Stanley Malless

Stanley Malless
(1914-2012)

On a cold, crisp day in February 2012, a funeral coach met a caisson drawn by a single horse just inside the Gothic Gates of Crown Hill Cemetery. The casket was transferred from the coach to the caisson, and the horse proceeded at a slow walk through the cemetery to Riley’s monument atop Crown Hill before stopping a few hundred feet back down the hill from the top. It was there that a team of pallbearers carried the casket slightly uphill and laid Stanley Malless in his final resting place.

Born in Chicago and an Indianapolis resident since the age of five, Malless graduated from Purdue with an engineering degree and letters in tennis and basketball. A Silver Star World War II veteran, he founded Permanent Magnet Company, whose magnets were part of the Apollo vehicles on the first Lunar mission. However, most of his accomplishments were more down to earth. In the early ‘60s, he was a co-owner of several Indy 500 cars for drivers Eddie Sachs and Jim Hurtubise.

He made his mark in the world of tennis as both a tournament-winning player and president of tennis organizations locally, regionally and nationally. His efforts to bring professional tennis to Indianapolis culminated in the building of a downtown tennis stadium and earning a place in the United States Tennis Association Hall of Fame. As a member of the Olympic Committee, he helped get tennis restored as an Olympic sport. And as a world traveler, he ultimately visited the South Pole when he was 89, having already been to the North Pole.

Friends “always found Stan to be a happy, upbeat fellow who always greeted you with joy and a wonderful smile,” and with care and love. He was the “Mr. Tennis of Indianapolis” as well as an “extraordinary father.” As a fitting tribute, his unique granite monument, located in the middle of the Crown, is engraved with a tennis net, racquet and the words “Game, Set, Match.”

Location: The Crown, Section 61, Lot 5; GPS (39.8193031, -86.1771373)