READING, Pa. \u2014 For filmmaker Ann Goodman, Stoneman Willie was never just a local legend. It began as a childhood memory, a story her mother told her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d go to see him in the funeral home with her friends or by herself,\u201d Goodman said. \u201cAnd they\u2019d tell her his nails are growing, his hair is growing. And it fascinated me, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n
What she didn’t know then was that memory would follow her, long after her mother passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m going to do a documentary.\u2019 And I thought, did my mom just give me those words?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stoneman Willie, whose real name was later confirmed to be James Murphy, died in the late 1800s. With no known family to claim him, his body remained at Auman\u2019s Funeral Home for more than a century. The embalming process used at the time unintentionally preserved him, turning his story into one of the most talked-about pieces of Reading history.<\/p>\n
But for Goodman, this film is not about mystery or spectacle. It\u2019s about dignity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted him to be a historical remembrance, a celebration of his life, a celebration of the history of Reading, and the fact that he\u2019s a human being,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On Friday night, every seat inside the GoggleWorks Boscov Theater will be filled for the premiere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis movie has novelty, it has community appeal,\u201d said Levi Landis, Executive Director of GoggleWorks Center for the Arts. \u201cWe know that because it\u2019s sold out and it\u2019s going to look great on the big screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodman didn\u2019t make the documentary alone. She partnered with 69 News\u2019 Tom Rader, who helped shape the final film.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom was all over it,\u201d Goodman said. \u201cI\u2019m so thankful for him. It\u2019s become a real partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 For filmmaker Ann Goodman, Stoneman Willie was never just a local legend. It began as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,128,130,129,213],"class_list":["post-28136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}