This community was terribly shocked Sunday forenoon when word was passed around that Andrew Kovalcsik, a foreigner, who lived in a shack on the Burlington right-of-way near the M. W. Hughes feed lot at the southeast edge of town, was found dead. His age was placed at 62 years.
The man made frequent trips up town and not having been seen for several days, M. W. Hughes and his son Harold went down to his shack, which was located at the side of the road leading to their feed lot. They found the door locked, and looking in a window, saw him lying on his bed. Being unable to arouse him, they reported the matter up town, and another party went to the shack, forcing the door open, found that the man was dead. He was lying on the bed, fully clothed, shoes on and with covers pulled over him. From all indications he had died in his sleep. He had apparently been dead for several days. The last time he had been seen alive was on Wednesday of last week, when Jesse Walter was at his place and purchased three old railroad ties from him which he had gathered up.
Undertaker Carl Shawgo was notified and from order of the Coroner, Dr. Lester Lamber of Canton, he took the body to his undertaking parlors where it was prepared for burial.
Coroner Lambert held an inquest at the Shawgo Memorial Home at 8 o’clock Sunday evening. Two witnesses were examined, Harold Hughes and Wallace Baumgardner. There was no evidence of foul play, and from all indications, death was due to heart failure, a verdict rendered by the coroner.
When the door of the shack was forced open, six or eight cats were in the place. They were his pets. At one time it is said, he had five dogs.
Mr. Kovalcsik, a native of Austria, came to Astoria round ten years ago, a tramp. He camped at a spot along the switch tracks near the corporate limits of Astoria, where tramps usually held forth. Remaining for several days, he got an old abandoned automobile top and converted it into a place to live. He used an old oil barrel for a stove. Later on he erected a one-room shack a little closer up town on the railroad right-of-way, using such things as boxes, scraps of tin, pasteboard and parts of car bodies. He collected all kinds of material, including old iron which he sold to junk dealers.
He was a familiar character in the community, making frequent trips up town when not employed at common labor. Always polite and appeared to be happy and contented with his lot. He was a hard working, industrious man and kept busy employed at various jobs. He also raised considerable vegetables along the right-of-way, consisting of onions, tomatoes, popcorn and sweet corn, which he sold about town.
He couldn’t speak English very fluently and had considerable difficulty in making people understand him. So, very little, if anything, is known about him, when he came to America, about his people or why he came to Astoria. It is said he had secured his naturalization papers. However they were not found in his shack, neither was there any money or any other valuables, excepting an electric razor, which is believed he won on a punch board. A single barrel shotgun was found between the two mattresses on his bed.
From what we gather he was a fiend for punch boards and patronized them liberally whenever he had any money.
Monday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock, two automobiles, one the hearse, left the Shawgo Memorial Home. The body of Andy Kovalcsik was conveyed to the Astoria cemetery. The sky was overcast with clouds, the earth bore vivid signs of a cold bleak winter, and there in the “Potter’s Field” a grave was dug and in it the body of “Andy,” the lonely wanderer, was tenderly lowered by four strong men. A minister, Rev. G. G. Canfield, of the Church of the Brethren, his voice touched with pathos as he offered up a fervent prayer for the lonely, forgotten man, who had wandered aimlessly into Astoria ten years ago and set up his home by the aid of his own efforts, where he lived alone with only dogs and cats for his close companions. There was no one present to shed a tear. No one here knows his history. No one knows whether anyone alive today is united to him by ties of kinship. But we do know that some mother entered the shades of vicarious sacrifice to give him birth and showered kisses on the face of her infant son as all noble mothers have done since the morning of time. Where are the parents who would guide his youth and send out a prayer to smooth his every way? Where are the brothers and sisters, who in childhood played around some happy hearth with him? Was he a wanderer from some home that always had a light in the window for his return? What cruel misfortune overtook him that would cause him to leave his people in his native country and seek a home in a distant land?
We do not know these things. But we know that while here he was honest, industrious and an unoffensive man. His lips uttered no profanity. He was a lonely man in a town filled with people. He was cheerful in disposition and gave the best that was in him for his work. His hands were calloused with toil and he never stooped to beg. The great mystery of his life is buried in his grave. But some day “Andy” will stand before his God and his people.
At the conclusion when the minister uttered these words: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the four in attendance entered their cars and returned to town. Looking back there was the sexton filling up the grave. The wind moaned through the pine trees. The lonely man, the foreigner, as he was often referred to, was at rest.
Current Obituaries in the Astoria South Fulton Argus