Stone Harbor Royalty: The Shiver King’s Family Goes Way Back With the Borough
By Dave Bontempo
The mid-March scene was captivating.
Here were 38-year-old Sam Wierman and his wife Elissa, serving as king and queen of the high-profile Stone Harbor Shiver weekend. As thousands packed the island, forming one of the biggest events this side of summer, the Wiermans were the new royals.
King Sam and Queen Elissa did it all. On Saturday, March 14, they led a parade from Fred’s Tavern along 96th Street. They oversaw a costume contest, live music, and a polar plunge into the Atlantic Ocean. That was after the Pre-Shiver party at the Yacht Club of Stone Harbor one day earlier.
Seeing the vaunted platform for Sam Wierman, born and bred in Stone Harbor and now serving as an Avalon councilman, prompted thoughts of his family links here. Many remember him as a boy, later working with his father at Ide Insurance Agency, one of Stone Harbor’s oldest businesses.
Blink an eye and he’s on Seven Mile Beach’s biggest stage with his wife. And with two of his three children helping with the event.
That scene linked the third and fourth generations of the Wierman family, which has graced Stone Harbor since the 1950s.
The Wiermans have made a large footprint here. That spans the efforts of a World War II veteran, two Stone Harbor Beach Patrol captains, a president of the Stone Harbor Volunteer Fire Department, and several homeowners. Throw in a litany of summer employees, a professional lacrosse player, city government service, two cousins in the same grade-school class, and four guys named Sam.
That’s quite a lineup.
Here’s a look at the Wierman family, weaving a distinguished thread throughout Seven Mile Beach for about 70 years.
First Generation: The Pioneers
The original Sam Wierman served in World War II as an officer on a Liberty ship. He was part of the Murmansk Run, described as a perilous convoy system that transported $18 billion in war supplies from the United Kingdom and Iceland to Soviet Arctic ports like Murmansk. It was known as the suicide run because of severe Arctic weather, ice, and German naval attacks.
Wierman survived the war, settled in Emmaus, Pa., and launched a blissful, 71-year marriage with his wife Madge. They found the Stone Harbor vacation dream in the 1950s and purchased an 87th Street home in the 1960s.
They raised seven children: Stephanie, Suzie, Sam, Tim, Marybeth, Lisa, and Amy. All of them built memories here. Sam, Marybeth, and Stephanie went even further, becoming homeowners on Seven Mile Beach. Sadly, Lisa passed away from cancer in 2008 at age 49.
The family reveres patriarchs Sam and Madge for making Stone Harbor a social melting pot. Their parents were outgoing and welcoming. They were storytellers. They treated their children’s friends as family.
“We loved that house and those times on 87th Street,” says Marybeth Beck. “My parents never turned anybody away. We were always allowed to have friends down with us. If there was not enough space, they would find space. You could sleep on the sleeping bags or a chair. We loved having that big group and my parents would feed everybody. My mom used to go to the beach and bring sandwiches to Sam and Tim when they were doing lifeguard duty. She also brought sandwiches to the other guards.”
“At her funeral [in 2016], a gentleman in the receiving line said he had been a Stone Harbor lifeguard and he never forgot my mother bringing him sandwiches so many years ago. It was a beautiful tribute.”
Marybeth continues the open-arms policy. She purchased a pair of Stone Harbor properties with her husband Mike. The couple spends about six months a year here, including summers. They reside three blocks from Sam Jr. on 101st Street and warmly embrace visitors. In connection with a fall family wedding, Marybeth and Mike will host several events here with guests from as far away as Colorado.
The Captain and the Lacrosse Star
Tim Wierman, who followed his brother’s footsteps as the beach patrol captain from 1991-93, recalls the Stone Harbor years as the golden age.
“There were great times with my siblings and their friends,” he remembers. “It was a revolving door. My dad would come down on Thursdays and go back to his insurance job in Pennsylvania on Mondays. Having the whole summer to enjoy Stone Harbor was, well, a great time.
“It was sort of old school compared to communities today. It was very modest and you had a lot of average working-class people valuing the simple things. We had no AC, the windows were open, we would sleep on the floor if we had a lot of visitors, etc. And we all worked. My first job was as a 12-year-old walking the beaches with a pitchfork, cleaning up.”
