Laurence Potter Warner Aviation Scrapbook (MS-570)

Laurence Potter Warner was born on July 2, 1900, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin, near the Illinois border. Laurence’s father Arthur Pratt Warner was a pioneer aviator, inventor, and businessman. A. P. Warner was the first American private citizen to purchase an airplane, a Curtiss Pusher, which he assembled himself and flew for the first time at Beloit, Wisconsin, in November 1909, making him the first person to fly an airplane in the state of Wisconsin. A. P. Warner also invented the automobile speedometer and the Warner electric brake. Given his father’s avid interest and activity in aviation, it is not surprising that Laurence had an interest in it as well.

Laurence attended the Pennsylvania Military College at Chester, PA. In June 1919, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was a veteran of World War I. By 1920, he had returned to live with his parents in Beloit. In 1923, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Commerce. He soon became a secretary-treasurer of his father’s businesses, the Warner Manufacturing Company, as well as the Warner Electric Brake Corporation.

On June 18, 1924, at Jerseyville, Illinois, he married Vera Eastman, and they had three daughters: Joanne, Jacqueline, and Suzanne. By 1930 census, the family of 5 was residing in Royal Oak, Michigan, where Laurence was a department manager at Fruehauf Trailer Co. (Detroit), a company which had recently (1929) purchased A.P. Warner’s a trailer manufacturing business. By 1935, the family had moved to La Grange Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. In the April 1940 census, Laurence is listed as a factory representative for an automotive products firm. In October 1940, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was released May 4, 1945.

Laurence returned to La Grange, where he died forty years later on May 9, 1985. He is buried in Oakridge Cemetery, in nearby Hillside, Illinois.