"Crying, Pain and Fright"

an account by

Louise Larson Quam

 

 

Louise Larson was only seven when she went through this terrifying and unforgettable experience.  She wrote this account in a letter to Ruth Rosenquist Langseth in 1976.  Ruth was collecting information for a book that chronicled the history of Clay county.  The story was considered too gruesome to include.

  
 
 
 
 

I remember the morning of March 13, 1913.  Joe, Roy, Fred, the teacher (Anna Skeim), and I went to school.  (Anna was staying at our house.)  Our Dad (Lewis Larson) took us to school in a sleigh.  It was a very cold morning.  The wind blew from the southeast.  We started out a little earlier than usual because my dad thought he should help the teacher get the fire started.  (Those were the days when the teachers did their own janitor work.)  When we got there, the room was unusually warm and a good fire was going in the stove, (as if someone had been there and kept the fire going.)  We believe the murderer had stayed there. 

Well, my Dad left and the children came to school and the bell rang.  We went to our seats.  The teacher went out to get a scuttle of coal and when she came back in, a man followed her!  He took off his cap, rubbers, and coat and sat down in the teacher's chair by her desk.  (I can remember him having a very low forehead.)  The teacher read a portion from the Bible to us and had a little prayer, which she did every morning.  I was seven years old then.  (That tells you my age, Ruth.)  We had our first session.  He did some writing.  We kids wondered who he was.  We had our lessons, [and] then she called for recess.  We all stayed in the school house as it was too cold to go out and play. 

The man, Bennie Tinjum, got up and put on his wraps.  Then he and the teacher went out in the hall.  They talked a long time.  We heard a shot, the door flew open, and she came running and screaming "Oh boys!  Help me".  He stood up front.  (He was a big man.)  His gun was smoking and [he] said to us kids "You run down there."  He pointed toward the Torkildson's place close by the schoolhouse.  Of course we were so scared we rushed out without our wraps.  Fred grabbed his sheepskin coat and gave [it to] me, but the rest of the kids ran to their homes.  We ([our family]), the Rosenquist family, [and] a number of the others went to our house.  I remember Joe and Victor's fingers were badly frozen and [so were] their ears.  There was a lot of crying with pain and fright.  I remember my sisters and mother rubbing them with snow.

To go back to the teacher and the murderer, he chased the teacher all around the church and the church barn, shooting at her several times.  (The neighbor watched from his house.)  Then she ran back to the school yard and when they came near the front of the school, she fell.  He thought he had killed her, but she heard him say "I guess you've had enough". Then he turned the gun on himself and shot himself.

Edwin and John Steen came along with [a] sleigh and horses and picked my dad up on the way.  When they got close to the schoolhouse, they saw him (Tinjum) lying on the ground.  They saw he was dead.  My dad ran into the schoolhouse.  There she (the teacher) sat at her desk crying.  My dad picked her up and put her in Steen's sleigh and brought her to our house.  I remember that day.  What a commotion there was!  [The] youngsters [were] crying.  [The] doctor, [the] preacher, [the] sheriff, [and the] coroner [were there].  I remember the old box telephone was constantly ringing.  Neighbors and newspaper reporters were calling.  I can remember my mother put a folded newspaper in between the bells [on the telephone] to muffle the sound (as the teacher was upstairs). 

I think she was at our house a couple of days or so [before they took] her to the Northwestern Hospital (now St. Ansgar).  I think he shot 7 or 8 bullets into her body.  They removed all but one; [it] was situated in her head and could not be removed.  She carried that bullet as long as she lived.  She was a small, frail little woman.  We wonder[ed] how she could recover from such an ordeal, but she did.  She left the hospital and took up nursing.  She never married.  I think she was superintendent of nurses at [a] hospital in Grand Forks.  She came back some years after that and visited my mother.  [She] also visited Lena (my sister).  She died not too many years ago.

The schoolhouse was about 7 miles northeast of Glyndon in Spring Prairie, district 53.  My mother washed [Anna’s] clothes and in her apron (a little black one with pockets) she found notes [that Tinjum had] written to her.  [He said] he loved her so much he couldn't live without her, and [that] they were going to die side by side.  He also wrote letters to his folks and one to her folks.  But I can't remember that [myself].  I heard them talking about it.  I guess it was a "jealous lover affair".

Well, Ruth, I can't think of any more.  I was rather amused about their saying Charley Olson saved her life.  He had the daylights scared out of him too.  So I can't believe that.  I told Lena to write to you - also Fred and Joe.

  
 
 
 

Our thanks to Carol Langseth Ekre for a copy of this letter.  It was received on April 4, 2009.

 

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