It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Well, perhaps not. It was, at least, an exhilarating day. The clear blue Southampton sky boded well for the upcoming voyage. Hieronymus William Marmot scanned the crowded pier.

“Fare well, Fair England,” he murmured. “Though I may never again set my paw upon your soil, you will reside always in my heart as the burrow of my youth.”

Willie, as his friends knew him, turned from the scene with a mélange of emotions battering his bestial brain. The journey from the village of Warminster, sixty miles to the west, had been extremely long and exhausting. Willie was fortunate to discover part way along a farmer with whom he was able to ride to the outskirts of Southampton.

Willie quickly scampered up the heavy rope with which the great ship was tied. As he boarded the ocean liner, he anticipated the pleasant cruise to the Promised Land: America. The nation of opportunity—the land of the free—the home of the brave. The dream of all European mammals was somehow to make it big in the Big Burrow.

But it was not to be. The ship, of course, was the H. M. S. Titanic, and two days later, on April 14, 1912, it struck a lone iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and was doomed to spend eternity decaying in the depths below.

Willie was not alone, however. When the ship had made port at Cherbourg, France, another groundhog had stowed away. Her name was Brigitte. Their eyes met across the crowded ship, his from the lower deck, hers from First Class. Instantly, they bonded like quarks in an atomic nucleus. They began to spend more time together.

They were both reluctant at first to associate with the peculiar Irish rats who populated the steerage compartment. They lingered towards the side of the large, boisterous assortment of rodents who were singing, dancing, and drinking heavily. As the two mammals watched the frenzy, they struck up a conversation.

By the time the ship had concluded its appointment with Destiny, the two were deeply in love. As they floated in the frigid Atlantic waters, Willie gave up his chunk of hull so that Brigitte would not go into early hibernation. He was not as lucky; after being rescued by the Carpathia, Willie could not be revived. He lingered in a coma. Brigitte did not leave his side for the entire six weeks he was unconscious. Finally, on May 26, 1912, Willie awoke from his counterfeit winter, and spring blossomed for the two lovers.

Willie and Brigitte Marmot married two weeks later, on June 9, in New York City. Being country woodchucks, however, they were not comfortable settling down in the bustling metropolis. So they traveled west. Along the way, they heard about the bounteous, verdant farmland of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and thus their meanderings took a more southerly route which eventually brought them to a place with a familiar name: Warminster.

Within a few weeks, the two newlyweds had dug a new home and furnished it with the abundant love they felt for each other. That and a few rocks and twigs they found nearby.

Several years after that fateful voyage on the unsinkable ship, Willie and Brigitte still lived in the same burrow. It had grown, however, in both size and occupancy. Their entire brood of seventeen young woodchucks still lived together in a rangy knot of tunnels and niches deep below Warminster’s agricultural acreage. In fact, though the family did not know it at the time, it was the world’s largest continuous marmot network. It was so large that recently, one of the youngest of the Marmot children, Albert, had accidentally burrowed into a neighboring groundhog’s system. Fortunately, the two families were already on good terms, and so the happy accident only led to even closer ties between the Marmots and the Groundhogs. In later years, Al’s career would take him to Washington, DC, along with many other members of the clan, and he would claim credit for inventing the Undernet.

Another result of the chance connection was that the children began to play together, then as they grew, to date. It was not long before the first woodchuck wedding took place in a shady, wooded glen not far from either family’s abode. Willie, Jr., was smitten with a lovely lady from the Groundhog family named Eloise. They married on February 2, 1962. The two chose to stay in Warminster, building their burrow nearby with connecting tunnels to their parents’ homes. As it turned out, their construction location was directly below a living landmark of Bucks County history, Craven Hall.

It was not long before William Marmot III was born, on May 26, 1962—exactly fifty years after his grandfather had awoken from his hypothermia-induced slumber.

Willie was destined to be a traveler. His grandfather’s blood ran thick in his veins, and it was not long after his coming-of-age ceremony that he decided to set out to see the world. With his cousin, Phillip, he began to dig westward. For eleven months they tunneled throughout the Mid-Atlantic states, creating burrows and interconnected warrens beneath every town and village they visited.

In December of 1963, they met Georgine in a burrow below a small Western Pennsylvania town. Both Phillip and William fell in love at first sight, and they began immediately to try to win her heart. The two boys, who had been the best of friends throughout their journey together, soon became bitter rivals. When Georgine finally agreed to marry Phillip, Willie was devastated and left without even saying goodbye to his former friend, companion, and confidante. Georgine and Phillip remained behind and got married in the Punxsutawney Town Square on February 2, 1964.

It is not clear what happened to Willie for the next two and a half years. He did not record his wanderings, and there is little evidence he was even alive. What is known for sure is that he appeared back at home in Warminster, disheveled, tattered, and with a wiser look in his beady little eyes.