’s father, Ott, grew up in Washington, MO, and at the age of 21, while in boot camp in California, the Army assigned him the job of gunner on a Sherman tank. In his Channel 4 interview, Jasper said he got the assignment because he was a crack shot. He was awarded two Purple Hearts for injuries sustained during his service.

After the war, he returned to Washington to resume his job at the International Shoe Company. He soon married Marie Kopp and went to work at the Ford Plant in St. Louis. He eventually worked road construction with Kelly Bros. in STL. Ott Jasper only had six years of grade school education because his father needed him as a farm laborer. However, in recent years St. Francis Borgia awarded him an honorary diploma. 

Ott Jasper. A photo of a photo in Ott’s room.

 On Friday, November 21, 2025, Tell It Like It Was writer/interviewer, paulO, and TILIW video/interviewer, Angela Stephens, visited Ott Jasper in Washington, MO for an interview. His daughters, Carol Riegel and Diane Kessler, also participated. Here is the full interview with a couple insertions from earlier conversations with Diane, and various text messages come into play also. (((As always, anything in parentheses is my addition made for clarity, or to possibly confuse you.)))

paulO: I saw the Channel 4 piece with you in it, and I thought it was good…you did a great job…and I thank you for your service.

Othmar Jasper: Thank you.

pO: It stirred my curiosity…to ask you more questions…especially about when you were young…what year were you born?

OJ: ___ ___, 1920.

Angela Stephens: We share the same birthday!

pO: Oh, that’s right! You’re in good company.

OJ: My mother said it was the hottest day that year.

Diane (left) and Carol with Ott. Photo by Angela Stephens.

pO: Okay, where were you born, Ott? Can I call you Ott?

OJ: Yeah, sure. I was born in Washington. I’m right home now. (He grins.)

pO: Were you born withing the city limits?

OJ: Yeah. I was born on a farm there…80 acres. My dad had a farm.

pO: So, you probably had farm chores when you were young?

OJ: Yeah.

pO: And what was your dad’s name…besides Jasper?

OJ: Joseph. (1888-1970)  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54701371/joseph_henry-jasper

pO: And your mom? And what was her maiden name?

OJ: Mary…Filla. (1888-1976)  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54701455/mary_c-jasper 

pO: How about your dad, did he serve in the military?

OJ: No, he didn’t.

pO: I noticed (from a photo in his room) you have a lot of siblings. There were 6 boys and 2 girls. That’s a coincidence…my family had 6 boys and 2 girls. And my dad also served in WWII…he was in Germany, but he also went to Japan. What he did was not as dangerous as what you did…he was behind desks…making sure there were always supplies for the troops…making sure the maps were there…sometimes they followed the troops, and sometimes they were in front of them.

Ott’s parents and siblings. Ott is 4^th from the left, back row.

pO: Tell me a little bit about your childhood. Besides working on the farm, did you…

OJ: Then I worked for farmers…I worked as a farmhand.

pO: So, your dad…would hire you out?

OJ: Yeah.

pO: Did you get any of the money, or did your dad take it all?

OJ: Dad took it all. (We all laugh.)

Carol Jasper Riegel: That was Depression days, though.

pO: What did you do for fun then?

OJ: We plowed corn…planted corn…out plowing fields…that’s what I did.

pO: So, you didn’t have any fun time…no baseball?

OJ: No.

pO: …no pitching horseshoes…no fishing?

OJ: Yeah, I went fishing. 

Diane (via text): …dad chewed slippery elm as a kid, like chewing gum.

pO: Did your dad have horses and mules? And did you ride them?

OJ: Yeah, we rode them.

pO: How far would you ride?

OJ: Oh, I don’t know, there wasn’t no limits.

pO: And school…I heard that you went as far as the 6^th grade. And then did you have to work on the farm?

OJ: Yeah, my dad would hire me out …I worked for farmers.

pO: Then later you worked at International Shoe factory, before you went to the service?

OJ: That was the only place to work. We (Washington) had two shoe factories, a women’s shoe, and a men’s.

Quitting time photo courtesy of Washington Museum.

Diane (via text): …dad worked in nailing. He made shoes for the Alton Giant and it took about yea many nails or tacks to make his shoes. Shank piece tacker was what was on his military papers.

Here’s the lasting department at International. I wouldn’t have lasted a week there. (Photo courtesy of the Washington Museum.)

pO: Which was International? Men or women?

OJ: Men. (Then either Carol or Diane said something about Deb.)

pO: The other was called Deb?

