Editor's note: Cheryl Smith attributes all reporting in this series to exhaustive research on newspapers.com, archives.com, fold3.com; Indian River County records; historical societies, museums and Facebook groups in Sebastian, St. Lucie County and Wisconsin; Green Bay Packers team historian Cliff Christl; Sebastian resident Judith Swingle; and Vero Beach attorney Eugene J. O'Neill's book, "Raising the Bar: In and Before Indian River County — A History." Contact her at cheryl.smith@tcpalm.com if you have any photos, records or information that corrects or adds to this account.
Samuel Richard Powers Sr. was the first tackle and guard on the inaugural Green Bay Packers football team, playing alongside founder Capt. Earl "Curly" Lambeau for three seasons, from 1919-21.
"Sammy" — a 5-foot-10, 130-pound, blue-eyed, blond-haired Irish scrapper — launched his football career playing for the Marinette (Wisconsin) High School Marines from 1916-18, which were his freshman through junior years.
With WWI disrupting life in 1918, he took over coaching midseason, then quit high school before his 1919 senior year.
Sammy Powers: First 1919 Green Bay Packers tackle married Earl's Hideaway owner Grace Martin
Sammy Powers was Green Bay Packers' first tackle in 1919
His ages throughout life aren't precise because while his obituary and gravestone say he was born in 1896, many other earlier records say 1897, and that makes more sense when it comes to his high school years.
As a 19-year-old freshman guard, Sammy's rough play got him ejected from a game when officials finally caught him “slugging” opponents. A year later, he was a celebrated 20-year-old sophomore tackle who helped the Marines win an undefeated season and the Wisconsin state championship in 1917.
“Easily the best tackle in the state,” one newspaper proclaimed.
In 1919, he was a Whales baseball catcher in spring and a Packers football tackle in fall. Sammy started at right tackle in all 11 of the sandlot team's games in 1919 and 1920, when they were sponsored by Indian Packing Co., later Acme.
In 1921, the Green Bay Packers joined the American Professional Football Association, soon renamed the National Football League. Sammy started at right guard in the No. 7 jersey in their first game on Oct. 23, 1921, against the Minneapolis Marines at Hagemeister Park, but he got benched at some point.
Grace's Hideaway?: The woman you never knew owned Earl's Hideaway biker bar in Florida
Sam Powers played in four NFL games for Green Bay Packers
In his other three NFL games, Sammy was a substitute lineman for the starting tackle and guard. His NFL career ended in a game on Nov. 13, 1921, against the Hammond Pros.
But he went on to become team captain for the Lauerman Twins of Marinette-Menominee in 1922, and tackle for the Iron Mountaineers in Michigan circa 1924-26.
The Marinette High School Athletic Hall of Fame, founded in 2012, inducted him in 2021.
Sebastian Inn: Grace was hotel manager and restaurant hostess
Born in Koss, Michigan; family moved to Marinette, Wisconsin
Sammy was born into a family with Irish (paternal) and German (maternal) grandparents on May 26 (1986-97) in Koss, Michigan. He was the last of 11 children, including two who died before 1900.
It was both of his parents' second marriage. Here’s a family snapshot:
- Father: John Henry Powers, born circa 1849 in Boston, Massachusetts; was 78-79 when he died June 19, 1928; buried with family in Forest Home Cemetery in Marinette
- Mother: Mary C. Bergman, born circa 1860 in Manitowoc Rapids, Wisconsin; was 72-73 when she died March 2, 1933; buried with family in Forest Home Cemetery in Marinette
- Step-siblings: John's first wife was Elizabeth Garrity; they married Feb. 27, 1873, in Outagamie, Wisconsin; and had three children: Alice Mattilda (1875-1962), John Delbert (1876-1903) and Mary Harriet (1878-1962). Elizabeth died in 1883. Mary's first husband was William Hallfrisch; they married June 23, 1877; and had three children: John Frederick (1878), Wright Frank (1879) and Carrie S. (1885). William died in 1886.
