An Ohio family fulfilled their fellow members wish Friday in a burial sitting upright on his 1967 motorcycle The Dayton Daily News reported.
"He was gruff, but his heart was as big as all outdoors," Dorothy Brown, father of Billy Standley told The Daily News. "He was a quirky man. But when it comes to us kids, he loved us, he raised us well and, of course, we wanted to help him. He was proud of it," Brown told The Daily News.
"He'd done right by us all these years, and at least we could see he goes out the way he wanted to," Billy's son Pete Standley told The Daily News about Billy.
Alzheimer's struck Billy in 2012, and then fell victim to lung cancer Sunday at age 82.
Standley has since been situated upright with the help of a back brace put on by Vernon Funeral Homes staff.
"We've done personalization ... but nothing this extreme," Tammy Vernon one of the owners of the home told The Daily News. "He was the one who kept throwing this idea out there, to be buried on his bike. We were glad to assist him." Vernon also owns the home with Dave Vernon.
Standley planned his death for 18 years purchasing three additional burial spots at Fairview Cemetary in Mutual, Ohio alongside wife Lorna The Daily News reported.
The land was the just the right size for insertion of a septic tank measuring nine by 11 feet.
Billy's other son Roy made a plexiglas casket with a wood base, and metal poles to accommodate the creation's weight which was placed into the ground.
"If you stopped by his house, he showed you his casket," Roy Standley told The Daily News.
Well-wishers paid some of their last respects Thursday morning at Skillman, McDonald and Vernon Funeral Home The Daily News reported. Billy was then buried.
