A Good Man’s Perfect Life
Archie Wise, a brave man with a disturbing ending, who served his country but unfortunately was also let down by it. Archie inspired the people of Selinsgrove to help serve the community. He was a part of something bigger than himself, leading his family and community.
Archie was born December 11, 1893, in Verdilla to a small farming family. He had many friends and was extremely patriotic. In 1918, Archie enrolled in the Army for service in World War One and joined the Blue Ridge Division to fight on the front lines in France. He was even gassed by German forces. After the war he returned to work at the local furniture store and enjoyed helping residents by volunteering in food drives and the Red Cross. Archie lived a good life, considering most WWI veterans were given no pensions or job support by the federal government. Vets often struggled with PTSD and found it hard to reconnect with their families. In 1923 Archie married Iva Rambo. The couple were expecting their first child in 1929. Circumstances could not have been better, when things took a turn for the worse.
On the foggy night of March 3, 1929, Archie went missing. No one knew where he went, not even the police department could find Archie. The mysterious nature of his disappearance led Thomas Stingley, Archie’s employer, to offer a $50 reward. A month later, John Conley, a fisherman, found Archie dead on the side of Penn’s Creek. Rumors immediately ran through the town, and the authorities came to believe that Archie had committed suicide, suffering mental effects from the gassing he received overseas. The autopsy revealed that his lungs were not filled with water and his neck and arm were broken. This evidence revealed that Archie did not die from suicide. Archie’s face was gruesomely beaten in and covered in cuts. A coroner’s jury decided that the body was thrown into the river after some sort of beating. Police explained a few days later that Archie was beaten to unconsciousness after a struggle and then killed, later to be thrown into the creek.
Four long years later, the truth of Archie’s death was finally untangled. Archie was walking across Penn’s Creek bridge when five young men hit him with their automobile. They drove off and parked in front of a local home, then Roy Hollenbach and Harry Naugle went back to the bridge for the body. They presumed Archie was dead on the pavement and rolled his body off the bridge. The autopsy showed signs of suffocation; he had been alive when pushed into the creek. Manslaughter was punishable only within the first two years of the crime. So, when the men confessed, manslaughter was off the table, but murder was still a chargeable offense. The second act of rolling Archie into the creek forced the jury to charge them with murder. The men were released on $5,000 bond. People called for a punishment, but the legal system failed Archie. The District Attorney had to drop the charges due to a lack of evidence. The brave man who stepped foot overseas and the life as a small-town hero were washed away by a senseless act.
Archie was a veteran, a father, and a good man filled with bravery and kindness, who was let down by the Selinsgrove court system, but his legacy of courage lives on long past his death.