My post has nothing to do with hogs consuming bodies but is an event I witnessed when I was a young lad of about eight years. I was spending a few days with my maternal grandfather during summer vacation. Papa was a widower and lived alone. Late one afternoon, I accompanied papa to the hog pen when he went to slop the hogs. As was the custom during this period most men wore bib overalls when they worked around their home. Papa carried his large leather wallet in the bib pocket of his overalls. As he leaned over the pen to pour the slop into the feeding trough his wallet fell from his overalls. One of the large hogs grabbed the billfold and quickly swallowed the object.

Papa had a custom of carrying a 38 revolver on his person most of the time. When he observed the hog devouring the billfold, he drew his 38 and shot the big hog between the eyes. He instructed me to run to his kitchen and bring him the butcher knife and I quickly complied. When I returned from the errand and gave him the knife, he cut the hog's throat in order to bleed the hog before completing its butchering.

Papa owned a small tenant house which a family rented located about 50-60 yards behind his dwelling. He yelled for the neighbor to come help him butcher a hog. Meanwhile he was inside the hog lot preventing the other hogs from consuming the carcass. After the neighbor and his family arrived they exposed the tendons on the hind legs of the hog and hooked a single tree behind the tendons in each leg and hoisted the hog via a hastily rigged block and tackle and swung the hog from a tree limb. They removed the intestines and lo and behold there was the billfold still intact. The few dollars and the documents inside the billfold was undamaged. They worked far into the night and finished butchering the hog. Next day was spent cooking the meat because it was summer and there was no other way available for preserving the meat.

During this period of time no one found it necessary to possess a "carry permit". This is merely one example as to why it is necessary to be armed during a critical situation.

I am many years older now but this event is still easily recalled because I could not believe how quickly papa reacted to this emergency. His life's savings were probably in his billfold.

Just to stick to the Civil War theme, papa was the 5th son of a Civil War veteran. This is but one example as to how our ancestors coped with emergencies.