Samuel Clasen

SAMUEL CLASEN. - It is safe to say that no young man of his years is more prominent or more worthily so, in the business world and public life than Samuel Clasen, mayor of Rosedale, a city of eight thousand population, and associated with the firm of P. Clasen & Son, proprietors of one of the leading stores of the city. He was chosen to take his place at the helm in the municipal affairs of Rosedale in April, 1911, and he has already proved the wisdom of the choice of the people by his excellent administration, the "boy mayor," as he is known in this part of the state, being a popular, progressive and highly regarded young man. He was born and reared here and has always been well liked by his townsmen. To him also belongs the distinction of having been elected to the city council when only twenty-three years of age. That was in 1909 and he was then declared by the Kansas City Star to be the youngest councilman in the United States.

Samuel Clasen was born November 1, 1886, the son of Peter and Charlotte (Kahn) Clasen, the former a native of Koln-on-the-Rhine, Germany, and the latter of Hungary. Peter Clasen came to America in 1881 and after a brief sojourn in New Jersey, where he worked in the mines, he came to Colorado. There he continued mining until 1882, when he came to Rosedale, Kansas, and opened a small grocery store, which, under his enterprising management and with the assistance of his son in recent years, has grown to be one of the leading department stores in the town. Previous to his coming to this country he served as a soldier in the German army, and recently, in 1909, he paid a visit to his two brothers and his childhood home in the old country. His wife, when a young woman of twenty-two years, came to this country, and at Rosedale they met and were married, and here she spent the rest of her life and died, her death occurring October 20, 1910. Of the four children born to them, Reinhardt, the eldest, died in 1902; Samuel was the second born; Oscar died in 1905; and Arthur, the youngest, is a student at Kansas State University.

As already stated, Samuel Clasen was born and grew up in Rosedale. After completing his studies in the schools here and finishing in the high school, he became a student at the Central Business College, Kansas City, Missouri, where he pursued a business course and was in due time graduated. Then he settled down to business in partnership with his father.

Politically both Mr. Clasen and his father are allied with no party, voting for the individual, who, in their opinion, will best serve the interests of the people. The year following his election to the city council he was made its president. Five days before the election for mayor in 1911 he was put up by his friends for that office and he was elected by a big vote, receiving almost as many votes as the other two candidates together. It is probable that he enjoys the distinction of being the youngest mayor in the world. He is a great lodge man, holding membership in the time-honored Masonic order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and the Fraternal Aid. His father is a member of the Knights and Ladies of Security.

On October 15, 1907, Mr. Clasen laid the foundations of a happy marriage by his union with Miss Jennie Jacobson, of Kansas City, Missouri. She is a daughter of Max Jacobson, a prominent business man of Kansas City, Missouri, and is a young woman of rare social gifts.