AL THEISEN: THE MYSTERY
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: August 12, 2008
Here are just a few of the most recent discoveries uncovered in the hunt for Al Theisen. 
First and foremost, we finally get to see what Aloysius E. Thiesen looked like. The photo to the right was taken from a Detroit newspaper reporting on Al's death, with a little bit of color added by me. I believe that the photo was taken approximately 1934.
Al began his racing career in 1925 in and around his home town of Detroit/Dearborn. His first race gave a preview of what was to come in his racing career; he lost control of his Fronty Ford and plowed through a fence, demolishing the car but escaping without serious injuries.
He won at least one race in Lansing, Michigan, and was a constant competitor at the VFW track (we think it is the outdoor Detroit Motor Speedway) when it ran under AAA sanction for two years.
Having proven himself in the Detroit area, he moved to Dayton sometime in 1927-1928 to try his hand at the tough Midwest circuit. His serious crash at Cincinnati's Coney Island Speedway in 1928 must have taken him out of the action for some time. In any event, his skill behind the wheel of a race car soon became evident and in 1931 he began to drive for Patterson, New Jersey native Pop Green. Pop had lived in Dayton so he knew Al and it is reasonable for them to have connected. Al drove Pop's black #29 Frontenac sprint car on the boards of the 1/2 mile Woodbridge high-banked track, the 1/2 mile dirt at Reading, PA, and the 1/2 mile dirt of Phoenix, AZ.
He was on the Woodbridge boards at least five times in 1931, with a best qualifying time of 21.4 seconds. When he finished, he did well, but he also had several crashes. On September 19 he rolled the #29 in a corner and on October 11, after winning the second 10 lap heat, he crashed head-on into the guardrail on the 44th of the 50 lap main.
Rick Patterson (elvis334@att.net) has been working diligently on trying to sort out Al's Indy 500 story. It's still a bit sketchy, but what we know is that Al was respected enough in auto racing to have at least an opportunity in reasonably good equipment, but that things never turned out very well. Fred Frame, the 1932 winner, asked Al to be his relief driver in 1934 for example, but then Frame went and smashed up the car before he could even get it qualified.
Sometime between the end of 1930 and the end of 1934, Al and his new bride moved into a home at 142 Park Street in Dayton. In the photo here, 142 is the left side of the duplex in the photo shown here. The photo was taken by Rick Patterson.
In September, 1934, Al was seriously injured in a racing accident at Dayton Speedway. By April, 1935, Al had recovered and was looking for a chance to get back in a race car. The opportunity came when a car owner named Ted (or Terry) Curly (or Curley) from Indianapolis offered Al a ride in his midget at the races then being held weekly in Detroit, Michigan, by the VFW at the State Fair Coliseum. The indoor track at the coliseum was approximately 1/7th mile dirt, and Al was scheduled to drive in the fourth race of the indoor series on April 6, 1935.
It is important to try to put Al's appearance in perspective. First, he was going home, and he was going home as a champion race car driver. It's likely his family and friends were going to be there to watch him race. In addition, he was being touted as the guy who could put a stop to the domination of the indoor series by a young Ronney Householder from Los Angeles. The Detroit-area newspapers played Al's arrival up and promised that Householder would be facing a real test.
Finally, this would be Al's first time back in a race car after a serious crash. Like most racing drivers who have been in this position, Al knew that the coliseum race would also be a test of whether or not he still had what it takes to drive competitively. When Al boarded the train in Dayton on the morning of April 6 for the trip to Detroit there must surely have been a lot of pressure riding with him.
We don't know much about Al's time in Detroit that April Saturday. Perhaps his parents met him, or friends, or even the car owner when he arrived at the train station. What we do know is that later that day Al climbed into a midget that cost $2,000 (equal to $30,000 today) powered by a "rare" Elto 460 "X" engine, reportedly one of only six such engines in the nation. Al's midget was not the most expensive, however. That was the midget driven by Tony Willman, a one-of-a-kind machine built for Willman by the Auburn Motor Car Company for which he paid $5,000 (equal to $75,000 today). Ironically, long after Al would be taken from the coliseum by ambulance, Willman would go on to beat Householder for the feature win.
During the first lap of his qualifying heat, Al went into the North corner too fast according to officials, and the car tumbled twice, pinning him under it. As luck would have it, the ambulance was parked in the same corner and he was immediately taken to the Saratoga hospital. Initially the doctors believed there that Al had wrenched his back, but it soon became apparently that there were other more serious injuries. By Monday, April 8, the doctors were reporting that Al was too seriously hurt to undergo any operations, and on Tuesday his doctor was quoted as saying that even if Al recovered quickly, he would have to stay in the hospital for at least a month.
Aloysius E. Theisen, champion auto racer, a son, a husband, a father, died at 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday morning, April 10, 1935. He was 29 years old.
Friends visited with the Theisen family at their home at 6951 Neckel Avenue in Dearborn, shown in the photograph here. 
It's reasonable to assume that Al's wife had time to travel to Detroit to be with her husband before his death and to be a part of the services. Funeral services were held at 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 13, at the Saint Alphonsus Church, just a few blocks from the family home. After the services, Al was laid to rest in the church cemetary.
