Martinius Mathiesen Ager in uniform. Ager was born in 1834 in Eidsberg, Norway. He worked as a police officer/jailer in Kristiania (now Oslo) and moved to Fredrikstad where he opened a country store. After emigrating to America in the 1880s, he operated a tailor shop on Chicago's Erie Street. He died in 1894 of a strangulated hernia.

The elder Ager had a drinking problem which caused strife in his marriage and in his church. Waldemar remembered sitting next to his father in the pew while the minister singled him out as a drunkard and pariah. He could feel his father shudder in response to the shaming. Such events played a major part in shaping Waldemar Ager's trajectory.