Peering at the Past Warned by chickens, resolved by pigs

Chickens, pigs, odor and on one occasion, even a blue butterfly – were known to help Houston County humans avoid danger. When Helen VonMoos was growing up in the 1930s on South Ridge (near the boundary between Mound Prairie Township and La Crescent Township in Houston County), she, as a child, would not venture out of the house into the farmyard without first looking outside to see if her father was present. If he was not, she would observe the chickens. If those feathered farm denizens were about their usual pursuits, she would feel safe to be outside as well. But if the chickens formed a circle, there was danger in the middle of the gathering, usually a rattlesnake.

Mom would then fetch a couple of hogs, which would tear into the rascally reptile until there was little left. Hogs, with their fat, had little to fear from snakebite. Veteran veterinarian James Gray of Spring Grove pointed out the tough hide of a hog is not easily penetrated by fangs.

Newspaper columnist, Larry Gavin, told of a “strange almost ammonia scent in the air” when he was being guided to a rattlesnake wintering colony not far from Plainview, Minn. That “scent in the air” memory fits with a remembrance of Houston County nonagenarian Geneva (Berquam) Tweeten.

Young sisters Geneva and Emma Berquam were seated on the cellar door watching their mother Ella working in their strawberry garden. Mother became aware that a rattlesnake was in the garden – not because she saw it or heard rattling – but because she could smell it. She was alerted by a certain odor she recognized. When the girls’ father Bernt arrived to kill the snake, they noticed a blue butterfly hovering above one spot. Those fluttering wings marked the location of the snake below the vegetation. Could that certain smell have attracted the butterfly?

The presence of timber rattlesnakes was a common occurrence around the Berquam log cabin in the woods on a cliff near Black Hammer in the late 1930s. There was often a den of rattlers in the cliff. Therefore, Young Geneva and Emma were certainly warned about and always conscious of rattlesnakes. Young Geneva recalled walking home from kindergarten one afternoon when she and Emma saw a rattlesnake crossing their intended path. They knew what to do – stand still and let the snake continue on its way.

One morning, a rattler was resting their front porch. Father came to the rescue; it was a commonplace chore for him. One day, the sisters were rounding the corner of their cabin home to see a rattlesnake ascending the cellar door toward the window sill where their mother had left a glass of milk to sour. Their father was summoned to dispatch the reptile. Geneva said her father would use milk to attract rattlers when he would hunt them to collect the bounty during the economic stress of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

When Deb (Lapham) Ray was a youngster on a farm in Portland Prairie (near Eitzen), her father once told her and her siblings to look out the window onto the porch. They were aghast to see a rattlesnake moving and wriggling. As it turned out, the display featured a deceased performer. Her mother had heard something that reminded her of locusts. But her investigation revealed a rattlesnake and a cat below the porch steps. Father had come and killed the snake. But snakes have a nervous system that, even after decapitation, allow movements without the brain needing to send a signal. Father, without disclosing the details of the snake’s demise, thought this would make memorable moments for the children. It turned out, he created a lifelong memory for Deb.

Back up on South Ridge, David Beckman recalls first grade in the 1940s at Storer Valley School where a den of rattlesnakes was under the front steps. The snakes “would be lying on the steps, soaking up the western sun, when it was time to go home. We would chase them off the steps by throwing the softballs and bats at them and whatever else was needed. When we arrived next morning, we would retrieve the balls and bats and whatever, so they would be ready for use the next day.”

That was an everyday occurrence at that particular time and place, but Beckman also remembers never encountering a rattlesnake while he and his dog Shep were “roaming the hills and cliffs.” He did see them sunning themselves on gravel roads. “I have several rattles my dad collected. Lots of old-timers did not like rattlesnakes and killed them. Maybe thought they were protecting family and livestock.”

For Beckman as a youth, it was his chore to retrieve the cows every day for milking. One day, one of the cows was limping badly, “essentially hobbling along on three legs. When I checked, the knee on one of her legs was swollen to the size of a soccer ball.” His dad thought she had probably been bitten by a rattlesnake. “I do have some recollection of her being kept in the barn with her leg festering badly. I’m curious in hindsight if he (dad) kept the milk and fed it to the pigs.”

Beckman does not remember the final outcome with this particular cow, but Dr. Gray, during his 50-plus years of veterinary care, recalls only two instances of probable snake-bites-cow occurrences. There was swelling, but it did not kill them.

In southeast Minnesota, timber rattlesnakes are common but rarely encountered by humans. Barb Perry of MNDNR said in 2020 that pets and livestock usually survive a rattlesnake bite and added there had been no human deaths caused by a timber rattlesnake in Minnesota since the early 1900s, but immediate medical attention is advised.

During the economic stress of the Great Depression of the 1930s, rattlesnakes and other undesirable wild creatures may have had more to fear from humans than vice versa. To be continued…

Sources: several personal recollections; newspaper article by Craig Moorhead published in the Caledonia Argus; newspaper article by Larry Gavin published in Faribault Daily News.