Memorial Service For Carnegie Medal Recipient
A memorial service will be held on Tuesday January 20th at 1pm for a local hero at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery. On a cold winter day in 1916, 10-year old George Reitmeier and friends were skating on the C&O Canal when tragedy struck. Ed Taylor, Jr of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization, shares the incident details…
“One of his friends fell through the ice and he was drowning. And George jumped in, he went down through the hole in the ice, went down under the ice and saved his friend. His friend, by the way, lived way into his nineties. However, after he got his friend up through the hole in the ice, George drowned – the cold got him and he drowned.”
Reitmeier was honored posthumously for his heroic efforts – a replica of the medal he received is mounted on his ledger crypt at Saints Peter and Paul…
“George ended up being the youngest person in United States history to receive the Carnegie Hero Medal of Bravery out of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”