Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1894 — Buried in His Boots. [ARTICLE]

Buried in His Boots.

One of the characters of Birmingham, Ala., died the other day. He was an old colored man named Ralph Stern. He was ninety-eight years old and had never been twenty miles from his birthplace, nor ever ridden on a railroad train. In 1855 his master gave him a pair of boots, of which he was very proud, and which ho has worn to church every Sunday since. His dying request was that he might be buried with those boots on, and it is needless to say that he had his wish. He scorned the freedom which the war brought him, and continued to live with the family to which he had belonged to the day of his death. His funeral was attended by a large concourse of the best people of the neighborhood.—[New Orleans Picayune. ,