OJ: Yeah, Deb was women’s shoes.

Diane Kessler: They put apartments in both.

Diane: My mom worked for Deb.  And I think Brown…wasn’t that in New Haven?

The current apartments at the old   International Shoe Factory.

pO: So, Ott, do you remember when the Missouri River bridge was built? (1935)

OJ: Yes, I do.

pO: Before that, did you ever ride the ferry across the river to Charette Creek?

OJ: Yeah…very little.

p.O: Was it exciting?

OJ: Yeah. (He chuckles, probably at my annoying questions.)

pO: Was the new bridge exciting? You had to pay a toll, didn’t you?

OJ: Yes!

pO: That reminds me…Aloys Struckhoff (of Augusta) said he used to take that ferry. And you know him…you’re buddies with Aloys, aren’t you?  https://boonecountryconnection.com/tell-it-like-it-was/11402-tell-it-like-it-was-aloys-struckhoff-part-1

OJ: Yeah. 

Photo by Redden? (Newspaper clipping, found at the Augusta Museum, regarding the bridge construction.) https://www.augustamomuseum.com/

pO: Did you know the Kesslers (from Augusta) before Diane married Tom Kessler?

OJ: No…I knew of them but didn’t really know them.

Diane: Well, Tom (Kessler) did get hay from my dad (Ott.)  …but it was just a small trailer load because my dad…he just had a little pasture.

pO: What’s your wife’s name?

OJ: Marie… (Silence.)

Carol: Kopp.

OJ: Oh yeah. Kopp.   https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105902892/marie_c-jasper

pO: How did you meet her?

OJ: I really don’t know. I guess at a dance.

pO: Was that after the war?

OJ: It was before.

pO: Did you get married before you went into the service?

OJ: No, afterwards.

pO: Did you send letters back to her when you were in the service?

OJ: No.

Carol: You didn’t date her till afterwards, right?

OJ: That’s right.

pO: So, you knew her but didn’t date her until after the war.

Carol: And you went to the Rose Ballroom, above Modern Auto.

Diane: Roseland.

OJ: That’s a fancy name for that place…just a regular old…

pO: Did you have any interest in music?

OJ: Like a family band…just get together and make music…and we’d dance to that.

Gentle readers, Diane did a little research on her own. She reached out to the Washington Museum where she learned that the Roseland Ballroom opened in 1932 and closed in 1940.

Diane (via text): Since they met in 1945, and the VFW took it over, who knows when it might have closed again?

Meanwhile, I consulted Kenneth Johnson’s MOONLIGHT SERENADE TO CITY LIGHTS – Rare Images of Bands and Orchestras from the Dance Hall Era in Missouri. (Reedy Press) This book is full of great photos of Missouri bands before rock and pop took over. You can find it in the St. Chas. City/County Library system, and you might even see someone you knew…like Clarence Sehrt. Anyway, I found one reference to the Roseland Ballroom in the blurb below this photo:

DK (via text): Walter Noelker’s Band used to play there, dad said.  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/emissourian/name/walter-noelker-obituary?id=36247667

pO: Maybe we could talk about WW2 before being married. Did you enlist?

OJ: No. I was drafted…in ’42. I went out to California right away. They shipped me out there. pO: When did you become a “crack shot” as you say?

OJ: Well, we’d go out to the rifle range.

Carol: That was the rifle range in the army, Dad, right?

OJ: Yeah.

pO: When you were a kid, did you have much experience with rifles?

OJ: Squirrel hunting…

pO: Shotgun, I suppose. (Ott’s daughters told me that his father would send him out with only one shell, so Ott had to make it count.) So, you went straight to California, and that’s where you were trained…and you proved to be a crack shot…then you were assigned the job of shooting from inside a tank where you can only look out a periscope.

OJ: Yeah.

pO: Sounds hard. How about your brothers, did they get drafted or did they enlist?

OJ: They were drafted. Every one of them.

pO: I think Diane said that in California you ran into one of them.

Diane: Was it Vic, at the movies?

Angela: Awww.

OJ: Yeah, I did.

pO: Did you have any pals or friends here in Washington that got drafted at the same time?

OJ: Pretty much the same time…they all came back. None of them got killed.

pO: What about your parents? Did you write letters to them? And were you able to receive letters from them?

OJ: Yeah, I’d get letters back from them. I wasn’t much at writing letters, though.

Carol: His mom wrote him more than he wrote her.

pO: Where were you in Europe?

OJ: I went to England first, and then I went to Germany.

pO: Did you operate a tank in England?

