Profile written and provided courtesy Nowell Briscoe ( [email protected] )

JOSEPH PAUL REIGER

aka “THE OLD GERMAN”

1876-1948

One of the hidden treasures of meandering through a cemetery is the information one can glean from looking at the headstones, markers and monuments.  If you come across a grave of someone you don’t know and want to know more about the person, back issues of the Walton Tribune can, in most cases, be helpful.  However in some cases, people are buried in cemeteries with very little or no information known except they died and were due a proper burial. Such is the case with our first resident on this tour, Joseph Paul Reiger, or as some of the folks who barely knew him referred to him as “The Old German”.

        There are maybe one or two folks left in town who had knowledge of Mr. Reiger and the basic facts of his life are sketchy at best.  And many have asked the question: “How did someone almost totally unknown manage to acquire one of the choicest burial plots in the cemetery?”

        The facts as they were told to me are as follows:  Mr. Reiger, better known to those at the time as “The Old German”, was found dead at the boarding house of Mrs. Alice Aycock on February 2, 1948.  Dr. Samuel J. DeFreese was called to Mrs. Aycock’s home to pronounce him dead and an inquest was held on the order of Dr. P.D. Briscoe to rule out foul play. An autopsy was performed and the information was turned over to the coroner’s office who ruled his death as natural causes. The remains were taken to the E. L. Almand Company for preparation for burial while relatives were searched for.  Notices of Mr. Reiger’s death were printed in the Atlanta papers along with radio notices asking anyone who might have known him or members of the family to please notify the funeral home.  The FBI from Atlanta came down to investigate the case and Agent Bell took his immigration and naturalization papers which were issued in Cincinnati, Ohio back to Atlanta to keep the case open. The search went on for two weeks while the body remained at Almand’s Funeral Home. At the end of the two week period when no one came forward to claim the body, city officials donated money for Mr. Reiger to be buried in Rest Haven and the funeral home absorbed the cost of their services in giving this brief citizen of Monroe a decent and proper burial.  Rev. James W. Segars officiated at the graveside on March 3, 1948 at 4:00 p.m. with only a handful of mourners present along with the cemetery and funeral home personnel. 

        After the burial for Mr. Reiger, there appeared on the grave a crudely fashioned marble marker as we see it today offering little information.  In 1997 E. L. Almand, III purchased a new granite marker for the old gentleman and placed it on the grave below the original as Mr. Almand felt he deserved a better marker than the one originally placed there.

        The information gleaned from those who had a passing knowledge of Mr. Reiger provided the following information:  He was  5-foot 8-inches tall, 72 years old and was missing a thumb, forefinger and middle finger from his left hand.  He had arrived in Monroe only a short time prior to his death and worked for one of the downtown merchants.  Only a few coins were found in his pockets.

        No information about relatives or friends was ever received by the FBI or the funeral home. After a period of time the FBI closed the case on Joseph Paul Reiger.  His time in Monroe may have been brief and he knew few people but in death he was treated as a valued citizen and given a dignified, proper burial among his townsfolk.