Weyerhaeuser was as religious as any of his countrymen. He went to church whenever he was in Rock Island and had a special suit reserved for Sundays. But an episode from his youth in Germany had made a powerful impression on him. When the old stone church in his village was torn down, coffins that had been buried in the basement were exhumed and opened. At first the bodies inside seemed miraculously preserved. But when they were exposed to the air, they crumbled into dust. It is hard to know what Weyerhaeuser made of this story. But the fact that he remembered it so vividly suggests that he
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