Some old newspaper stories are strange because they involve crime, scandal, or disaster. Others are strange because they leave us with one unforgettable image: a farmer waking up to find that a rat had given him an unwanted haircut.
In this brief 1921 report from Luray, Virginia, John W. Strickler, a farmer living near Spring Farm, was asleep when a rat reportedly climbed onto his pillow and began gnawing off his hair. By morning, great bunches of hair were scattered around him, as though some tiny, toothy barber had been hard at work in the night.
Strickler believed he was saved from complete baldness only because the rat had a jagged tooth. That rough edge apparently tugged hard enough to wake him before the creature could finish the job.
Rat Gnaws Off Farmer’s Hair As He Sleeps
LURAY, Va. — John W. Strickler, a well-known farmer of this county, living near Spring Farm, two miles east of Luray, while all wrapped in slumber a few nights ago, was the victim of a rat, which made a violent attack upon his hair, clipping great bunches from his head and scattering them over his pillow.
Strickler believes but for a jagged place in the rat’s tooth, causing a sudden jerk while the rat barber was at work, he would have lost all his hair.
Source: The Washington Herald. Washington, D.C. January 9, 1921.
