Some headlines choose you.

A single paragraph. The Evening Star, June 8th, 1926. The headline barely needs any explaining, and yet at the same time, lots of explaining. And after digging, the details just make it worse, in the best possible way.

In September of 1925, a sixty-nine year old man named Edward Liberty walked out of his house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and didn't come back.

He hadn't been taken. He hadn't gotten lost. He'd gone to visit relatives in Lorain, Ohio. Found work on a farm. Spent five months drifting between Cleveland, Toledo and Akron, visiting friends, apparently enjoying himself. He did not write home.

His family searched. Radio descriptions went out. Newspaper stories ran across the region. Nothing came back.

Then, on November 21st, 1925, a decomposed body was found on the Fuchtman farm in Somerset County. The physical characteristics were close enough to Edward Liberty that his children gathered around the remains and made the decision that anyone in that position might make. Identification was incomplete because of the state of decomposition, the Pittsburgh Press noted carefully, but the characteristics were so alike that they accepted it. They buried the body in the family plot at Hendrick Cemetery. An insurance company reviewed the claim and paid the policy to his heirs.

His wife, Mrs. Liberty, died on November 4th, 1925. Before the body was even found. While Edward was somewhere between Cleveland and Akron, apparently unconcerned about the passage of time.

He came home in June of 1926.

He walked up the path toward his house and was first recognized by Mrs. William E. Liberty, his daughter-in-law, who was standing alone in the yard. She rushed to meet him. The news moved quickly to the rest of the family.

Edward Liberty was, by all accounts, unconcerned by the fuss his return had caused. He was shocked to hear about his wife. But regarding the grave with his name on it, the flowers his family had kept fresh, the insurance money already distributed to his heirs, he was remarkably unbothered. He remarked casually that whoever was buried in his plot could keep the flowers.

"So long as I am still alive."

Nobody ever identified the man actually in the ground.

There is no villain in this story. Edward Liberty was not running from anything, as far as anyone could tell. Maybe his wife I guess… But he was a sixty-nine year old man who took a notion to visit relatives and stayed longer than expected. He didn't write home, which was inconsiderate but not, in 1925, entirely unusual. He came back when he was ready. According to Family Search… he even lived until 1936 after all this.

The tragedy is entirely in the timing. His wife dead. A stranger in his grave. An insurance company out of pocket. His children having spent six months grieving a man who was perfectly alive and visiting friends in Akron.

He said whoever was buried there could keep the flowers. So long as he was still alive.

I’ll be thinking about that line more than I should today.

See you tomorrow.

— Chris

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