Long believed to the remains of an unusually tall man, Mortimer has sat on a wooden barrel for years and served as resident conversation piece for the Restaurant on Grumbles Alley. His larger-than-life legacy took a hit last week when it was discovered that Mortimer was more than a foot shorter than long believed.
The stories about Mortimer vary, with one version claiming him to be a Native American and another pinning him down as a Confederate officer who fled the area instead of sticking around to fight off Union soldiers. Several of the legends have a farmer digging up Mortimer on his property and then turning him over to a physician as payment for an outstanding medical bill.
It appears now that not only did Mortimer spend a stint as a medical specimen in a physician’s office, but that he might actually have been created in that setting, a la Frankenstein. The belief now is that Mortimer is an antique medical skeleton, meaning he is likely a composite of different people’s remains.
“We’re all going to be a little disappointed because he was a legend. But it is what it is,” said Dianne Smitherman, who owns the restaurant. “People are going to have their rumors (about him). That’s fine. He’s still a legend around here.”
In addition to his height falling short, the measuring tape betrayed Mortimer’s legend in another way. An examination by nurse midwide JoEllen Roberson showed his skull and feet were not in proportion to the rest of his body. She sent her work, along with photos of the skeleton, to experts at the Centre for Fortean Zoology and University of Copenhagen, which was potentially interested in further research if the skeleton had been abnormally tall.
They agreed that the skeleton wasn’t proportional. But since Mortimer did not quite measure up to the myth, the university wasn’t in providing additional research.
“That’s the end of it,” said Roberson, who traveled to the restaurant to pick up a toe bone for DNA analysis while visiting her home state earlier this month.
But not so fast. John Sumners, a Montgomery pediatrician, still isn’t ready to give up his theory that Mortimer could be his great-great-great-grandfather.
His great-great-great-grandfather, John Ellis Sumners, was rumored to be 6-foot-6. The elder Sumners, who worked as a minister and who served as a judge and a state legislator in his life, was traveling through the Selma area to visit a church when he became ill and died in 1856. He was buried, and as the family story goes, his body was exhumed and studied by a physician because of his unusual height.
“We know when he died. We just don’t know where the heck he is,” Sumners said. “If it is him, we would like to give him a proper burial, right next to his wife if we can.”
Sumners’ curiosity is unaffected by Mortimer’s present-day height. After all, he believes it is entirely conceivable that the skeletal remains could have shrunk because the vertebrae eventually dry out. Also, he believes it is possible that his ancestor may have been tall, but not quite 6-foot-6.
“If he was 6’3”, he would looked like a giant back then, because we were not very tall back then,” said Sumners, who said he would be willing to pay for the DNA analysis.
And there is another question to be answered besides Mortimer’s identity. What will Roberson do with Mortimer’s toe?
The small toe bone, which Roberson drove to Selma to pick up for DNA analysis, is still in her possession. Unable to send it off as planned for research, she is also not legally permitted to mail it back to the restaurant because of laws regarding the transportation of human remains.
For now, the toe bone is in good company — it is sitting snuggly in an urn that holds the remains of one of Roberson’s friends.
“I don’t know what else to do with it,” Roberson said in a telephone interview this week.
Not that it matter to Mortimerl. Currently he is dressed up in a do-rag and sunglasses for his “summer look,” according to longtime server Tenesa Howell.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-06-30-11 1558GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
