His given name was Charles Henry Atkins and he was born somewhere in Tennessee some time in 1875. Details of his early life are sketchy.

He was an African American living in the Old South just a few years after the end of the Civil War. As such, he was destined to live a life as a menial laborer mired in poverty.

Some time after reaching adulthood, Atkins migrated a few miles north to Paducah, Kentucky – located in the heart of that state’s tobacco industry – to find work.

Some sources say that he got his nickname because he was such a fast and dedicated employee in a tobacco warehouse. He lived a meager existence, had no family, and apparently never married.

One day in 1928 the 50-something-year-old went fishing in the Ohio River and, unfortunately, drowned. His body was recovered and sent to the only African American undertaker in Paducah, A.Z. Hamock.

Hamock had become interested in how Egyptians had mummified their deceased fellow humans and had developed a powerful embalming fluid that he decided to try out on Speedy.

The fluid worked. People who saw the mummified Atkins recognized him by his preserved features. Hamock put Speedy’s body not in a local cemetery but in a closet!

For years visitors to Hamock’s funeral home were allowed to look at Speedy. When Hamock died in 1949, his wife continued the family tradition. She changed Speedy’s clothes periodically and showed him off to visitors for years. He had become a local celebrity!

Finally, in 1994 Ms. Hamock decided that it was time to give Speedy a decent burial. His funeral was packed with mourners and became a national news item. A few elderly people who had known him testified that he was a kind and gentle man.

Speedy Atkins’s journey from deceased to buried had lasted 66 years! Many people in Paducah hated not having him around any more but they agreed with Ms. Hamock – the time was right to bury him, and it was the right thing to do.