- Siblings: John and Mary married May 4, 1887, in Wrightstown, Wisconsin, a year after her first husband died and four years after his first wife died. They had five children: Mary "Mamie/Mammie" Ellen (1888), Thomas "Tommie/Tommy" Henry (1890), Emma A. (1892), Geneva C. (1894) and Samuel "Sammie/Sammy" (1896-97).
Sammy was still a high school student, but also “clerking” and working "on lakes" when he registered for WWI on June 5, 1918, exactly three months before his wedding day. He apparently didn't serve like his brother did.
Tommy was 27, worked as a clerk and lived with his family when he registered for WWI on June 5, 1917. He was a private first class in the Army's Battery E 11th Field Artillery when he died Sept. 27, 1918. He initially was buried in France, but his body was returned to the United States and buried in Forest Home Cemetery in 1921. His grave is beside his mother's, which is beside her husband's. Sam and his 7-year-old son are buried nearby.
Family history: Earl's Hideaway founder moved to Florida with life partner, not family
Where was Sammy Powers from? Where did he live?
Sammy and his family moved around Marinette, and over the years, he lived at:
- 1900: 328 Hattie St. with his brother, three sisters and one stepsister
- 1910: Mininita Avenue with his family
- 1918: 836 Wells St. with his family
- 1920: Renting at 1920 Crooks St. with wife Grace and her two stepsisters: Lillian, 8, and Margaret, 11. Their mother had died in 1916 and their father had remarried and moved to Princeton, Rhode Island.
- 1930: 1875 Liberty with Grace and their four children
- 1940: 806 Wells St. He was 43, divorced and a lodger with daughter Jeanne Dorothy; her husband, Robert Braley; and their three children: Barbara, 2; Katherine 7½; and Jack, 13.
- 1945: 3405 W. North Ave. in Milwaukee with 18-year-old son, John Daniel
New Lebanon, N.Y.: Earl Roberts owned 2 restaurants across from Showboat nightclub he built in 1930
Sammy Powers married Grace Martin and had 4 children
Sammy, 21, and Grace Marie Dixon, 20, were married by a Lutheran pastor in Menominee, Michigan, on Sept. 5, 1918, but they lived their early lives in Marinette, Wisconsin — where Sammy’s father was a “pioneer.”
They had four children: Jeanne Dorothy (1919), Thomas Henry (1922), Samuel Jr. (1924) and John Daniel (1927). After they divorced sometime before 1935, Grace remarried once, then moved to Florida circa 1942 with life partner Earl Roberts. With him, she co-founded and then solely owned the infamous Earl's Hideaway biker bar in Sebastian.
Two years into their marriage, Sam was 23 and working as meat packing company cost clerk. TCPalm couldn’t confirm, but it's likely he worked at Indian Packing Co., where Packers founder Lambeau was a shipping clerk who convinced President Frank Peck to spend $500 on the inaugural team’s first uniforms and equipment.
Here’s a snapshot of their four children:
Jeanne Dorothy Powers Braley Kelly Johnson ran Earl's Hideaway
Grace took their baby girl Jeanne to Green Bay football games, where she received publicity as the “youngest Packer backer.” In 1958, Sam would become the Packer family’s first great-grandfather when Jeanne’s daughter had a son.
Jeanne moved to Maryland and used her University of Maryland business administration degree to manage the exclusive Normandy Farm French restaurant in Potomac for 33 years. In charge of parties and bookkeeping, she planned weddings for several daughters of senators and congressmen.
She was a 1939 New York World’s Fair commissioner who helped plan the Maryland state restaurant and pavilion.
Jeanne had three husbands and seven children throughout her life.
Sam was visiting her, husband Chester and daughter Judith in Clarksburg, Maryland, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on Oct. 14, 1969. Three years later, the Johnsons moved to Sebastian.
They lived in one of the two cottages south-adjacent to Earl’s Hideaway, which Jeanne ran when Grace and Earl moved into a Melbourne nursing home in 1972.