Here are some observations and areas still needing research:
Al's family home is a big one, with five bedrooms according to the current owner, Mr. Garcia. Al's dad must have been quite prosperous, perhaps employed in a senior position with Ford Motor Company. Al's father died just three years after Al.
The newspaper accounts agree that Al was married, but some report that he left behind a 2-year-old daughter while others report that he left behind a 3-year-old son. Since the son is called "Albert Jr." in most newspaper accounts, there is clearly something lacking in the reporting accuracy. If Al had a son and named him "Jr." it would have been "Aloysius, Jr." not Albert. Still, there is that chance that Al had a son. The most important thing here is that a son or daughter, if still living, would be 70+ years old, but Al could have a grandchild in their 50's, or great-grandchildren in their 30's. It would be worthwhile to track down these people, if they exist, so that we can introduce them to Al, and vice-versa.
Ace investigator Rick Patterson is slowly but surely piecing together Al's entire racing history, and, assuming that Rick doesn't run out of gas, we will present that to you here as soon as we can get them all sorted out.
The cemetary at Saint Alphonsus is in some disarray, as you might expect for a very old cemetary. Apparently many bodies were moved when the adjoining street was widened some years ago. There are no more than 50 or so markers in the cemetary, though there are several hundred folks listed as being buried there. We are exploring the possibility of installing a slightly larger marker to record Al's title as Midwest Champion and will let you know how that goes.
Rick is working now on trying to find a marriage certificate for Al and his wife (name as yet unknown) and a birth certificate for Al's children.
That's it for now. As always, if you have any information, no matter how trivial that might relate to Al Theisen or his life and times, please contact Rick Patterson at elvis334@att.net or you can contact me here.
Mickey
Saint Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church, Dearborn, MI. This is the Theisen family's parish church and the place where the funeral services for Al were held on Saturday, April 13, 1935. The small cemetary where Al and his parents, along with his brother Lawrence, are buried is to the left of the photo, and their markers are shown below.
---Photos by Mickey Thompson
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: July 20, 2008
Our understanding of Al Theisen's life and times is growing day by day. Here's what we now know.
Aloysius Theisen was born in Michigan around 1907 to farther Nicholas and mother Maggie. Nicholas, from Germany, married Maggie, a Michigan native seven years his junior. Altogether they had seven children. In order from the oldest to the youngest, they were Lawrence, Alexander, Celia, Leonard, Aloysius, Roney, and Edward.
Al was seriously injured in the Coney Island Speedway Cincinnati crash of 1928.
1930 found him living in Dayton in a boarding house run by Clarence Gebhart at 23 Warren Street. There were five other men living in the board house with Al. Harold Jarvis was a 30 year old baker. Ralph Black, 37, was a Stock Keeper at a furniture store. 46-year-old Charles B. Dersch was a die maker at a tool shop. Michael MacGuire was a 48-year-old hotel clerk, and James Jarvis, 21, was a helper at a publishing company. Al did "outside work" as a laborer.
May 27, 1934, saw Al win at Winchester driving for Dayton native Johnny Vance. He won again in the Vance car on June 10 at Fort Wayne, and again on July 29 at Winchester.
He was named the 1934 Midwest Champion with 299 points over second place Rex Mays (284 points) and third place Mauri Rose (280 points). Finishing behind Rose in fourth through tenth place were Doc Mackenzie, Chet Gardner, Charles Engle, Kelly Petillo, Emil Andres, Clay Weatherly, and Maynard Clark.
He had little time to savor his achievements. On April 6, 1935, Al was killed in a midget crash at Detroit's Motor City Speedway. At the time of his death, Al had tried twice to qualify for the Indy 500 and failed in both attempts.
We can assume that his body was claimed by his parents and he was laid to rest in Saint Alphonsus church cemetary. His father Nicholas joined him there just three years later. Maggie, his mother, was laid to rest near her son and husband in 1957. Brother Lawrence was the last of Al's immediate family to join him at Saint Alphonsus after dying February 3, 1972.
Obviously Al's race records included more than the three wins we've found, and we are still looking for a comprehensive listing of his achievements.
In the meantime, if you have any information about Al, no matter how trivial, please contact lead investigator Rick Patterson (elvis223@att.net) or contact me here.
---Mickey
You wouldn't think that it would be hard to find out what happened to a champion auto racer who won multiple races during the rough and tumble 1930's, was named Midwest Champion, drove for a famous local Dayton, Ohio, car owner (John Vance), and apparently called Dayton his home, but that is certainly the case. Perhaps you can help us tell Al's story. Here's what has happened and what we know so far.
It began when veteran FODS investigator Rick Patterson (elvis334@att.net) was poking around the records looking for some other bit of information about Dayton Speedway. Rick came across this site, http://www.oldracingcars.com/drivers/watn/?Category=Indy500. There Rick found a listing for Aloysius "Al" Theisen who'd tried to qualify for the Indy 500 twice during the years 1932-1934. According to the entry, Al had been born in 1906 in Greenfield. Michigan, and (here's what startled Rick) died on 6 April 1935 in a sprint car crash at Dayton, Ohio.
