January 1837 – 13 March 1905
I picked this marker for its interesting details but the life of Charles Shearer is itself FULL of interesting details and more than one narrow escape from premature death. Born in Indianapolis, Charles enlisted at the first call for volunteers and joined the Grand Army of the Republic. Though the obituary does not mention this, his assigned war work and age at the time of enlistment implies that he was already a railworker of some sort – possibly already an engineer – as he ran locomotives between towns in the war zone.
On one such mission, he was captured and very badly injured to the point he was literally left for dead for more than a full day by the Confederates in a “dead house.” Once discovered as still be alive, he somehow survived any subsequent treatment and was eventually traded in a prisoner exchange.
His service should never have happened as a childhood accident had left him without toes on his right foot – a disqualifying injury – BUT his enlistment officer failed to inspect his recruit’s feet!
Working back on the railroad post-war, he had another nearly fatal accident in 1867 when a pipe skewered his right shoulder but luckily did not pierce the lung.
Managing to survive all of these incidents, he eventually married Mary J. Lane in 1872. They had a son, Johnnie, in 1873 but he lived only about a year and is buried with his parents. There were no other surviving children.
Charles died of “catarrhal fever” which is no longer a diagnosis and could have been a lot of things including pneumonia. His wife outlived him by many years but was also quite ill at the time of his death, so his body was housed in the crypt at Crown Hill a full month before he was interred in this final resting place.
RIP Charles!
Along with some public records info and family genealogy listings, many details for this article were adapted from Charles’ obituary which ran in the Indianapolis Star on 15 March 1905, page 14.