This is a story about family history.
Recently a remnant of the Lannon family of the Scheiber family, Sandra Scheiber of Oconomowoc, came to SLAHS with a series of St. James Catholic Church sacramental gaudy framed certificates, going back to 1894, plus graduation diplomas from Lannon Grade School from 1911 and 1919.
The St. James certificates, printed in Germany, have liberal use of gold leaf embossing for birth and baptism certificates from 1984 and 1904. An oddity is the printed location of St. James Catholic Church is “Templeton,” as that was the address for the rural route of the then east Sussex crossroads post office.
The Lannon community has had the Sheridans and Scheiber families for multiple decades. These two families were joined together in 1939, when Mary Genovieve Sheridan, born Dec. 18, 1904, married at age 34, Joe Scheiber, a then Lannon resident, but out of the Dakota states on June 15, 1939.
Now in donating the Sheridan/Scheiber papers, Sandra Scheiber said to the best of her memory, her mother-in-law was married in the early 1940s at the St. James Catholic Church, but a check of the records at St. James comes up as a no-information situation, until later, using her birth-baptism and confirmation records, St. James had put a notation that Genovieve Sheridan had been married in Milwaukee June 15, 1939. Following the we4dding, the Scheibers became Lannon residents, with a son Richard born Sept. 28, 1941 and then later a second son, Donald, who is the late husband of Sandra.)
Richard became a popular fixture in Lannon. He was a 25-year member of the Lannon Fire Department and advanced up through the ranks to assistant chief under Chief Robert Chvosta. Meanwhile, he also served as an elected Lannon trustee, serving seven years.
At age 52, Richard had a wife Janis and three children: 2 sons, Richard S. Jr. and Robert, and a daughter, Lana. Robert (Bobby) became an outstanding Hamilton soccer player.
Richard J. Scheiber was popular in his community, and at his lifetime job as a heavy truck driver for Waukesha Spancrete, and because of his “roundness” he had the nickname of “Pork chop” by friends and fellow workers.
He was doing well financially in life, and was a big member of the Lannon community and elected to get a Wisconsin vacation home for his fishing as a hobby.
Tragically, on April 1, 1994, Richard “Pork chop” Scheiber was driving his 1981 Volkswagen to his vacation home in Grant County, near Wyalusing and Bagley, Wis., when he was hit by a Burlington Northern RR freight train and killed.
Honors poured in for Richard Scheiber and the Lannon Village Board and the fire department saw to it that there was a memorial tree planted in his honor, a flowering crab apple tree as one enters the Lannon Village Hall/Fire Department from Main Street.
There was a service at St. James Catholic Church with Father Gene Doda officiating. He joined his parents in the adjacent cemetery as his father has the life dates of 1902 and 1982. Meanwhile, Genovieve remained alive, but followed to her grave in 1999.
The funeral for Richard was a state funeral for Lannon, as they had lost a multi-contributer to the betterment of the community.
Next spring, as you go by the Lannon Fire Department and Village Hall, look for the two flowering crab trees the one on the east is Richard Scheiber’s.