photo by: Frank Janzen/Contributed Photo

Leo Beuerman sold pencils out of a handmade wooden cart in downtown Lawrence during the mid-20th century.

A California songwriter has created a music video about one of Lawrence’s “Distinguished Citizens”: Leo Beuerman, a man who sold pencils from a cart in downtown Lawrence decades ago.

Though Beuerman, who suffered from the rare genetic condition osteogenesis imperfecta, was only a little over 3 feet tall and couldn’t walk, he drove a specially designed tractor from his family’s farm to downtown. The tractor had a pulley system that he used to lower himself to the street in a red wooden cart. Beuerman, who also had difficulty hearing and speaking, parked the cart on the corner of Eighth and Massachusetts streets to sell pencils in the 1960s.

Beuerman died in 1974 at age 72. A short documentary about his life was nominated for an Academy Award in 1969.

photo by: Journal-World File

This Leo Beuerman plaque is a the northeast corner of Eighth and Massachusetts.

A bronze plaque honoring Beuerman as a “Lawrence Distinguished Citizen” is at the northeast corner of Eighth and Massachusetts streets. It contains a quote from Beuerman that reads, “Remember me — I’m that little man gone blind. I used to sell pencils on the street corner.”

Douglas Weed, of Napa, California, told the Journal-World that shortly after Beuerman died he read an article about him in the San Francisco Chronicle.

photo by: Contributed

Douglas Weed

“I was very moved by the article, and was inspired to immediately write a song about him, titled ‘Little Man Gone Blind,'” Weed said in an email to the Journal-World. But the song sat for “51 years in a pile,” until recently when the advent of AI assisted music creation allowed him to turn it “into actual music that sounds as if it came from a professional studio.”

Weed then created a video of the song and posted it to YouTube, featuring historic photos of Beuerman in downtown Lawrence. The video shows Beuerman interacting with children and progresses to a larger message about accepting people with physical and mental challenges as valued members of society.

Weed said he musically revisited Beuerman’s life to see “his memory refreshed” a half century after his death.