---
title: "Anniversary Memory: Blame It On the Snakes"
description: View an article from 1950 presumably published in the Milwaukee Journal or Sentinel about a man who caused fire damage to a building -- a building Lemberg Electric was hired repair. This article is a follow up to our previous blog post showing the 1950 invoice from that emergency project.
---

[Lemberg Blog ](https://www.lembergelectric.com/blog)

# [Anniversary Memory: Blame It On the Snakes](https://www.lembergelectric.com/blog/anniversary-memory-blame-it-on-the-snakes)

 Written by [E.V. Thompson](https://www.lembergelectric.com/blog/author/e-v-thompson) | Apr 12, 2018

Our last post highlighted an invoice for $21.63 for the installation of "temporary wiring as per fire damage." The invoice came to us with an article that references the fire and the suspected arsonist.

We present exhibit A.

The article, shown below, tells the story of a rooming house fire, set by one Mr. Ensio Niemi who, in the final days of a 10 day "bender," set the blaze to get rid of snakes and octopuses that he thought were surrounding him. After observing Niemi, three court-appointed psychiatrists deemed him insane for the 24-48 hours prior to the fire through 48-72 hours after the fire. They explained he was "poisoned by alcohol." 

The article doesn't say what the man had been drinking. 

[View full post](https://www.lembergelectric.com/blog/anniversary-memory-blame-it-on-the-snakes)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "E.V. Thompson"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2018-04-12T17:45:32.733Z",
  "datePublished" : "2018-04-12T17:30:00Z",
  "headline" : "Anniversary Memory: Blame It On the Snakes",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 221,
    "url" : "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/378799/Fireface-1.jpg",
    "width" : 325
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.lembergelectric.com/blog/anniversary-memory-blame-it-on-the-snakes",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "Lemberg Blog"
  }
}
```