William David Stieg of Crawfordsville died Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018, at the age of 97.

He was born Aug. 11, 1921, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the third son of Max and Merle (Overton) Stieg of Clintonville, Wisconsin, the grandson of German immigrants. He grew up in Clintonville with his four brothers and a sister in a large house on Main Street. There he spent summers swimming in the Pigeon River and Sandy Beach, and working in the feed mill and bean cannery.

He graduated from CHS and attended UW Madison, graduating with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1943. He got a job at Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, California, then volunteered for the Navy a year later, serving as the master of the LST 1051, voyaging from Pittsburgh to Japan, via the Panama Canal, Los Angeles (twice, once by mistake), San Francisco, Hawaii, and Saipan, with a full load of telephone poles and banging pontoons. As the crew moored in Saipan, they learned about the atomic bombing and the surrender; the LST arrived in Japan a week afterwards.

In 1945 he was discharged from the Navy with the rank of Lt. J.G. and joined the giant AO Smith Co. in Milwaukee where he both ensured the quality of their weld rods and courted a pretty coworker, Ellie-Jane Mallman. They were married Dec. 10, 1949, and settled amongst the stately suburban elms of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where they raised two children. He spent his precious two weeks of vacation every summer with his family, dog and cats up north at Grandpa Max's cottage on Pine Lake, just north of Clintonville.

In 1966, upon sale of the welding electrode division of AO Smith to the Harnischfeger Co., the family moved to Monticello, Indiana, where they lived until 1978, when another such sale took him and his wife to Spring Grove, Pennsylvania. There he joined Alloy Rods' international business development team, making extended trade visits to Costa Rica, Brazil and the Soviet Union.

In 1984, he joined a hard-working and faithful team at the late Midstates Steel and Wire in Crawfordsville, who for many years ensured a quality product. He was actively interested in astronomy, genealogy, the underdog local Democratic Party, the preservation of Sugar Creek and the history of Montgomery County, particularly that of his church, the Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church.

He was preceded in death by his parents; three brothers, Bernard (Vivian), Robert (Jane) and John (Rae) Stieg.

He is survived by his wife, Ellie-Jane Stieg; two children, Scott (Monica Jablonski) of Milwaukee and Sally (Kim Myers) of Abbottstown, Pennsylvania; two grandchildren, Max and Peter Stieg; sister Marjorie Miller of Washington state; and brother Richard (Marilyn) Stieg of Colorado. He is sorely missed by his family and friends of Crawfordsville, his home for more than 30 years.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 22 at Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church, Crawfordsville.