This page is about Mister. He was a box turtle, and he lived with my family for 52 years. My Grandpa Harold found him in 1947 when Grandpa was eleven years old. Mister lived on Grandpa's family farm, then in Grandpa's garden in town, where my dad grew up, and then in my backyard. He died this August. I wanted to make a page about him so people would know about him and also about box turtles, because a lot of people don't know how long they live.

I got a lot of help from Grandpa, who remembers almost everything, and from two books at the library, and from my mom, who checked my spelling.

[ Timeline | What He Ate | Winter | The Summer of 1974 | Box Turtle Facts | Goodbye ]

MISTER'S TIMELINE

The middle column is what Mister was doing. The last column is what was going on in the world at the same time, so you can see how long 52 years is. I looked these up in the encyclopedia and the almanac.

WHAT HE ATE

• Worms. After it rained, Mister came out and walked around looking for worms. He could pull a worm out of the ground like a robin.
• Strawberries. His favorite. He only ate the really ripe ones on the bottom, and he could smell them. Every June we had to share the patch with him.
• Mushrooms. He ate the mushrooms that came up in the lawn. The library book says box turtles can eat some mushrooms that would make a person sick, so do NOT copy a turtle.
• Other stuff: slugs (good, because they eat the lettuce), crickets, beetles, tomatoes that fell off, and cantaloupe, which Grandma always gave him a piece of.

WINTER

Box turtles hibernate. Every fall, around the end of October when it got cold, Mister picked a spot under the leaf pile by the back fence and dug himself down into the dirt, a few inches deep, with leaves on top like a blanket. He stayed there all winter without eating anything. In April when the ground warmed up he came back out, all muddy, and sat in the sun for a whole day before he did anything else. Dad says that every April when he was a kid, the first warm day, he went out and checked, and so did I. He always came out, every spring, for 52 springs. Except this one coming, I mean.

Important: If you have a box turtle, don't dig it up in the winter to check on it. Grandpa learned that from his dad.

THE SUMMER OF 1974

This is the most famous Mister story in our family. In May of 1974, when my dad was 13, Mister disappeared. Somebody had left the garden gate open. Dad and Grandpa looked everywhere: under the porch, in the window wells, all up and down the block, and in the ditch by the road. Dad made signs that said LOST TURTLE and put them on the telephone poles, and the neighbors made fun of him a little. All summer, nothing.

Then one morning in October, Grandma went out to rake and there was Mister, under the leaf pile by the fence, in his exact same winter spot, getting ready to dig in. He had been gone five months. Nobody knows where he went. Grandpa thinks he had a girlfriend. Dad thinks he went back toward the farm and changed his mind. I think he just went exploring and came home when it got cold, because that's where his winter spot was. The library book says box turtles know their home area really well, so I think I'm right.

BOX TURTLE FACTS

1. They live a long time. Box turtles can live more than 50 years, and scientists think some have lived to be over 100. Mister was already grown up when Grandpa found him, and box turtles take years to grow up, so he was probably over 60 when he died.
2. What kind he was. Grandpa always called Mister an eastern box turtle. When I looked it up, the box turtles in most of Missouri are three-toed box turtles, which are a kind of eastern box turtle. Mister had three toes on each back foot. So Grandpa was right and I was right. (Missouri also has ornate box turtles, out on the prairies.)
3. Why they're called box turtles. The bottom shell has a hinge, so they can pull everything in and shut up tight like a box with a lid. Nothing can get in. My brother tried.
4. Boy or girl? Boy box turtles usually have red or orange eyes, and girl box turtles usually have brown eyes. Mister had red eyes. Boys also have a dent in the bottom shell.
5. They stay home. A box turtle lives its whole life in a small area, and it knows it really well. If you take it far away, it will try to walk home and it might get lost or hit by a car.
6. So leave wild ones where you find them! Grandpa says when he was a kid nobody knew that. Mister was lucky he liked Grandpa's garden. If you find a box turtle, look at it and let it go right where it was.
7. Crossing the road: If you see one crossing a road, ask a grown-up to help it across in the same direction it was going. If you take it back where it came from, it will just try again.
8. No fish tanks. Box turtles need real dirt to dig in and sun and shade. A fish tank is too small and too dry.

GOODBYE, MISTER

In July Mister stopped eating his strawberries, and he spent a lot of time just sitting under the hosta in the shade. Grandpa came over and looked at him and said Mister was very old and was getting tired. On Saturday morning, August 7, 1999, I went out to the pen and he was under the hosta, and he had died. He looked like he was asleep.

We buried him that afternoon under the strawberry patch, because that's where he'd want to be. Dad dug the hole and Grandpa put him in and I put in one strawberry from the freezer, since it wasn't strawberry season. Zachary put in a rock. Grandpa told the story about the hayfield in 1947 one more time, and then he cried a little bit, which I never saw before. Then we went in and had cantaloupe.

I'm going to put a flat stone over the spot with MISTER 1947-1999 painted on it, the way Dad painted the flag rock in 1976. If I ever have a garden of my own I'm going to plant strawberries in it.

Mister was in our family longer than anybody except Grandpa. That's a lot.

Mister has had visitors

If you have a box turtle story please e-mail me!
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Last updated September 4, 1999