‘Remembering Reggie’: Sacramento-area panhandler, beloved by many, dies at age 65
Community members are sharing an outpouring of love and paying respects to Reggie Wortham, a staple of Sacramento County’s Arden Arcade area, who died last week. He was 65.
Wortham, a military veteran born and raised in the Sacramento area, was known for panhandling at the busy intersection of Howe Avenue and Alta Arden Expressway and others nearby for the past two decades.
Wortham died May 13, according to his daughter, Regina Newman.
“If you are from Sacramento you have seen or know Reggie,” Newman wrote in a GoFundMe page, raising money for her father’s memorial services. “Reggie would talk to anyone and knew no stranger.”
Newman and other family members created a public Facebook group called “Remembering Reggie,” where dozens of local residents have shared their memories of Wortham.
“One of the most beautiful souls I ever met. I work in Arden and would constantly cross paths with him,” Angel Pobre wrote on Facebook. “I looked forward to greet him before my shift as he would always yell at me ‘Don’t be late!’”
Betty Hernandez, who said she lived across the street from Wortham, wrote: “He watched out for me and I did the same for him.”
A tribute of flowers, candles, balloons and signs has grown at the median on Alta Arden at Howe Avenue where Wortham used to stand in the days since his passing. Neighbors have hung flags on telephone poles on nearby Ethan Way, in the Swanson Estates neighborhood.
Wortham died two days after his 65th birthday. Newman wrote that reaching age 65 was a goal of his.
In 2015, photographer and filmmaker Sasha Leahovcenco chronicled Wortham’s life story in an eight-minute documentary titled, “Reggie.”
Wortham told Leahovcenco about the dark period he went through after returning to Sacramento following honorable discharge from the military. One day, Wortham poured a jar of gasoline on himself in his garage and intentionally set himself on fire in an attempt to take his own life.
“This is what I thought would be the best thing for me was to leave this earth, but God gave me another chance,” Wortham said in that interview.
Hospitalized in a coma for three months and with doctors telling his loved ones he wouldn’t make it, Wortham survived, requiring surgery and skin grafts.
“He reminded me that there is always more to someone than what appears on the surface,” Leahovcenco wrote Friday in a tribute to Wortham on Facebook. The two remained good friends.
A funeral for Wortham will be held May 27 at Ramsey Wallace Funeral Home on Howe Avenue, with public viewing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by a private service for family, Newman wrote in an update to the GoFundMe page.
A repast at Howe Park will be open to the public at 3:30 p.m. that day, Newman said.
This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
