When Bert was 13 years old, he lost his arm in a hunting accident. Something you are not likely to see everyday is that his arm received its own burial plot and tomb stone in the Hacienda Cemetery in the Almaden area of San Jose.
Also pretty interesting, is that the rest of Bert kept on going until it was 74. His body rests at Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose. Arm and body separated by about 11 miles and 61 years of worldly experiences.
His arm, buried in the cemetery of the mining town, was apparently well known of in Bert’s day. When it was later decided to run a road through the old cemetery, yes- they paved over graves still under the road today, the road was named after its most famous resident. Take a drive down Bertram Road if you would like to visit. Thanks to volunteers, the old cemetery and headstones for those who are known are maintained. It is an interesting thing to walk among the graves and to read and to imagine the lives who worked and lived there before.