Tim also worked for 10 years at Fred’s Tavern. Some 40 years ago, Tim met his wife Jennifer in Stone Harbor. Luke, one of their four children, made the lacrosse-world big show and competes for the Denver Outlaws in the Premier Lacrosse League, whose season begins in May. Tim and Jennifer will have a chance to see him play when the team swings through Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Luke was also a three-time All-American at Maryland and was part of its national championship team in 2022.
“Stone Harbor meant so much to us as a family,” Tim adds. “The joy of it was a million everyday memories rather than one special moment. I think of my parents buying that house for maybe 12 or 13 thousand dollars and then all the people they knew who eventually bought homes there.”
Sam Wierman No. 2, the Ide Agency
The head of the Ide Agency loved Stone Harbor so much that he placed a wood-burning stove in the 87th Street property one winter. He did what was necessary to survive the cold and then committed to staying here 39 years ago, purchasing the home on 98th Street. Once Stone Harbor sand got in his shoes, he couldn’t shake it out.
“As much as I loved the summer, I actually fell in love with the offseason here,” Sam recalls during a conversation in his office. Sam has owned the company, which insures many Stone Harbor residents and his longtime beach-patrol buddies, since 1983. It is one of the oldest businesses on the island.
“I just loved the quiet, the lack of people after we’d enjoyed an active summer and the small-town atmosphere,” he says.
“Things have changed a lot,” he notes with a laugh. “Back in the ’70s, when I could run four of five miles, I could do it right down the middle of Second Avenue, even at night. There were no cars, nobody around, nobody living on my street. I love that small-town quietness.”
It provided a contrast to the summer, when he carried the safety responsibility for thousands of visitors. Sam was Stone Harbor’s beach patrol captain from 1978-81.
He was also president of the volunteer Stone Harbor Fire Department for 28 years and served on it for 35.
Sam has three children: Sam, Danielle, and Lauren, and seven grandchildren. While Shiver King Sam and Danielle have remained here, Lauren lives in Bucks County and has completed a few marathons. She has a second home in Cape May and visits in the summer with her husband Joe and their children.
Danielle and Sam, the Third Generation
Danielle and Sam enjoy the Stone Harbor advantage other family members did not. They grew up here.
Both savored the experience so much that they took up stakes on Seven Mile Beach and pass the torch to a new generation.
“It was the best of both worlds,” says Danielle. “You get the crowds all summer and then enjoy the quiet in the offseason. I can’t imagine ever not living here. This is special.”
Special enough to make her come back. Danielle earned a business degree at West Virginia University, traveled awhile, and came home. She teaches at Cape May County Technical High School. Danielle and husband Jimmy Herman have two children, Santina and Maverick. Santina is a second-grade classmate with her cousin Penny at the Stone Harbor Elementary School.
About four years ago, Danielle saw the fusion of two eras.
“We were renovating our home in Del Haven and we spent the summer living with my dad,” she recalls. “It was awesome to be back in the home where I grew up and to see my children experience it with their grandfather. This was so unforgettable. They had an entire summer living at the beach.
“To this day, they ask, ‘Can we spend summer at Gramps’?’”
The Shiver weekend brought it all together for the 2026 Shiver King, whose three children: Penny, Sammy, and Naomi, may one day lead the next generation of Wiermans in Stone Harbor.
“I have always felt blessed growing up on the island and even more so when we had visitors at the Shiver Weekend,” he says. “They would tell us they didn’t think many people lived here full time, they thought this was a summer resort.
“It has become even more special, with all these events between holidays and with second homeowners coming down and using their homes more throughout the year.”
Wierman gained a little more perspective during the past Shiver. It was personal.
“Throughout my life I have always heard, ‘Oh, I knew your father, or your aunt or your uncle,’” he says. “Well, this time somebody starts talking to me about my grandfather. He told me, ‘Your grandparents were the greatest dancers around.’ Now I picture this big, heavyset man and how he’s being described as being light on his feet.
“I had never known that about him. It’s heartwarming. They were a perfect couple. For their whole married lives, they were so much in love with each other.”
They passed the torch. And it continues to be passed. Job by local job, year by year, school by school and event by event. The island is richer because of the Wiermans. Like many Pennsylvania families, they first visited Seven Mile Beach and then became part of it.
Ultimately, they enhanced it.
Some Stone Harbor traditions strengthen, even after 70 years.
The Wierman family is one of them.
