October 4th 2023.
After 128 years, 'Stoneman Willie' is set to be laid to rest at last. He was an alcoholic pickpocket who died of kidney failure in 1895 in jail, and his body was mummified by a mortician experimenting with a new embalming technique at the Theo C Auman Funeral Home in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Nobody claimed his body, so Theodore Auman kept it to observe the effectiveness of his experiment. Stoneman Willie became a local icon over the years, and was affectionately referred to as 'our friend Willie' by the funeral home's director, Kyle Blankenbiller.
The funeral home's owners have worked for years to ensure a proper burial for him, and on Saturday he will be laid to rest at the nearby Forest Hills Memorial Park in a tuxedo befitting a gentleman of 1895. A historian named George M. Meiser XI will speak at the service, and the identity of Stoneman Willie will be revealed at the burial.
The corpse appears leathery brown now, quite different from the "white as wax" description it had in a newspaper report in 1896. Visitors to the funeral home paid their last respects to Stoneman Willie this week, with Veronica Dangler saying: "It's kind of sad, actually, because he's been here for so long. But I'm happy he's finally going to have a place where he can rest."
Saturday marks a bittersweet conclusion to the 128-year vigil of 'Stoneman Willie'. With his identity revealed and his final resting place decided, his memory will live on in Reading, Pennsylvania, for years to come.
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