What happened to Punxsutawney Phil’s Philly wife? A tail of love, greed, and burrowed secrets.

Punxsutawney Phil’s legend as the world’s foremost weather prognosticating groundhog is unparalleled, so it seems unlikely he woodchuck his reputation away for anything.

But when Phil emerges on Gobbler’s Knob on Sunday to predict if we’ll have an early spring, he’ll leave behind a dark secret buried in his burrow, one this raving lothario would probably rather keep in the shadows.

I stumbled upon the skeletons in Phil’s closet when I started asking questions about what happened to Philomena, Phil’s wife from Philly.

While working on a story about the more unusual Groundhog Day celebrations across the country last year, I met Michael Venos, who runs the Countdown to Groundhog Day website.

Venos, one of the world’s biggest Groundhog Day fans, reached out to me in October as we were “rapidly” approaching this Groundhog Day, and told me that in the course of his ongoing research, he discovered that the Philadelphia Zoo sent a groundhog named Philomena to Punxsutawney to be mated with Phil in 1984.

While Venos found several mentions of Philomena in subsequent newspaper articles throughout the ’90s, he said it was unclear if she continued living with Phil or was sent back to Philadelphia.

“Groundhog reporting wasn’t always as accurate as it should be,” he wrote to me.

This was the first I’d heard of Pennsylvania’s most famous groundhog having a wife from Philly, so I was immediately intrigued. I also, immediately, had questions.

I recalled reports from March 2024 that Phil fathered two babies for the first time with his current wife, Phyllis.

Here’s the thing, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, there’s only ever been one Phil. He drinks a special “elixir of life” every summer, which has kept him young for 139 years.

So if Phil has access to a fountain-of-youth beverage, what happened to Philomena? Did she run out for smokes and never came back? Is Phyllis a burrow-wrecking groundhog? Does Phil not share his magic potion?

I had to dig deeper.

February 1984 reports in The Inquirer and Daily News confirmed that Philomena, a 4-year-old groundhog and “charming lass” from the Philadelphia Zoo, was flown to Punxsutawney aboard a plane chartered by Philly radio station WIOQ-FM, which did a live broadcast from Gobbler’s Knob that Groundhog Day.

The promotions director at the radio station at the time, Julie Roberts, held Philomena up as Jefferson County Judge Ed Snyder presided over the wedding between her and Phil.

“She was screaming all these little groundhog screams,” Roberts told former Inquirer columnist Clark DeLeon, adding that the groundhog “went wild” biting her hand.

Obviously, this was a shotgun wedding our girl from Philly wanted no part of! Philomena wasn’t in some Hallmarmot movie where she fell in love and realized small-town life is where it’s at. She was a city girl, and she didn’t want to play second fiddle to some blowhard whistle-pig with an oversize ego.

Finding no further information in our archives on what happened to Philomena after her forced marriage, I contacted Philadelphia Zoo spokesperson Maria Bryant to see if she could provide insight.

The zoo’s archives team was able to track down a short write-up about Philomena’s marriage to Phil in the summer 1984 edition of its member magazine, Zoo One.

The article says Philomena was 11 pounds and was sent to Punxsutawney after the zoo’s staff learned Phil needed a new mate because his previous partner, Phyllis, had died.

Now things were getting weird. Phil had a mate before Philomena and her name was Phyllis too? Could Philomena have been the other woman? Is Phil a polygamist? My questions multiplied.

Bryant said the zoo doesn’t typically track animals once they leave the facility, so she couldn’t tell me what ultimately happened to Philomena, though the staff hopes she “enjoyed her time in the country air out west!” (note the past tense).

But I didn’t give up hope that Philomena could still be alive. The zoo’s article also lists Phil’s age as 10 at the time, which was obviously a mistake, because he’s immortal.

To learn more about Phil’s immortality and his love life, and in a final attempt to find answers about Philomena, I spoke with Thomas A. Dunkel, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and boss hog of Phil’s Inner Circle.

The Inner Circle are the members of the club’s board who host the Groundhog Day ceremonies on Gobbler’s Knob in tuxedos and top hats. As president, Dunkel — whose nickname is “Shingle Shaker” — has a cane that gives him “the ability to speak Groundhogese,” but only to Phil.

Dunkel told me the club didn’t have a whole lot of information about Philomena, but it’s what he told me next that shook me: Phil does not share his “elixir of life” with his wives.

“Phil drinks the elixir of life at a summertime picnic we have at Punxsutawney,” Dunkel said. “We have this super secret elixir mixed up by his handler. It’s in an ancient wooden barrel, he takes a sip, and for every sip he gets seven years. He drinks three or four sips each year.”

According to Dunkel, the top-secret elixir, made with ingredients “from the wilds of Pennsylvania,” is designed specifically for Phil and only works on him. It doesn’t work on humans, other animals, or other groundhogs. Only on Phil because he is special.

“Phil has magical abilities,” Dunkel said. “There’s only ever been one Santa Claus, one Easter Bunny, and one Phil.”

Far from being a loner, Phil loves companionship and snuggling, and given that groundhogs typically live between 10 to 14 years in captivity, in his 139 years of existence, Phil has cycled through somewhere between 10 and 14 wives. All of them, weirdly enough, have been named Phyllis or Philomena.

“It’s good to be Phil,” Dunkel said. “Philomena [from Philly] and Phil probably had a wonderful relationship and beautiful marriage, but I’m afraid she’s since passed and Phyllis is his new wife.”

But surely Phil’s children, Sunny and Shadow, inherited their father’s magic and will receive the elixir, too?

“They will not. They are going to live out normal groundhog lives,” Dunkel said.

Oh Phil, say it ain’t so! I don’t want Gus to be my first-favorite groundhog in Pennsylvania, but you’re making it hard.

Venos, who started a petition in 2022 to give Phil’s wife the elixir of life, agrees that it should be given to Phil’s children, too.

“The Groundhog Club can just take a little extra time and pick a few extra dandelions to make the potion,” he said. “Keeping his family together will make for a happier Phil and allow him to perform his Groundhog Day duties to the best of his abilities.”

While I had Dunkel on the phone I had to ask him one, last important question for the people of Philadelphia: Does Phil make Super Bowl predictions?

“No, he does not. We like to say there’s a lot of big important things happening in the world today and Groundhog Day is not one of them,” Dunkel said. “Phil does not have an opinion on any of the issues that face our world today.”