OJ: No. I did drive it, though. I was just a gunner; I fired the big guns. It was a 75 first, but it wasn’t big enough, so it got to be a 76.

pO: 76…what’s the terminology?

OJ: Caliber. (From Wikipedia: “The 76 mm gun M1 was an American World War II–era tank gun developed by the United States Ordnance Department in 1942 to supplement the 75 mm gun on the basic Medium tank M4. It was also used to arm the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer.”)

OJ: It was mounted on the tank.

pO: So, you came back here in 1945. Did it take long to adjust? What was it like to come back to Washington?

OJ: It was nice! I like it here.

pO: Nice and quiet. And then, you started dating Marie, right? And when did you get married? 

Carol: You came out of the Army in ’45. Does that help you any?

OJ: I believe…

Carol: …November 9^th, 1947.

OJ: After I came back…I didn’t get married while I was in there. I didn’t want to have a young widow…and I’d be dead. (Some pictures start circulating about Ott’s room.)

pO: More wedding…big cake…very nice…was that at Borgia?

Jasper wedding photo.

Carol: You got married at St. Francis Borgia.

Angela: How did you ask her to marry you?

OJ: Gosh, I don’t know.

pO: Then you had 7 children?

Carol: Seven living…they had one other child that miscarried.

The Jasper family.

Diane: After you married, you went to the Ford plant in Hazlewood.

(According to Brandenburg Demolition,  “The Ford St. Louis Assembly Plant, one of the company’s largest assembly facilities, was originally built in the 1940’s. After years of redevelopment, it encompassed nearly three million square feet on 155 acres adjacent to the St. Louis Airport. Ford closed the plant due to the deterioration of the buildings and equipment, and the overall decline in sales of SUV ’s.”)

pO: Did you commute with anybody from Washington?

OJ: Yeah. We’d take turns driving; I’d drive a week and then they’d drive a week. We took our own lunch.

pO: How many years do you think you did that?

OJ: Oh, quite a few. I don’t really know. I liked it. Well, I had to like it because there was no place else to go.

Diane: After the Ford plant he went into construction.

OJ: Anywhere there was work.

Carol: It was road construction; Kelly Brothers.

Diane: They worked (a while) at the riverfront pulling up cobblestones. And he saw the Arch go up.

Carol: He also went with a brother-in-law; they worked together at Kelly Bros. Then dad worked for Ed Rau Drilling. He’s still in business…on Highway A in Washington. 

pO: Ott, I’d like this story to cross the river…around Dutzow or Augusta. Well, obviously, you got connected to the Augusta area because your daughter (Diane) married a Kessler.

Carol: I introduced her to Tom.

Angela: Oh, you did?!!

pO: Now we’re getting somewhere. Carol, how did you know the Kesslers?

Carol: He was always buying hay from our farm…from the Riegel Dairy Farm.

pO: …because they (Kessler Dairy) were so big they couldn’t grow enough hay? I always thought it interesting that the Kesslers were growing hay in that magnificent bottomland.

Carol: If you have dairy cows, you’ve got to feed them.

Diane: You know Tony Aholt? He (Ott) worked with all the Aholt boys.

Carol: Sometimes they were at the site where he was working for Rau…because Aholts had the heavy equipment.

Diane: Also, dad’s wife’s sister was Leona Kuchem. Leona and Roman lived in the bottoms (Augusta) down there. She was a Kopp, and she married a Kuchem. (Roman was a brother to Dotty Kuchem Struckhoff, my neighbor in Augusta, and a brother to my favorite electrician, Vic Kuchem.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ93zs42JpE (This is a link to a live interview we did with Vic.) 

Diane: And one of my mom’s sisters, Rose, married a Glosemeyer from Dutzow.

pO: Gosh, I don’t know what else to ask you, but uhh…I guess everybody asks you…how does a person live to be 105. (We all laugh.)

OJ: You don’t have much choice! (Bigger laugh.)

pO: I sure thank you, Ott.

OJ: Pleased to meet you.

pO: And this is Angela, our president of the Augusta Museum.

Angela: Thank you for your service, Ott.  

Ott: You’re quite welcome.

Ott reading the shorter TILIW article in the paper edition of BCC, December 2025. (Photo by Diane Kessler.)

Stay curious, my friends, and keep on breathing.

paulO

If you wish to read more stories, or want to make a donation to Friends of Historic Augusta and Tell It Like It Was, please use this link: https://www.augustamomuseum.com/tell-it-like-it-was-stories