# "Speedy" the Mortuary Mummy!  Enjoy a bit of local KY history!



## Sunshine

When I was growing up Speedy was legend.  Speedy Atkins was a mummy preserved by a local funeral home.  He stood for years on display there.  Little is known about Speedy but wiki tells what we do know:



> Charles "Speedy" Atkins is an American folk figure who was preserved as a mummy.
> 
> Not much is known about his life. He was born in Tennessee and moved to Kentucky to find work. He settled in downtown Paducah, Kentucky as an hourly employee at a plant with ties to the tobacco industry. He gained the nickname "Speedy" because of his speed at working in tobacco, and was also said to be a womanizer. He was single without known relatives and befriended funeral home attendant A. Z. Hamock, who, at the time, owned the city's only African-American funeral home.
> 
> In May 1928, Speedy went fishing and fell into the Ohio River along with his line, where he drowned. His body was turned over to Hamock's Funeral Home for a pauper's burial, but Hamock had a better idea. He had created a powerful preservative and decided to experiment on Speedy's body with it. It turned Speedy's body into a wooden-like statue, and turned his black skin a reddish color. It also preserved his facial features, and he still remained recognizable.[1] Rather than bury Speedy, Hamock put him on display at the funeral home. The body was only away from the funeral home one time: when it washed away during the Paducah flood of 1937, and was returned to the funeral home as a flood victim.



More at:
Charles "Speedy" Atkins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eventually he was buried but for years he stood on display.







DEAD MAN STANDS FOR 66 YEARS!!

You can also read his story at the above site.  He stood for 66 years.

When I was growing up it was a teenage rite of passage to go see Speedy.  I, however, never did because I just couldn't overcome the creep factor.  The feeling I had about it was most pronounced when I saw the royal mummies in Cairo, Egypt.   I just don't think dead people should be on display.   But that's just me.

And I would like to admonish you that before you go straight up into the ozone layer yelling racism, the Hamock funeral home where Speedy stood was owned and run by a local black family.


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