Woodruff - Alf
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 3 February 1899
Alf Woodruff, aged about 70 years, passed from this life Saturday at his home in the suburb of Longview. He had been sick for quite a while and his death did not come as a surprise. He leaves a wife and one son.
The deceased was quite a character and was known better in the community as a fisherman than as a cabinet maker, although the latter was his trade. He was wont to spend a large portion of his time along the banks of Sugar Creek and he was an eminently successful angler. It was not his catches that made him pictorially famous, however, but his harmless romances anent the sport he so thoroughly enjoyed. Scores of his quaint yarns, all thoroughly original, have gone out over the country, and some of them have become veritable classics. He was always in the humor for a story and he was the patron saint of all the local anglers. No large fish was ever caught so large but that Alf had taken one just a little larger from the same hole. No story was ever told so fishy or incredulous that Alf could not go it one better. He was a fine old man in his way and may his soul rest peacefully. He was an unlettered poet of romance and as such his memory will ever be green with those who knew him and who delighted in his lore. -s