“Lumpy William, ” Ugliest Man In Canada, Dead

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32391, 2 September 1970, Page 13

“Lumpy William, ” Ugliest Man In Canada, Dead

(N.Z. Press Assn.-—Copyright) VANCOUVER.

“Lumpy William” was considered so ugly that he could not get a job—and never had a date. He shaved in the dark because, he hated to look at himself in the mirror, United Press International has reported. His real name was Alex Samuel Chapelski. He was said to be the ugliest man in Canada. He went to his grave in Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver, after a life warped by his knobbed, lumpy body and face. Chapelski died on August 11 last, two days short of his thirty-ninth birthday. A hospital would not release the cause of death, but it was believed to be from the same disease that scarred his appearance.

He was cursed from birth with von Recklinghausen’s neurofibromatosis, a disease which causes tumors to develop at nerve ends and their connective tissue.

While the disease itself is not uncommon, Chapelski was affected to such an extent that his entire body was covered with hundreds of lumps and bumps.-; People stopped and stared as he walked city streets. He was refused service ,in restaurants because . waitresses would not approach him. Employers would not. look at him in job interviews. They would not hire him. Bartenders would not serve him. Girls, would not speak to him. He said that he had never had a date.

Chapelski dreaded looking at his own face. “I was afraid to look,” he once told an interviewer, “because my face looked so funny.” He drank by himself in a cheap hotel, and once tried to commit suicide. He turned to crime, and served three penitentiary ’ terms and four gaol sentences in the last 15 years for frauds and fraudulent use of credit cards. The other prison inmates jeered at him and gave him the nickname “Lumpy William."

After release from the penitentiary in June, 1968, Chapelski wept to a plastic surgeon. Dr Theo 'Wilkie, who agreed to help him, even though Chapelski could not Dr Wilkie began -working on Chapelski at;St Paul’s Hospital on November 18, 1968. In a two-hour operation, Dr Wilkie surgically removed hundreds of the lumps from Chapelski's face. It was the first of five operations on Chapelski, a total of 16 hours of surgery.