Dr. Fredric J. Baur was so proud of having designed the container
for Pringles potato crisps that he asked his family to bury him in one.His
children honored his request. Part of his remains was buried in a
Pringles can - along with a regular urn containing the rest - in his
grave at Arlington Memorial Gardens in Springfield Township.
Dr.
Baur, a retired organic chemist and food storage technician who
specialized in research and development and quality control for Procter
& Gamble, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice. The College Hill resident
was 89.
He developed many products, including frying oils and a
freeze-dried ice cream, for P&G. The ice cream was patented and
marketed, but didn't catch on. "Basically, what you did, you added milk
to it, put it in the freezer and you had ice cream," said his son
Lawrence J. Baur of Stevensville, Mich. "That was another one he was
proud of but just never went anywhere."
But the Pringles can - a tube-shaped container
designed to hold the salty, stackable, saddle-shaped chip - was his
proudest accomplishment, his daughter said. He received a patent for
the package as well as the method of packaging Pringles in 1970.