Retrospect: Daring young flyers built their own airfields in Sussex
by Fred H. Keller, Sussex Village Historian
The Wright bros. introduced the world to airplanes. Waukesha County entered the airplane age with its own airfields and aviators, as recounted in "The History of Aviation in Waukesha County."
The Wright brothers and World War I introduced the world to airplanes. Waukesha County entered the airplane age with its own airfields and aviators, as recounted in “The History of Aviation in Waukesha County,” written in 1956 by Warren O’Brien.
O'Brien was an important photographer of the county, and he included many of his own aviation photos in this book, including some involving Sussex-Lisbon. I will use his book, plus my own research back in 1983, to tell this story of how aviation began in Sussex.
The daring young men who took up the challenge to fly would use a lengthy well-manicured lawn or pasture as a takeoff and landing field, or build their own, including two in east Sussex where Quad/Graphics is today.
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SUSSEX AVIATOR - Philip "Chinee" Stier stands in front of his biplane just after making a forced landing at Sussex Airport sometime around 1932. Childhood friends and classmates gave him that nickname because of his dark complexion and hair. By the time he grew into adulthood, no one knew him as Philip, and when the local VFW added a room in the 1970s, his fellow veterans named it the Chinee Stier Room in his honor. |
Pasture-field pilots
Sussex was a hotbed of pasture-field pilots in the early l930s. O'Brien's book makes many references to Sussex, including this one on Page 60, "Outstanding Events of 1932":
"Philip Stier told about his new Swallow and how interest in aviation was picking up at Sussex. They are clearing shrubbery to make an airport."
Page 63 shows four pictures of Sussex aviation events.
A newspaper clipping from the August 1933 Waukesha Freeman read, "Hundreds of people yesterday attended the dedication for a new Sussex $1,000 hangar. A parachute jump, stunts and airplane rides featured the day's program."
O'Brien added this disclaimer, however: "It was a $100 hangar, not $1,000."
Aviation students
Page 47 includes a photo of a group of young men taking an aviation course at Waukesha Vocational School, including Sussex men Homer Stone, Philip Stier, Bob Brown, Ray Schroeder and Joe Ries.
The preceding page shows a bunch of crash sites in Sussex. The smashed airplanes belonged to Royal Woodchick of Sussex.
The caption attached to a photo on Page 63 indicates that Woodchick, Ralph and Laura Hardiman, Stier and Ries were the backbone of the Sussex airfield project and mentions that Woodchick owned and flew several airplanes long before 1930.
Ries and Hardiman shared ownership of a Waco 10 plane.
Laura is credited with being a "handy girl to have around when a wing or fuselage needs recovering."
Stier "probably repaired and flew as many old planes as anyone in the county who was not actually in the business."
Waukesha Air Club
The Waukesha Air Club's membership list names Stier and Lisbon resident Seth Pollard as licensed pilots.
In a 1983 interview, Joe Ries' widow, Elizabeth, recalled the Sussex airfield, its corrugated metal-and-plywood hangar and the clubhouse built from an old railroad boxcar.
That boxcar wound up in central Sussex behind what is today Paul Cain's Service, but it is now long gone.
Wings clipped
Elizabeth also told me how her husband gave up his wings when they got married.
"I can't afford both of you," she said he told her.
Before they married, she and Joe had been heavily involved in the Sussex aviation scene. She often flew with him to county fairs to sell tickets to fairgoers for a quick ride around the fairgrounds.
She remembered one particularly harrowing experience as they flew back to Sussex late one evening. The Sussex field did not have lights. Joe buzzed Sussex and got George Grenwis and a friend to drive out to the pasture and point their headlights at a safe spot to land.
After Ries married, he sold his plane to John Schaap. Shortly afterward, Schapp took it to Marytown Fair, where he lost control and crashed while stunt flying, killing the new owner-pilot.
The Sussex airplane club began to disappear during the late 1930s as the young men started to mature and World War II loomed ever closer.
Postscript
Stier was an overage volunteer in World War II who ended up in the Signal Corps.
Ries coached the Sussex grand champion Land O'Rivers basketball team.
Both were charter members of the Sussex VFW Club in 1946.
Stier's plane is now a featured display at the Oshkosh Air Venture Museum.
Laura Hardiman died recently, leaving Elizabeth Ries the only living Sussex aviation pioneer.
© 2008 LivingLakeCountry.com. All rights reserved Posted October 8, 2008 Sussex Sun