Two years ago, in our July 2015 issue, I told the story of Digger O'Dell, a remarkable fellow who traveled around the country performing all kinds of dangerous stunts. He is best-known in Memphis for agreeing to be "buried alive" as a promotion that took place in September 1959 for Bluff City Buick.
Banners asked customers and anyone driving past the Buick showroom on Union Avenue, "HOW LONG CAN HE STAY BURIED ALIVE?" Well, to find the answer to that question, you need to read the full story here.
At the end of that column, in my lackadaisical way — weary from all that writing and typing — I said I didn't know what happened to Digger after his misadventures in Memphis.
He never came back here, as promised, but he continued to perform these stunts until he died in 1999, at the age of 83. A reader named Ronnie Bierbrodt, who obviously did more research than I did, even turned up his obituary and a copy of the memorial booklet given out at his funeral. He noted that "the grave that he can't escape from" is located in Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, just outside of Cummings, Georgia.
But don't go there searching for a tombstone marked Digger O'Dell. His real name, it seems, was Herbert O'Dell Smith.
According to the obituary, Digger was born in Georgia in 1915. He first started doing various stunts in 1932, a time when people were trying to make crazy money with dancing marathons, flagpole sitting, and other endurance feats. The year before he died, Digger told reporters that he had probably spent six years of his life underground, earning as much as $600 a week for his efforts.
He calculated that he had been "buried alive" 94 times, and some of these almost ended his life. During a burial in California, a sudden earthquake caved in the sides of his "apartment" and he had to be rescued. "My helpers had me out in minutes, thank heavens," he told reporters. "You have to have helpers 24 hours a day."
According to the 1999 obituary, Digger was survived by his wife, Julie Ann "Maggie" Smith of Dawsonville, Georgia; a son, Bobby Smith, of Lakewell, Florida; and a stepson, Timothy Eugene Fowler, of Gainesville, Georgia. No word on whether anyone felt like carrying on the family tradition.