Jeanne unsuccessfully ran for Sebastian City Council in 1975, 28 years after Earl served as mayor-judge in 1948-49.
When Grace died in 1973, Jeanne ran the bar with her son, Tim Kelly, until she sold it in 1977.
All the owners: Florida biker bar history spans 80 years, murder, country line dancing
Thomas H. Powers honored Earl "Curly" Lambeau
Thomas H. Powers moved to Ohio and was living in Canton in 1965 when Packers founder Lambeau died. Powers was pictured placing a flower basket in Lambeau's niche at the NFL Hall of Fame.
Samuel Powers Jr. died in St. Joseph's orphanage
Samuel Powers Jr. was a 6-year-old student living at home in 1930, but within a year, he died in the St. Joseph orphans home in Allouez, a village south of Green Bay, on April 15, 1931.
His death is a mystery and TCPalm is awaiting the orphanage records it requested.
John Daniel Powers a war hero, awarded Purple Heart
John Daniel Powers, 15, lived with his father at 3207 W. Mount Vernon in Milwaukee in 1942. He was 17 when he registered for WWII on March 5, 1945 — one day before his birthday. He was 18 when he enlisted Feb. 21, 1946, now living with his father at 3405 W. North Ave.
An Army master sergeant in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, he was awarded a Purple Heart. He was living in San Antonio, Texas, when his mother died in 1973, and he was discharged Jan. 31, 1974.
That year, he moved to Vero Beach and worked as a Piper Aircraft production lineman for 12 years. After he retired in 1986, he worked for Walgreens and Donnelly’s Irish Pub. He also was a Sebastian Moose Lodge governor.
When sister Jeanne tried to sell Earl’s Hideaway in 1977, he contested, claiming she mismanaged the bar by borrowing money without her two brothers’ consent — to their “detriment and economic loss.” TCPalm couldn’t find the outcome of his 1977 trial.
He died at Indian River Memorial Hospital on Feb. 15, 1990, and he was buried in the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.
10 connections: Between Fort Pierce and Earl Roberts of Earl's Hideaway
Surviving WWI, WWII, Prohibition, Great Depression
Amid WWI, WWII, Prohibition and the Great Depression, Sammy worked myriad jobs.
He reportedly ran a Hall Avenue tavern, and was 30 when he was arrested in a federal raid for "possessing and selling intoxicating liquors" without the proper revenue stamps in a Hotel Marinette basement bar in 1927. He was sentenced to a $300 fine or 90 days in jail in 1934.
He was a soap company salesman in 1930 and “with a tea concern” in 1931.
By 1935, Grace was gone and remarried. Sam, 43, was a divorced lodger with daughter Jeanne, 20; her first husband, Robert Braley Sr., 24; and their three children: Barbara, 2, Kathleen, 7½ and Jack, 13.
“Sam was a hard man to live with,” granddaughter Judith Swingle of Sebastian heard her family say.
Sammy's great-grandson: Florida biker bar friendly now, but shootings and murders mar history
Green Bay Packers annual homecoming reunions
When Sam registered for his WWII Old Man’s Draft Card in 1942, he was 44, living at 3207 W. Mount Vernon in Milwaukee with 15-year-old son John, and working at the Falk Corp., which made industrial and mechanical power transmission equipment.
He owned Sammy Powers Dinette circa 1945 and lived in Milwaukee until circa 1967.
That year, he had surgery to save his left leg from amputation in Houston, Texas. He recuperated at the Silver Dome in Marinette.
Throughout his life, Sam regularly attended Packers reunions, usually the homecoming game in fall, a tradition that began in 1928. His final appearance was in September 1969, and he was in failing health. He died a month later.
Sam was 73 and living in West De Pere, Wisconsin, when he died Oct. 14, 1969.
Cheryl Smith is a TCPalm editor who can be contacted at cheryl.smith@tcpalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Life story of Sammy Powers, inaugural Green Bay Packers tackle 1919-21
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