Ike Towell, a onetime city marshal in Columbus, Texas, didn’t trust anyone else to handle his send-off: he bought his own coffin in advance and wrote the speech read at his own funeral. His 1934 headstone carries the epitaph he chose for himself — “AN INFIDEL WHO HAD NO HOPE OF HEAVEN NOR FEAR OF HELL” — a piece of stone-cold defiance that still stops visitors mid-stroll through the cemetery.