The seller was Audrey Stier Schlegel, his only daughter, who had already sorted out and shipped to her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., the items she wanted for herself.

Auctioneer Rollie Bast and his son, Ron, ran the auction in front of the livery stable in the backyard, selling tools from Stier�s machine shop, household furnishings, lawnmowers, snowblowers, outboard boat motors, gasoline and electric motors, lumber, antiques, old collectibles and an 11-year-old Ford LTD with only 32,000 miles on it and a reputation of being cared for by a top mechanic.

People started to congregate as early as 7:30 for the 9 o�clock start of the Sunday morning event. The weather was ideal: cool but comfortable if you dressed appropriately.

Lisbon Constable David Gettelman was the first to arrive and held the No. �1� bidding paddle, but ended the day without buying anything.

The auction was like old home week as friends and neighbors gathered to banter among themselves about the merits of what was being offered.

The veteran father-son auctioneers were off and running at precisely 9 a.m., and Rollie Bast said he hoped everyone had gone to the early services at their churches. If they hadn�t, he said, �Give us your money and we will see that it goes for a good cause.�

Rollie had a way of rolling words off his tongue: �We have a mess-a-laneous box here,� he would say. �Who will give me a dollar to start it off?�

A big bidding battle developed between two bankers from the old Sussex Farmers & Merchants (F&M) Bank, who were separated by the boisterous crowd and didn�t know they were bidding against each other � bank President Richard Krug and Operations Manager Dale Tietz � for a shiny metal box embossed with �Sussex State Bank.�

The bidding began at $5 and quickly went up to $32.50 before Krug discovered he was bidding against his employee. At that point, he bowed out, saying, �Let Dale have it.�

The box was from the original Sussex State Bank (1911-38), before F&M took it over. (That oldest of Sussex banks is now the Associated Bank.)

A toy Bissel rug cleaner sold for $11, a coffee grinder with a drawer for $25, a rolling pin with a porcelain roller for $32, a sheet metal weathervane horse for $21, two old steel coal shovels for $6.50, an old egg basket for $32 and a trio of planing hatchets for $5.

A box of old newspapers (including a World War I Armistice Day issue from Nov. 11, 1918) went for $11.

Veteran Lisbon politician Art Manke beat me out for an electric power saw, getting it for $5, but I won a bidding battle with John Hesse of Lannon for some old Sussex calendars from the 1920s and �30s, which cost me $27.50.

Today these calendars � from Podolske�s Hardware, Sussex State Bank and Sussex Garage � are on the walls of the Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society Museum. Later I bought a series of Will Rogers F&M Bank calendars from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Wayne Volden bought a souvenir Milwaukee Braves fan for $19. Local lumber mogul Charles Zimmermann bid on a stack of 12-inch-wide wild-cherry wood planks that had been cut from a forest tree in Brown�s Woods (today Thousand Oaks subdivision), but was beat out by a $125 bid.

A big item was an Ariens snowblower that went for $460. A small older one went for $85, and a working Toro lawnmower went for $15. Wood planers went for $5 to $15 each.

Jane Burg bought an unlikely combination, a porcelain thunder jug and a cake-storing tin, for $5.

Finally, near the end of the auction, the 1972 Ford went for $1,325 to Alfred Endlich of Germantown. Built like a tank, the car still needed some transmission work.

Roy Stier�s possessions had all found new owners. Some caused groans and some chuckles, and a few brought tears from the winners and losers.

Retrospect: Emma Stier's life took her from city to farm

By Fred Keller

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 farmer�s, then a politician�s 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 Israel�s 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, Lisbon�s 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 family�s 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 Lee�s 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 today�s 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 father�s 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 today�s 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 Mother�s 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 Emma�s son, Robert, became an outstanding athlete and is in the Sussex Baseball Hall of Fame. He also served 11 years as Sussex�s fire chief and as a trustee on the Sussex Village Board.

Maryanna married Virgil Hart, who is in both the Land O�Lakes 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.

First of two parts

Retrospect: Emma Stier's life took her from city to farm