Reading, PA (UPI) - A mortician here says that he has a mummified body perfectly preserved for 76 years.
"Stone Willie," embalmed Nov. 21, 1895, two days after he died in the Berks County Prison, is still on display at the Theodore C. Auman Funeral Parlor in Reading, Pa.
The body thus predates the embalmed corpse of "Bill" Baily of Waterloo, N.Y., by four years. The body of George Baily, an itinerant workman, was buried Friday in Waterloo. For 72 years, four months and seven days, Baily lay in a barn behind a Waterloo funeral home, demonstrating the preservative power of arterial emblaming.
News of the Baily burial prompted the Auman family to announce their possession of an even more impressive demonstration of the emblamer's art.
Pajama-clad Wiilie lies on a bier in the basement of the funeral home.
The Auman family said Willie's preservation is the result of an experiment conducted by the late Theodore C. Auman, founder of the funeral home. They said the bearded Auman was browsing through a Philadelphia bookstore in the autumn of 1895 when he came across a dust-covered German medical tome.
