He put Pericles to shame in his Greek pride.

"Professional Greek": A brochure Bill had designed for his company (that's him with the glasses and chisel, in case it wasn't obvious).

He may have mentioned it once or twice.

Because they married slightly late in life (both were 31) and they were equals in the marriage. Also, they were opposites and it worked.

What do you remember most about Bill's and Bess' marriage?

Their marriage was a balancing act. Yiayia kept Papou grounded with her ownership of everything she did (and still does) and her strong will, and Papou made sure she was never taking life quite too seriously. They respected each other as individuals, not just as each other's spouse.

He taught me how to laugh, and how to fish in a pond using deli ham as bait.

He taught me about the sheer joy of living which I do think of as uniquely Greek. Delight and joy are underappreciated in our life and being with Dad always lifted my heart. I wish I could be more like him.

As his grandson, I didn't get to spend nearly as much time as I would like to now, but I've had the benefit of watching old home videos and hearing stories about him. All I can say is that I don't think there's ever been a human being who's more fun and who has a bigger heart. He seems to just have a warm aura around him, and that's rare.

I am like my Papou in that maybe sometimes I stir the pot a little bit, and I think we share a teasing sense of humor.

Bill was my Nouno(Godfather). He was amazing to me, always cutting down the other kids and comparing them to me. They were all dumb, ugly, slow, etc. compared to me. I think I might have been better than Paul, Bill and George. ;-). He made me feel so good all of the time and I loved the energy he gave off. He organized so much for our community and had an amazing sense of humor. I remember him leading our Church picnic crowd across Kingshighway all blowing our Kazoos. Truly one of a kind!!

He was a fantastic friend and Koumbaros to our family. For those of you not knowing the term Koumaros, that means to "stand up" for someone in their marriage as a best man and potentially to be the Godfather of a child, like he was for my brother, Chuck. We Greeks in St. Louis had a wonderful group of Koumbaro that got together for holidays and Greek events. It was a wonderful "family" to have in addition to your own blood relatives.

Koumbaros also means "spiritual father". Now I know he was a great father to his sons, but he did have a spirit about him like no one else. A spirit of seeking fun, teasing and with very little distance from his brain to his mouth. He was quick-witted and could be direct but always with a big heart and generous smile. He truly was a "spirited father."

From what Dad told me, studying wasn't his main priority. He was the definition of a Big Man On Campus. He was involved in every extracurricular imaginable.

Well I know one thing he did when he wasn't studying, he taught by dad, Mike Fandos how to wrestle. In fact he taught him so well, he beat him a wrestling tournament, as he coached him in Greek on what to do next. Koumbaros Bill was like that, interested in his family and friends, especially Greek ones, doing well even if it cost him a medal.

My favorite thing I remember his him scooping me into his lap reading to me.

Seriously??? There is not enough room on this page
to explain my best memories of William.

Took the aluminum boat on the Merrimack and the cotter pin broke. Got stuck on a sandbar and lost a shoe in the process of getting the boat dislodged. As I paddled strenuously back, what the Big G would exclaim in indignation was "What's the point of bringing along an auxiliary motor, if it is not going to get us back?" I was the darn auxiliary motor.

A few years later, Paul, the Big G and I floated the Eleven Point. At one point, through a small rapid, we leaned too far to avoid some low branches and tipped the canoe over. The Big G went for a good long swim and aside for a couple of scratches, everyone was safe. The Big G's bruised ego settled the score on the auxiliary motor remark.
😎

"Don't get old."

I can only say that William could get away with saying things that I would only dream of, and he would get a smile . Not what you say, it must be how you say it.

Would give strangers grief first and say hello later.

Involved to say the least, but not a hoverer. He was the Dad who made sure we had something to do. If a bunch of families or relatives got together, it was Dad who organized the kids' activities, either a game, or an excursion, just to make sure we had fun.

Here's my best answer to this question--written with the help of my brothers more than a decade ago:

Eulogy for William V. Glastris, July 15, 2005, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, St. Louis, MO.

Over the last few days many of you have generously shared with us your thoughts and memories of Dad. It’s been a great comfort, and quite interesting to see the qualities about him that keep coming up. His generosity, his creativity, his good cheer, of course his humor. But if there’s one thing that almost everyone says about Dad is that he was an original--he was one of a kind.

Of course, every human being is unique. But some of us are more unique than others. William V. Glastris, it’s safe to say, was squarely in that “more unique” category.

He had, first of all, a unique kind of humor, a wit that was quick and cutting but never said with meanness. Some people, on first encountering him, were rather taken aback, until they learned that if he kidded you, you knew he loved you, and that the cutting humor was in fact an expression of a deep, almost bottomless kindness.

Dad was kind in his own unique way, too. When out with his friends at “executive lunches” he loved to pick up the check, though he pretended otherwise. He loved to give money to those in need, and when he didn’t have any, he’d give out Courtesy Checks, the trade coupons of his business, which explains why so many of our friends and family wore leather coats from the Leather Coat Warehouse. And he loved to give of his time. To the church, to his community, to the many young people he mentored through internships at his office.

