April 1, 1993: Boyertown Times Reports Grizzly Finding

By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA.

April 1, 1993: The Boyertown Times has reported that representatives of the Federal Commission on Health and Aging were inspecting the abandoned Boyertown Burial Casket Company property this morning to determine if its foundations were structurally sound to support the proposed retirement home. To their horror, they found a body in a casket in an unused storage room in a subbasement that is suspected to be the remains for a former employee who has been missing for 59 years.

The coroner has determined that the skeleton is that of a male, about 50 years old, with no signs of broken bones or of a struggle. It is surmised that the employee, who disappeared in 1934 and has not been heard from since, might have crawled into the basket for a little snooze during his lunch break and suffered a fatal heart attack. All effort is being made to determine the identify of the man and to give him a proper burial.

*(Happy April’s Fool Day from Jeff Bell, editor of the Boyertown Times.)

More News from Boyertown

• May 16, 1937: Angry Laborers Cause Damage in Home of Hosiery Mill Foreman Angry laborers left their foreman a message of their displeasure over the company's wage scale by throwing oil through a window of his home, ruining walls and furniture.
• Boyertown Offers an Interactive Heritage Day Mystery Building a Better Boyertown invites citizen detectives to solve a mystery while learning history.