Erick Robert Spiess, of Stevensville, passed away on November 23 at his daughter’s home in Baltimore, MD. Erick was 97 and died of natural causes. Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1919, Erick lived an engaging and varied life filled with music, nature, art, theatre and family.
After receiving a degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana Tech, he worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the Bikini Islands, Las Vegas, and the test site in Tonopah. At age 50 he became a Millwright, and helped build the Cesar’s Palace ‘moving sidewalk’, among many other projects.
Erick always liked to putter and build things from the ground up. Once growing bamboo stalks to use in making bamboo kites. He was also an artist, working in watercolor, graphite, colored pencil and charcoal.
Bicycling was a large part of his life from an early age. Once even riding his balloon- tired bike from Louisville to New Orleans just to visit a girl, (later to become his wife). In the years that followed, he designed and built all sorts of bicycle configurations, including side-by-sides, and helped his son with a patented para-cycle, designed for quadriplegics.
He loved helping people, especially kids of any age and started the first Boy Scout troop in Las Vegas. He also helped with his wife’s Brownie and Girl Scout troops, especially when they put on plays.
The Spiess house was filled with music, art and theatre. In Las Vegas he helped his daughter’s early theatrical career by welding up a mock turtle frame for “Alice in Wonderland”, and making wooden shoes for the entire cast of the Dutch play “Two Pails of Water”. After moving to Stevensville in 1985, he decided to buy the local movie theatre. He had the dream, and the means, to turn the condemned old movie house into a “jewel” of a theatre. The Chantilly Theatre, the original name (now the Stevensville Playhouse) was his dream come to life. He also performed on stage whenever an ‘old’ guy was needed. He performed in many Chantilly productions, including Carousel, Working, Twain by the Tale and Spell of the Yukon.
Erick Spiess was preceded in death by his son Erick Marvin Spiess and his wife Margaret Brown Spiess. He is survived by his two daughters, Anita Spiess of Baltimore, Maryland and Gretchen Spiess of Stevensville. No service will be held. If you would like to honor his memory, enjoy some music, theatre or a walk in the woods. You just might hear him puttering around somewhere, whistling to himself in perfect contentment.