Obviously, Al didn't meet his fate at Dayton, but that triggered some further searching by Rick, and I pitched in to help, along with FODS Gene Ingram (harleygene@comcast.net). We found that Al won 10 feature races between 1926 and 1934. His last win was at Greenville Speedway, July 1, 1934. For at least part of the time he drove for Dayton car owner John Vance and was named the Midwest Champion for 1934.
Further investigation found that Al's last race was at the 1/2-mile oiled dirt oval Motor City Speedway in Detroit, Michigan. According to a newspaper account (Journal News, 25 April 1935) Al died of his injuries suffered in a midget race several weeks prior. The website OldRacingCars indicates that Al died in Dayton, Ohio, and if this were so it would mean that Al was transported "home" to Dayton after his accident in Detroit and died soon after.
However, I checked the death records for the entire period 1900 through 1946 and no death certificates were issued for any male with the last name "Theisen" or "Thiesen" (since there is a chance that the name was routinely misspelled, we've been chasing both possible spellings) who could possibly be our Al in Montgomery County (Dayton) or anywhere in Ohio for that matter.
A guy named Jim Michels (not a FODS as far as I know) has also been helping to unravel Al's story. Using the Find A Grave website (www.findagrave.com), Jim discovered that an Aloysius E. Theisen, who died in 1935, is buried at the Saint Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church Cemetary in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is just 8 miles west of Detroit. It is very likely that the field at Saint Alphonsus is the final resting place of our Al.
Telling the full story of Al's 29 years on Earth is further complicated by conflicting reports of exactly where his hometown was located, and hometowns are important in any of these sorts of inquiries because that is usually where you can find family and friends, newspaper reports, and official records.
In the early 1930's newspapers often listed Al's hometown as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but not always. On October 21, 1928, Al suffered severe injuries during a race in Cincinnati. Here's what The New York Times reported in their October 22, 1928 edition:
Killed in Mid-West Race
Calvin Goes Through Fence at Cincinnati - Amother Driver Hurt
Cincinnati, Oct. 21 -- One man was killed and another injured today when their racing automobiles crashed through the fence at the Coney Island Speedway here during the 100-mile race.
Earl Calvin, 33, of Indianapolis, one of the twenty-two entrants, went through the barrier and crashed when the steering gear of his machine locked. He was rushed to a hospital where he died tonight.
Al Thiesen [Note different spelling-Mickey], 21, of Detroit, crashed through teh fence earlier in the race and his machine caught fire. He was burned and bruised, but hospital attendants said his condition was not serious.
Bob Carey of Dayton won the 100-mile Midwest championship by finishing in 1 hour, 51 minutes, and 2 seconds."
So was Al's hometown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dayton, Ohio, or Detroit, Michigan, (or Greenfield, Michigan as has sometimes been listed as his hometown)?
One scenario that I am starting to favor more and more is this: Al was born in Milwaukee and he and his family moved to Michigan at an early age, perhaps so that he or other family members could find work in the rapidly expanding auto industry or as part of the Great Depression migration to the cities. It's possible that Al lived in Dayton for a time and called it home because this is where his car owner, John Vance, lived. When he died, his burial in the Detroit area could have been arranged by his surviving family members.
Of course, it is also possible that Al had no surviving family as such and maybe the other drivers, car owners and fans took up a collection for his burial, but if that were the case how was the Saint Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church cemetary selected? Located 8 miles west of Detroit and an unknown number of miles from the speedway where Al crashed or from the hospital where he was taken, Saint Alphonsus rings more like the Theisen family church than one more or less randomly selected to lay Al to rest.
So that's what we know as of this time. In the absence of a death certificate issued in Ohio around this time period for a "Theisen" or a "Thiesen" that could have been our Al, it is almost certain that Al wasn't brought to Dayton after the accident, then taken back to Michigan for burial after his death (although Rick has introduced the idea that Al might have been racing under an assumed name which was not unusual during this period when drivers didn't want their families to know what they were doing).
Ideally, here's what we would like to have to tell Al's story:
*The basic facts of his birth and early family life, including his actual hometown. (By the way, there's no use looking for Al's records in Greenfield, Michigan; Rick reports that there is no such place, if there ever was such a place. The closest Rick can come is the Greenfield Village museum.)
*His full racing history with dates, events, and results.
*The story behind his death and what happened to him afterwards. (If Al died in Detroit, there ought to have been a death certificate issued in his name, and perhaps an indication of who claimed the body.)
*A photo of Al and the car(s) he drove.
*Finally, a photo of Al's gravesite, assuming that the cemetary still exists and his gravesite can be found.
There are now FODS scattered all over the nation and I'm confident that in time we will be able to give Al his due, clearing the cobwebs of anonymity and restoring the champ to his rightful place. if you can help or have information that will help tell Al's story, please contact Rick (elvis334@att.net) or contact me here. (If you plan to pursue a lead, to place a call, or to start going door to door in Detroit talking to every Theisen/Thiesen in the phonebook, please send a note to Rick so that we aren't all chasing-and possibly annoying-the same sources.)
Thanks
---Mickey
June 26, 2008