Stoneburner was founding member of Historical Society, active in Legion
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
A founding member of the Delavan Historical Society and a man known for more than a decade as Delavan’s Uncle Sam has died.
Franklin R. Stoneburner, 82, died Dec. 28 at Aurora Lakeland Medical Center in Elkhorn.
He was born in 1932 less than 30 miles from Delavan in Footville in Rock County. He grew up in Allens Grove and attended grade school in Sharon and high school in Darien before moving to Delavan when he was 16 years old after his father, Melville Stoneburner, died. He graduated from Delavan High School in 1950.
Stoneburner obtained a degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1966 and was a social worker with the Walworth County Department of Health and Human Services from 1971 until his retirement in 1997.
He was a member of the National Guard for 31 years and served during the Berlin Crisis.
He married Suzanne Scheibe in 1968, and they had two children, John and Elizabeth.
Friends and family say Stoneburner was known for his passion for history and antiques; love of Delavan, its people and socializing; and advocacy for the elderly.
“He was involved with a lot,” said Beth Peters, of Delavan, who served with Stoneburner on the Delavan Historical Society Board and did housekeeping and secretarial work for him.
Stoneburner was a past post commander of the Delavan American Legion and an antique dealer, Peters said. He put himself through college by working weekends at Lake Lawn Resort, worked at StaRite and worked for a company in Beloit that made railroad cars.
Stoneburner was one of the founders of the Delavan Historical Society and served on its board from the beginning.
When the group’s historian, Gordon Yadon, died in 2013, Stoneburner became the society’s historian.
“He was a great asset as a local historian and collector,” said Historical Society President Patti Marsicano. “It is hard to lose another valuable local historical resource.”
Peggy Rockwell Gleich, also a Historical Society member, recalls being at the group’s resource center surrounded by boxes of very old photographs when Yadon and Stoneburner both walked through the door.
“I couldn’t take notes or ask questions fast enough,” she said.
Friends say Stoneburner got most excited about researching people.
Magie Matousek Brady, of Milwaukee, who grew up in Delavan, recalls when Stoneburner noticed a young black boy in a picture of some Boy Scouts from the early 1900s – a time when African Americans didn’t exist in Delavan.
“It stuck out like a sore thumb, a little black boy in this picture,” Brady said. “That piqued his interest, and he dug and dug until he found out who that was.”
Peters often typed up the articles that resulted from Stoneburner’s research.
“He was very humorous in a lot of things but he was a perfectionist,” Peters said. “But he had the worst handwriting in the world. He’d get mad if I told him I can’t read his writing.”
She described Stoneburner as “old-school” and said he had a way of always making people feel special.
Stoneburner’s daughter, Beth Stoneburner, of Crystal Lake, Ill., said her father was always happy to see his children and other family members and loved to socialize, going to parties or out to dinner.
“He liked to see people, sit down, talk to people and swap stories,” she said.
She said many Delavan residents will remember Stoneburner as Uncle Sam – the tall man in the red, white and blue top hat during local parades.
“He loved doing it,” she said. “I remember more than once helping him with his costume. He lived for it. He absolutely loved it.”
However, Stoneburner said, when she and her brother were growing up, John Featherstone was Uncle Sam. She has more vivid recollections of her father’s involvement in the American Legion.
“I’ve been a member of the auxiliary since birth,” Beth Stoneburner said.
She said her father participated in the Legion’s meetings, community events and holiday activities including the Halloween haunted house and Christmas dinner.
“He always wanted to be active with whatever the Legion was doing,” she said.
Stoneburner was also a supporter of preserving the Israel Stowell Temperance House, emphasizing the historic significance of the building.
“He was very vocal about saving the temperance hall and trying to get local support for that,” she said.
In his later years, peripheral neuropathy – damage to peripheral nerves that causes numbness and pain in the hands and feet – made it difficult for Stoneburner to get around.
“He had been sick for awhile,” Beth Stoneburner said.
But, she said, her father never wanted anyone to know and tried not to let it slow him down. She said he bounced back from each bout of pneumonia and infection that resulted from his illness, but suffered two bouts of pneumonia just before Christmas.
Stoneburner had spent the past year at Ridgestone Village and was hospitalized just before Christmas Eve. Beth Stoneburner said the family spent his last Christmas with him at the hospital. He died three days later.
