Retrospect: Emma Stier’s life took her from city to farm
Posted: Sep. 10, 2008, Sussex Sun
Emma Stier lived 96 years, 73 of them in Lisbon and Sussex. In that time she gave birth to six children, married a teacher, became a farmers, then a politicians wife, took on the Sussex postmaster gig and finally became the grandmother/matriarch of a prominent Lisbon-Sussex family.
She died 26 years ago is buried with her husband, John, and a daughter, Eva, at the little German Cemetery on Maple Avenue and Champeny Drive. Her father- and mother-in-law, Jacob and Anna Stier, are also buried in the Stier family plot.
She was born Emma Hohlweck on Jan 2, 1886, in Milwaukee. Her family lived in an apartment over the family business, the Mauer Music Store, on Walnut Street between Third and Fourth.
She attended 14th Street School and went to North Division High School, today the Golda Meir Specialty School. (Golda Meir, a onetime Milwaukee resident, was Israels prime minister in the 1970s.)
The Jacob-Anna Stier family had a farm on Plainview Road in Lisbon, and peddled eggs and other farm-raised foods on a Milwaukee route.
Jacob took his son, John, on these selling trips, which included a stop at the Hohlweck apartment. Emma was invited to spend time on the Stier Lisbon farm, eventually leading to her engagement and marriage to John.
John, the youngest of four children, had a great education and played football for Whitewater Normal College (today the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater).
When Emma married him in 1909, John was teaching school, first at his original grade school, Lisbons one-room Sixteen School at Hillside and Good Hope roads. He went on to become the principal at Sussex Main Street School and later at Lannon School.
Emma and John had six children: Eva, Robert, Katherine, Marjorie, Betty and Maryanna.
First-born Eva was the familys star, endowed with intelligence, beauty and athletic ability. Her great moment in life came in eighth grade when she took over the lead in the Sussex High School class play at Lees Loft over the Sussex General Store.
She performed magnificently to rave reviews by those who attended only to die three days later of the Spanish Flu, a plague that followed World War I.
John served on the Lisbon Town Board and was elected chairman from 1917 to 1921. He was also a charter member of the Sussex Fire Department from its founding in 1922 one of four Stiers in a 32-member department.
The John and Emma Stier family made their first Sussex home at N64 W23601 Main St. Once the family expanded, they moved to a farm just north of todays Centennial Oaks Subdivision.
Their next move was to an 80-acre farm on the west side of Maple Avenue just south of Sussex Mills where Maple Avenue School is today.
Besides careers as a farmer and teacher, John became a prominent businessman, investing in the Mammoth Spring Canning Co. in 1920 and serving on its board of directors. He also joined a buskness that built what is today the Paul Cain auto sales and service business at Maple and Main.
Emma made sure all her children had high school educations and that four of them would go on to college. Betty, Katherine and Marjorie followed in their fathers footsteps and become teachers Robert went to the University of Wisconsin for an agricultural education and took over the family farm.
That farm lay between todays western Sunset Drive (the entrance to Village Park) and Maple Avenue School. Their old homestead is now a showplace of restored 19th century Victorian housing.
Emma belonged to the Sussex Order of the Eastern Star, the Busy Bees and the Mothers Reserves (known affectionately as the Hoot Owls).
John suffered a partial stoke at the start of the Great Depression and had to seek less active work, so he took the Sussex postmaster position in 1934. He died two years later and his assistant postmaster, Emma, took over the post until 1940.
In her declining years, Emma live at the Hart home on Main Street. She died Nov. 7, 1982.
John and Emmas son, Robert, became an outstanding athlete and is in the Sussex Baseball Hall of Fame. He also served 11 years as Sussexs fire chief and as a trustee on the Sussex Village Board.
Maryanna married Virgil Hart, who is in both the Land OLakes and Sussex Baseball Hall of Fame.
The only living member of the John and Emma Stier branch of the family, Maryanna held a Stier family reunion earlier this year.
Bob Stier (1914-91) farmer, Sussex fire chief, trustee
by Fred H. Keller
Posted: Living Sussex Sun, April 10, 2012
Robert “Bob” Stier at one time owned the Sussex farmland from the Bugline Trail west of Maple Avenue to present day south boundary of Maple Avenue School. His land went back to the border of the Sussex Village Park.
Stier was the son of a very important man, John Stier, who was the son of a 1880s German immigrant, Jacob Stier, and his wife, Anna Eisenhower. She was from the very same German village that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower family came from making them related according to family stories.
John Stier in his lifetime was a multi-school (Sixteen, Sussex and Lannon) principal only to later become a businessman and farmer in Sussex-Lisbon. He also served as a postmaster for Sussex and as Town of Lisbon chairman.
He was a charter member of the Sussex Fire Department in 1922, and even ran for state assembly once. In 1924, he was one of the 16 signers for the successful incorporation of Sussex into a village.
John Stier married Emma Holwick of Milwaukee and they have five girls: Eve, Marjorie, Katherine, Betty and Maryanna.
Bob Stier was born in Lisbon on Sept. 21, 1914. He graduated from Sussex two-year high school in the class of 1930 and then Waukesha High School class of 1932. At Waukesha High he played football and when he went on to college at the University of Wisconsin, he continued to play but broke his collarbone ending his run.
He came back to Sussex to be a pitcher on the village of Land O’ Lakes team and a hometown team basketball player who played in the newly built Sussex Community Hall. He later in life was on the board of directors of the Sussex Baseball Club. He was a chosen member of the Sussex Baseball Hall of Fame.
He took over the family farm after his father’s early death, when John Stier was just in his 50s. However, in the rest of his life, he got into teaching and back hoe work. His biggest accomplishment was developing the subdivision and selling off his land to Maple Avenue School and Peace Lutheran Church.
He joined the Sussex Fire Department in 1940, but left because of other commitments, but rejoined in 1948 serving until 1973. He served as the chief from 1960-72. During this time the fire department went from three to eight vehicles and from 50 to 200 calls per year. The Sussex Fire Department rescue service was started under his leadership. The crowning event of his time as chief was building and moving into a new fire house in 1963. He was also a member of the Sussex Lions Club from 1948 until his death in early 1991; he served as president from 1963-64.
After he left the fire department in 1973 he went into Sussex politics serving eight years as a trustee. He married Marilee Babina on Feb. 3, 1940, and they had three daughters.
Bob Stier was an avid Sussex baseball-softball game watcher even having his favorite seat at the Sussex Village Park softball diamond. The seat was painted “Reserved for Bob Stier” on the first base side of the field.
In retirement, Bob and Marilee spent the winters in Peoria, Ariz., where he loved to golf and play sheepshead. He died there at age 76 on Feb. 4, 1991. His burial is at St. Alban’s in Sussex as are many other Stiers.
Retrospect, Jan. 21, 2015: Stier’s camera captured Sussex scene
