While looking around the Milwaukee newspaper archives after reading TMC-Chase's account of a 1967 Milwaukee stock car race, I came across several stories about a lady stock car racing driver in the Milwaukee area back in the 1950s.
Racing under the name "Lucky Samuels" - Avis Matthews , born Avis Mathilde Grenzer , was driving gravel trucks for a living around Milwaukee while she raced stock cars in the 1950s.
After her driving career, Avis "Lucky Samuels" gained more fame showing horses all over the U.S. and Canada.
Following her 2011 passing in Washington state, the Milwaukee newspaper ran the obituary story below about Mavis, whose family lost their North Dakota farm during the Great Depression and who learned to drive a truck before age 16 on a ranch in Nevada.
Once again, reading a RR post and trying to find additional information has been an interesting learning experience.
Mathews was at home behind wheel
Family photo
Avis Mathews was known as Lucky Samuels and made headlines, both a stock car driver and as a professional truck driver.
First as a stock car driver at the Hales Corners Speedway - and then as a rare woman truck driver in Milwaukee - the woman called "Lucky" always figured that she really was just that.
Back in 1955, Lucky Samuels became news for her unusual choice of work, featured in a series "about women drivers and their vehicles" in The Milwaukee Journal. By then, she had been working as a truck driver for four years at Anderson's gravel pit in Hales Corners.
"Pretty Lady Driver finds Job as Gravel Trucker," read the headline.
Avis M. Mathews - that was her legal name - married and moved to Colorado and then Washington state, where she worked on ranches and raised show horses.
Mathews died of natural causes Aug. 18 in Morton, Wash. She was 87.
She was born Avis Mathilde Grenzer and first raised on a North Dakota farm, lost to financial troubles during the Great Depression.
She later lived on a Nevada ranch, and began driving trucks before she was 16.
"I believe she was married before, but she never talked about it," said one of her sons, Barry Mathews.
As a young woman, she came to live in Milwaukee, where her father found work as a butcher. Her mother ran a gas station and boardinghouse. She took a factory job.
"But I just itched to get outside and do some driving," she said.
Then a friend took her to a stock car race.
"This," she thought, "is right up my alley."
Soon she was wearing a helmet and racing at area events. A 1952 newspaper clipping, for example, called her a favorite in the state championship women's stock car races at the Hales Corners Speedway.
The former farm girl also rented barn space to raise horses and pedigreed dogs.
Ray Anderson told how she applied for work as a truck driver - he tried to offer her office work instead - but said he gave her a chance because he really needed another driver.
"Everyone thought I was out of my mind, I suppose," Anderson then said. "Now they try to hire her away. She's the best driver I've got. I send her out on all the problems."
The story went on to say that "although she looks and acts as sweet as a schoolgirl, the slim young woman handles her truck like a burly veteran."
"Just because I drive a truck doesn't mean I have to look like a truck driver," she said.
"They call her 'Lucky,'" the story said. "That's the name scrawled in silver across the red nose of her truck; and that's what she considers herself."
After Anderson's business closed, she ended up working for another construction firm. There she met petroleum engineer Jess W. Mathews. They married in the early 1960s.
Mathews also earned a reputation as a skilled horsewoman, showing her horses throughout the United States and Canada until the 1970s and raising them into the 1990s.
"She went back to Milwaukee quite often, and she brought us, because her mother and her family were there," Barry Mathews said.
Certainly, she loved the memory of racing stock cars here.
"You could still see it in the way she would drive," said her son, laughing.
Other survivors include sons Pepper, Robin and Parks Mathews; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Services and a memorial gathering were planned in Washington.
--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
