Parking lot cashier was all smiles
The first smiling face countless Milwaukee Brewers fans encountered at Miller Park was often Lee Roy Wagner’s.
Standing on the left side of two lanes of vehicles snaking into the Molitor lot off Bluemound Ave. since 1995, a smiling Wagner quietly chatted with everyone as he took money and handed back parking receipts.
If traffic in Wagner’s lane backed up it was because he was happily greeting someone, taking the time to talk about the game that day, or which Brewer was on a hot streak.
Even if some fans were antsy to park and head inside the stadium, their annoyance seemed to melt away by Wagner’s kindness.
Wagner, 85, was at Miller Park on May 21 getting ready for that night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks when he suffered a massive stroke. He died Sunday night at Froedtert Hospital.
Each time Wagner saw the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight sticker on Paula Nelson’s pickup, he asked about it.
For the first couple years, Wagner never mentioned to Nelson, the president of the organization that provides veterans with free trips to Washington, D.C., that he, too, was a veteran.
But once he talked about serving in the Army during the 1950s, Nelson sent him an application.
And when he was reluctant to fill it out, saying he wasn’t deserving because he served at Fort Dix, N.J., Nelson told him everyone who serves in the military performs a much-needed job.
Wagner learned he was going on an honor flight in November 2015 when then-Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy called him. His guardian on the flight was Doug Johnsen, a New Berlin police officer who is a security guard at Brewers games.
Though the two worked at Miller Park, they had never met until they were photographed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a story a few days before the flight. In a way, it was as if fate brought them together.
“The flight that day, it was like an instant bond. We were meant at some point in our lives to come together, I can’t explain it any other way,” said Johnsen.
The self-effacing Wagner was proud of his service and proud to be an American, said Johnsen, who is helping Wagner’s wife with funeral arrangements.
“At Fort Dix, guys would come in the middle of the night and he would give them everything they needed,” Johnsen said. “I told him ‘Lee Roy, you probably gave them the last good night sleep they had for a long time.”
Wagner and his wife Marlene lost their only child, 15-week-old Christopher, from crib death in 1972. Johnsen became like a son to them.
“I learned kindness from him. He was probably the kindest person I’ve ever met,” said Johnsen.
Nelson is not surprised the two bonded. “We call it the Honor Flight magic. To hear that Doug is just like a son is so wonderful.”
Wagner was so enthused about his honor flight he often went to Mitchell International Airport to be part of the cheering crowds for veterans returning from subsequent trips. He also participated in Stars and Stripes Honor Flight fundraisers and attended coffees for honor flight veterans to reconnect with each other.
Born on St. Patrick’s Day 1933, Wagner grew up on a Manitowoc County dairy farm, the sixth of 11 children.
As a nod to the holiday, his father wanted to name him Patrick but his mother insisted on Lee Roy, a spelling that caused him quite a bit of grief for the next eight decades.
He graduated from Kiel High School in 1952 and joined the Army soon after. Five of the Wagner family’s six boys served in the military, through peacetime and war, including conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
He and Marlene were in their late 20s when they met at a young Christian center near Gesu Church in Milwaukee. Both were looking for mates.
“This is funny. I was looking for a boyfriend and at every meeting, I’d go around the table looking at them and say to myself ‘This one isn’t for me, not that one, and the boy at the end of the table with the big nose certainly isn’t for me,’” she recalled.
That was Lee Roy at the end of the table. Apparently, he thought Marlene was the girl for him because he checked the files of the center, found her phone number and called. They dated for five years, marrying in 1965 in her hometown of Beaver Dam.
By then Wagner was working for the Chicago & North Western Railroad in Milwaukee, retiring as a track foreman in 1995.
That year he got the part-time job as parking cashier at Brewers games. Marlene also worked at Miller Park in a variety of jobs before leaving in 2010 because of health problems.
When Wagner was stricken last week, Marlene spent her days and nights by his side. Shortly before he died Sunday night he was moved to a room that faced east.
Marlene could see the moon in the sky. She could also see Miller Park from her husband’s window.
Visitation is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday at St. Rita Parish, 2318 S. 61st St., West Allis, followed by a funeral mass at 11 a.m. Burial with full military honors is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Union Grove.