Frank H. Stevens

Frank H. Stevens

• Father: Franz Hofner b. circa 1836, d. 3 October 1876
• Mother: Anna Paulina Waldheger b. 29 June 1846

• Frank H. Stevens was born on 11 May 1875 in Ohio or possibly 14 May 1873.
• Alois L. Jud and Anna Paulina Waldheger appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1880 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, at 996 Sheriff Street. Other members of the household included Frank H. Stevens, Albert Leo Stevens and Jerry Hofner. It is an educated guess that Frankie (age 5) and Joseph (2) are the future Frank and Leo Stevens. It is not clear whether Mamie (age 8) and sons Latte (9) and Alois L. (6) belong to Alois or to Anna.
• He married Mary L. Gleason in 1897.
• The following appeared on 16 May 1897 in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: A much worried man yesterday was A. L. Schutt, the Sheriff street gunsmith, who lives at No. 1461 Clark avenue. He was unable to gain any information concerning his two sons, Lewis and Frank, who were supposed to be drowned off Sandy Hook while making a balloon ascension at Jersey City.
       News which reached this city was to the effect that two young men, supposed to be from Cleveland, accompanied by a third man, had gone up in a balloon at Jersey City and that the balloon was seen to fall into the ocean off Sandy Hook. By the professional names given Mr. Schutt was positive the two mentioned were his sons, who are well known aeronauts. They have a place of business in New York city and employ men to make ascensions, but Schutt was firmly of the opinion that they would not do so themselves. Nevertheless he was greatly worried and his wife was driven nearly frantic. Schutt telegraphed to different points in New York city and late last night received a telegram that relieved him more than words can tell. The telegram was from Mrs. Wands, with whom the boys boarded. She simply stated that the boys had just telegraphed her from Jersey City saying they would reach New York shortly. Whether or not the two boys made the ascent and if they did how they managed to escape death is, of course, unknown to Schutt.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 15 April 1910 in Manhattan, New York, at 418 West 35th Street. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens, Anna H. Stevens and Francis H. Stevens.
• He was a manufacturer of awnings, according to the 1910 census.
• Frank H. Stevens registered for the draft on 12 September 1918 in Bronx, New York, while living with his wife Mary at 985 Jackson Avenue in the Bronx, and engaged in the manufacture of canvas aircraft supplies (New York Awning Company, Inc.) at 432 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 1 January 1920 in Bronx, New York, at 985 Jackson Avenue. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens and Anna H. Stevens.
• He was an awning maker, according to the 1920 census.
• Frank H. Stevens and Mary L. Gleason appeared in the US federal census of 1 April 1930 in Bronx, New York, at 985 Jackson Avenue. Other members of the household included Lawrence Hoffner Stevens and Anna H. Stevens.
• He was owner of a company manufacturing canvas goods.
• The following appeared on 9 May 1944 in The New York Times: (Bardonia, N.Y., May 8) A. Leo Stevens, long prominent in aviation circles, died here last night at the home of his brother, Frank Stevens. He was en route to Washington from his home at Fly Creek in Otsego County.
       Mr. Stevens, who was born in Cleveland, sixty-seven years ago, was credited with numerous developments in parachutes and was said to have worked on the earliest dirigibles.
       He became interested in ballooning as a youth in Cleveland. He later gave balloon exhibitions, then moved to New York where he opened a parachute shop.
       During the first World War Mr. Stevens was an army balloon instructor at Fort Omaha, Neb., where he worked with Gen. H. H. Arnold, then a major. He later was an instructor at Scott Field, Ill. Mr. Stevens retired from business in 1927, but continued to experiment on various areronautical devices. He had been working with the Switlak Corporation in New Jersey.
       He was a member of various balloon clubs of France and America, and an honorary member of the Aeronautical Society of America. He leaves a widow, the former Laura Carter of Akron, Ohio.
       Nationally acclaimed as "Prince Leo the Boy Aeronaut" in the Gay Nineties, Mr. Stevens had made more than 3,400 balloon ascensions and on many occasions returned to earth dangling from a parachute. He was only 12 years old when he first went up in a balloon from amusement park, making the trip alone and without permission, after secretly entering the basket and cutting the mooring rope. An adventurous air ride, punctuated by bumps into houses and trees, ended with the boy tumbling into the shallow waters of a lake at Canton, Ohio.
       He became one of the first American parachute performers. In 1895 he excited the residents of Montreal by ending a jump on the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral. Three years later he landed in the Atlantic Ocean two miles off Long Branch, N. J. Another time his balloon exploded a thousand feet up and he had to make a hurried descent, missing by a short distance the gorge of Niagara Falls.
       A dirigible built by Mr. Stevens in 1902 made its first successful flight on Sept. 30 of that year, and over the Sheepshead Bay race track found another ship in the air. The rival was an imported replica of the one in which Santos-Dumont had flown around the Eiffel Tower, and the appearance of the two dirigibles at the same moment so disturbed the race track proceedings that the fourth race had to be postponed.
• Frank H. Stevens became a widower at the 1952 death of his wife Mary L. Gleason.
• Frank H. Stevens died on 19 September 1958 at age 83 in Queens, New York, at Bayside Gardens Nursing Home.
• He was interred at Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, Queens County, New York.
• The following appeared on 25 September 1958 in The Otsego Farmer: Frank Stevens of Flushing, Queens, brother of the late A. Leo Stevens of Fly Creek, and board chairman of the New York Awning Company, Inc., died Friday in Bayside Gardens Nursing Home after a long illines. His age was 85.
       Mr. Stevens and his brother, who died in 1944, began a career in aeronautics and were billed as the "Boy Wonders of the Air" during the Eighteen Nineties. They made many balloon ascensions and parachute jumps in the United States and Canada.
       After his first parachute jump, at the age of 15 at a circus in Ohio, Mr. Stevens made many others at the once famous El Dorado Park in the Palisades of New Jersey, at the World's Fair in St. Louis and at President William McKinley's inaugural celebration.
       He was believed the first balloonist to make a parachute jump in Manhattan-- at the mail carriers' picnic in old Schutzer Park in July, 1893. He then just missed alighting on the rails of the old Third Avenue elevated railway.
       Mr. Stevens, who founded the New York Awning Company in 1893, was a pioneer in developing and introducing the modern type of concealed or recessed awnings. In 1940 he absorbed F. J. Kloes, Inc.
       A charter member of the Canvas Goods Manufacturers Association of Greater New York, which he helped to organize in 1907, Mr. Stevens served as its president for twenty-one years. He was a former director and president in 1931-32 of the Canvas Products Association International.
       Under the National Recovery Administration, Mr. Stevens was a regional director for the canvas products industry. He had been a consultant to the armed services on parachutes in World War I.
       Mr. Stevens was a member of the Holy Name Society of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Flushing; a former director of the Kiwanis Club of New York, and a former member of the Bronx Grand Jurors Association.
       In 1897 he married Miss Mary L. Gleason. She died in 1952. Surviving are three sons, Lawrence, Leo and Vincent; a daughter, Miss Anna Stevens, and three grandchildren.

• Last Edited: 15 Mar 2011