One notable aspect of his generosity was his desire to include people. In any social situation, he would seek out those who were new to the group. As a young man, he didn’t much like to dance, but if he saw a girl whom nobody was dancing with, he’d ask her to dance. He could not bear to see others not included. That sensibility informed not just his personal life, but his politics. Which explains perhaps why he and Mike Fandos, when they were with the Missouri Restaurant Association in 1960, convinced the board to accept racial integration of all the state’s eating establishments.

Like his immigrant parents, he had an adventurous spirit. He served in the South Pacific during World War II, worked at MGM Studios in Hollywood after the war. And like every Greek since Odysseus, the only thing he liked more than traveling was going home.

For Dad, St. Louis was the best possible city, Bess, the greatest wife he could hope for, Greek, the heritage everyone would choose if they could.

The great ancient Greek comic writer Menander, said “he only lives, who in living enjoys life.” Well, Dad really lived. He had a tremendous capacity to extract pleasure out of everything, big and small. He enjoyed a good meal, and in Bess’s home he never got anything else. He enjoyed his children, and especially his grandchildren, who would climb like puppies onto his lap into his big brown chair in the family room, bringing a smile to his face. “Ti hara,” he used to say: “this is joy.”

He was naturally gregarious and loved to work a crowd. He treasured time with his friends, and never knew a stranger.

At the annual Greek festival here at church, he gave himself the job of emptying trash cans--because it needed doing, no one else wanted to do it, and it gave him a chance to move around and socialize. Very Dad.

Part of what made Dad unique was that he didn’t enjoy doing what others had done, or doing what others told him to do. He wanted to carve his own path, be his own boss, create his own thing. It wasn’t enough to teach Sunday school; he had to start with Pete Varvaras a new class, a rap session for teenagers. It wasn’t enough to be in charge of the Greek Independence Day picnic; he had to organize a kid’s kazoo march to the park, and Olympic Games featuring sack races and the three-legged race. It wasn’t enough to be president of his subdivision; he had to organize block parties and a neighborhood golf tournament—events that continue to this day.

Dad was not afraid to try his hand at things he knew nothing about. He was an energetic if unproductive fisherman. He took great joy in speaking bad Greek. He efforts at household repairs were ambitious and wide-ranging, if not always pretty. He liked to do things his way, and he never let the task of reading of directions get in the way of getting the job done. Like his ancient Greek forefathers, Dad believed that the road to the good life was not so much to perfect your human talents but to use as many of them as possible.



Which is not to say that Dad didn’t do a few things very well. For one thing, he was great at his job. He wrote award-winning commercials. He put on the first boat races on the riverfront, the first home and garden show down at Kiel Auditorium, started one of the country’s first barter advertising firms. He liked to make money but that’s not what motivated him.

It was the joy of the job, of doing something new, and doing it right, with integrity. He worked hard for his clients, but had a limited capacity to take much guff from them, and walked away from more than one when asked to do something he thought was wrong. Some might say he was honest to a fault. Maybe. All I know is that we had a father who always told the truth.

He was not afraid to take creative risks, and accepted defeats and mistakes as simply the price of trying something new. His failures never really slowed him down, and his successes were an immense source of satisfaction to him.

But he was great at more than his job. He was great husband, a wonderful uncle, and the greatest father you could ever want. He gave his sons all the love, all the support, all the time, all the freedom, and all the values they needed.

He wasn’t one to lecture. He wouldn’t say “boys, in life you must be honest.” He would just be honest. He wouldn’t say “be generous,” he would just be generous.

He was the most giving man I have ever known. But not the most giving person. That honor goes to my mother, for what she did for my father. Every one of Dad’s doctors has said the same thing. Without her focused, intelligent, loving, and relentless care, we would have lost him a long time ago. Mom, because of you, every one of your grandchildren know their Papou. That’s an immense achievement. If Dad was Odysseus, you are Odysseus’s heroically devoted wife Penelope, and moral guide to us all.

The one thing that both our parents, but especially Dad, did tell us, again and again, was to do in life what you want to do. Choose the work you love, he would say, and your success will follow from that because your real success is happiness. Dad used to say my job is not like a job, but a fun responsibility, like I’m chairman of the senior prom.

And that, perhaps, was his greatest skill of all. He knew how to be happy. So many of us struggle to find happiness. We work at following the advice of the great sages, who tell us that to achieve happiness, we must be kind to others, reach out to those in need, not focus too much on material things, and give love. Dad did not have to push himself to do these things. It’s what he did naturally, and happiness came to him easily. And in his boundless, natural happiness, he made others happy.

Dad was proud not only of being Greek, but of being Corinthian. In church, a smirk of satisfaction would cross his face whenever the epistle reading was from St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. In Paul’s second letter, there’s a famous line: “God loves a cheerful giver.”

That was Dad. A cheerful giver. God will always love him. And so will we. May his memory be eternal.