With his neatly trimmed beard and jet black hair covered in a mesh trucker’s hat, Ron Freeze walked quietly for years through the Riverchase Galleria, Brookwood Village mall and among the rows of books at the Hoover and Vestavia Hills libraries.

His quiet presence was a source of mystery for many. Over the years, in Facebook and Reddit threads, people questioned who he was and if anyone knew the details of his life.

“I would see him walking around the mall for years,” one person asked on Reddit. “Why would he walk around? For fun? His enjoyment? Nothing else to do?”

Ronald Wilburn Freeze’s journey came to an end when he died at 2:07 p.m. on Aug. 26 at UAB Hospital. He was 81.

News of his death spread when the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office put out a request for help finding his family. The coroner’s office on Friday heard from his grandson.

In death there were no immediate answers about the man some called the “Elvis dude” or “the mall guy.”

“Thick, black sideburns, an Auburn hat and some of the most retro jeans in the world. He look fresh out the 70s,” one person commented when the news story was shared.

According to obituaries in the Birmingham Post-Herald, Freeze’s wife, Joy, was a Birmingham teacher who died July 31, 1985, at age 40 after a long illness.

His daughter Leslie Freeze, 19, died on March 19, 1999. His other daughter, Bethany Hyde, 27, died Nov. 12, 1999. All three are buried in Elmwood Cemetery. A picture online shows a shared headstone for Joy and Ron, who it says was born in 1943.

His daughters’ death notices, printed eight months apart, said of them both: “Her outer beauty was exceeded only by her inner beauty.” The obituaries do not list their cause of death.

Hyde had worked at Parisian’s in the Galleria for 10 years. Leslie Freeze was a security services manager at the Galleria.

For his last 25 years, as Freeze walked through the state’s largest indoor mall, he often passed the places his two young daughters worked.

‘You always saw him or you never saw him’

Among those who often saw and wondered about Freeze was Maury Levine, a Vestavia Hills resident who said he considers himself a mall nerd.

“He had this distinctive look, with his hat and his sideburns. He was very recognizable‚’’ Levine said.

Levine kept seeing Freeze over the years, sometimes at the Vestavia Hills library, and even saw social media posts about him. One day, he finally decided to approach him.

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to say but I had to talk to this guy,” Levine said.

Levine learned that Freeze was an Auburn fan and lived off Rocky Ridge Road. “He joked once, ‘I wish I had Hugh Freeze’s money.’”

“Looking back, I wish I had said ‘Let’s have lunch and talk about things,’” he said.

Levine spoke to him about five times and introduced him to his daughters.

“He was so nice. He would have sat there and talked to us forever.”

Levine recounted a story Freeze once told him.

“He said he was in his car, and he was leaving the Galleria at a red light. Something caught his eye off to the right side in the car next to him,’’ Levine said. “These strangers were just waving at him because they recognized him. They wanted to get a picture with him.”

They got out of the car and got a picture with him. “I thought that was the funniest thing, but he was so recognizable,’’ he said.

“It was like you always saw him or you never saw him,’’ Levine said. “There was no middle ground.”

Levine said Freeze never got annoyed with strangers approaching him. “He was nice to everybody,’’ he said.

He said he saw a comment on Facebook that someone wanted to petition the Riverchase Galleria to put a statue up in Freeze’s memory.

Levine was sad to hear that authorities couldn’t immediately find family for him.

“You see somebody, and you sort of make up fiction in your mind what you thought their life was like and I imagined he had a wife or a daughter or a son or something.”

‘The man who everybody in the world knows’

Trish Garmon grew up in Hoover and did not know Freeze personally but is now working to make sure he gets the burial she said he deserves.

“He would wave to you if he walked by you in the Galleria,’’ she said. “He always seemed friendly.”

“I can remember as far back as 20 years ago seeing him at the Galleria walking around,’’ Garmon said. “I was in my 20s and I’m 41 now.”

She said some called him the Galleria Elvis because of his thick, dark sideburns.

“I would venture to say if you’ve been to the Galleria one time, you’ve seen him,’’ she said. “I heard he was burned in a house fire, and he would use the sideburns as a prosthetic coverup.”

Garmon has volunteered to take responsibility for his burial if his surviving family does not.

She is working with a hospital social worker and the coroner’s office about those plans and may launch a GoFundMe to help pay for it.

“I just feel bad for him,’’ she said. “He’s laying in a morgue and he’s like an icon of Hoover,’’ Garmon said.

“You just don’t want the man who everybody in the world knows not being claimed,’’ she said. “That’s not who he was … It’s just a crappy situation and you hate it for him.”