‘Pepper’ Steffen: 85-year Lisbon-Sussex resident
Posted: Living Sussex Sun, Nov. 19, 2013
On Pembrook Street, behind the Piggly Wiggly, Norman Pepper Steffen is living out his long life, which began in Lisbon and since the age of 6 has been in Sussex, as the Depression pushed his family off of a two-generation farm holding just off present day Highway 164 east of Jay Lane.
However, a bit of Steffen has returned to Lisbon, as his only living son, Randy “Rango” Steffen has put in his working career as a 23-year member of the Lisbon Town Public Works Department.
There are many people that don’t know that Pepper’s real name is Norman. As he tells the story, “Pepper” is part of his misspent youth. Hew as a young buck in the Village of Sussex during 1940 and the second World War, when he and his friends saw this wonderful 1936 WPA built Sussex Community Hall in downtown Sussex for about $27,000. The highlight of this massive Lannon Stone Structure was an upstairs basketball gym. The downstairs was for Village rooms and the local fire department.
The boys of Sussex had a driven desire to get into this building and play basketball, but the caretaker John Miller had a mission to keep the boys out of the building.
The Village boys came up with a scheme to thwart Miller. At some evening open house they would secretly leave a window unlatched and sneak in by pushing in the window. Then they’d enjoy an endless game of basketball.
But Miller got smart and often checked every door, every window and would find the unlatched lever. The boys found yet another entry that Miller never thought of investigating.
Out front of the Sussex Community Hall was a round manhole that was to be used to deliver the coal into the basement coal bin. The boys would pry it open and the smallest of the participating boys would drop in, walk around inside and up to the bar opening the door or unlatching a window and letting everyone in. Then they’d lock it up again. When they left they would go through the bar door and the building would be secure, and Miller was never the wiser (other than he had a feeling that he had been used and abused.)
Norman Steffen was a leader of this group of illegal court intruders and he had a sweet tooth. His mother knew how to feed it by making her special pepper-nut cookies, a hard cookie that needed a lot of sucking on before one could finally bite through it. Steffen said the basketball cohorts he played with loved these hard cookies and begged him to bring more each time. He was given the name “Pepper Steffen” and lost his first baptized name.
Getting back to his youth, he was the baby of the family of three boys and three girls, with his parents being Otto and Anna Steffen. He was born April 29, 1928. At age 6, his family moved off the once 80-acre farm. While he was on this Lisbon farm, he attended the Lisbon Sixteen School on the intersection of Hillside Road and Good Hope. Miss Thelma Halquist was his teacher in first and second grade.
His father, to make ends meet, took a job as a milk hauler for Golden Guernsey Dairy. Years later, his son would take over from his brothers and run this business for the first part of his adult life. He actually started in it as a teenager, as he would assist his father and brothers with the family business that put food on the table.
Now the basketball he learned breaking into the Village gym helped him make the Sussex Main Street School team as he matured. IN those days, Sussex Main Street School had a two-year High School, and there was a full-time round of basketball competition for similar two-year high schools like Lannon, Merton and North Lake. Sussex had the best gym.
Steffen grew up and graduated from eighth grade in 1942 and the two-year Sussex High in 1944. He went on to Menomonee Falls for a 1946 high school graduation.
He would join the Sussex Fire Department in 1950, but the Korean War would grab him off in late 1950. Upon coming home in 1952, he rejoined and served 33 years, including the position of fire chief from 1973 to 1975. He left the department in 1984.
The story of Pepper Steffen will be continued next week.