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Pa. Dutch heritage celebrated on Groundhog Day in Schuylkill County

Grover the Groundhog and Sweet Arrow Sue are on display as Die Schwadore Schalle, a Pennsylvania Dutch choir, sings.
Haley O'Brien
/
WVIA News
Grover the Groundhog and Sweet Arrow Sue are on display as Die Schwadore Schalle, a Pennsylvania Dutch choir, sings.

Nearly 100 people gathered inside a Schuylkill County clubhouse Sunday for a cultural celebration centered around a rodent.

Like the famed Punxsutawney Phil, Grover the Groundhog is part of a weather prediction party each Feb. 2.

Unlike Phil, however, Grover and his spouse, Sweet Arrow Sue, are taxidermied groundhogs.

The quirky custom highlights the heritage of the region’s ancestors at Sweet Arrow Lake County Park in Pine Grove. The borough was settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch, and they brought along the belief that animals could predict the weather.

“It's an occasion to bring people together, to celebrate their heritage, to preserve the language,” said William W. Donner, an author and professor of Pennsylvania German Studies at Kutztown University.

"It was a real popular movement in this area that had to do with fellowship and heritage."

Sweet Arrow Sue and Grover the Groundhog make an appearance every Feb. 2 at Sweet Arrow Lake.
Haley O'Brien
/
WVIA News
Sweet Arrow Sue and Grover the Groundhog make an appearance every Feb. 2 at Sweet Arrow Lake.

Who are the Pa. Dutch?

The Pennsylvania Dutch settled here in the 1700s and early 1800s. They came from German-speaking regions and over time referred to their language as "Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch," meaning Pennsylvania German.

Their dialect, customs, and religious beliefs set the group apart, even among fellow Germanic immigrants.

“They really were a distinctive group from other Germans and German-Americans,” Donner said.

The offbeat holiday comes from an old European legend in which hibernating animals would come out halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox. Sunny skies and therefore a shadow would suggest more winter weather, and a cloudy day would show signs of an early spring. The event was largely used as an indicator for farmers.

In Pennsylvania, groundhogs are abundant. And so for the settlers these animals became their prognosticators in a new land.

Preserving history in Pine Grove

The Feb. 2 tradition started here 19 years ago. Denise Donmoyer, president of the Sweet Arrow Lake Conservation Association, reached out to the groundhog lodge, a Pennsylvania Dutch social group in Pine Grove.

“They said … they would come out and do the prediction for us. And they brought along Grover,” she said. “We originally did not have Sue. Sue came along later.”

Groundhog Lodge No. 5 closed in 2016 and passed the groundhogs on to Sweet Arrow Lake.

The two sit on a table of the large room as dozens of people line up to take a photo.

“Hemlock” Hannah Kulbitzky from the Schuylkill Conservation District, gives an informative talk about the animal and the history of the holiday before weatherman Bob Evanchalk reads a poem with the groundhog’s prediction.

After a couple of jokes, he summoned a drumroll and relayed the anticipated information.

“At 7:14 the sun comes up out of the eastern horizon … But clouds rolled in, meaning just one thing — get ready to welcome an early spring.”

(For the record, Punxsutawney Phil did see his shadow in Jefferson County Sunday morning, which would mean six more weeks of winter.)

Shoofly pie and whoopie pies, which are popular Pennsylvania Dutch desserts, were enjoyed while a choir shuffled in for the closing act in Pine Grove.

Grover the Groundhog's prognostication celebration was accompanied by a Pa. Dutch choir.
Haley O'Brien
/
WVIA news
Grover the Groundhog's prognostication celebration was accompanied by a Pa. Dutch choir.

The leader of "Die Schwadore Schalle" choir asked the audience, “Who here can speak Pennsylvania Dutch?”

One or two hands raised. A few more raised when asked who can understand the language.

The group then sang several songs, all in the language fewer and fewer people know.

“In the beginning in this area here it was all Pennsylvania Dutch," said Daniel Faust from Friedensburg. "My grandparents, they used to speak Dutch. My parents … they spoke it very fluently but they didn’t speak it at home. They taught us a few phrases and that was it.”

Lodges part of the history

That's a far cry from how things used to be.

Groundhog lodges like that in Pine Grove once were a large part of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, with the first established in 1934. Rather than a place, a lodge was a fraternal organization, like the Moose or Elks orders.

Donner wrote the book “Serious Nonsense: Groundhog Lodges, Versammlinge, and Pennsylvania German Heritage.” He attended groundhog lodge meetings and versammlinges, which were gatherings that included ceremonies, skits and traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food.

“You could only speak Pennsylvania Dutch. There were songs. There was usually a speech which was humorous, but also referred to the importance of Pennsylvania German heritage,” he said.

There were 18 groundhog lodges in the state at one point, according to Donner. He said some have closed as fewer people speak the language.

More groundhogs than you think 

Beyond these Pennsylvania traditions, there are dozens of Groundhog Day celebrations in the U.S., as Michael Venos has found while constructing the Countdown to Groundhog Day website.

“When I started, it seemed like there was a lack of information about Groundhog Day,” Venos said. “You would find information about Punxsutawney Phil maybe, but not for a lot of the other prognosticators or forecasters.”

The others include skunks, deer, opossums and many other species. They are in the form of puppets, statues and live animals in some cases.

Venos not only tracks the annual events for these local celebrities, but also keeps a record of previous predictions.

He has also attended a number of Groundhog Day events and has seen some references to Pennsylvania Dutch culture.

“I'm someone who's always advocating for more of these types of ceremonies,” he said.

Haley O'Brien is a newscast host on WVIA Radio during All Things Considered, weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. She is also WVIA's Community Engagement Reporter, and writes a weekly series titled "Eventful," featuring weekend events planned for around the region. Listen to the accompanying radio segment, Haley's Happy Hour, Thursdays at 5:44 p.m.

You can email Haley at haleyobrien@wvia.org