Sundown at Sunrise
This month we are looking at Murder, and since there’s five Sunday’s this month we’re starting with historical fiction, making this weeks book Sundown at Sunrise by Marty Seifert. So let’s do this.
Historical fiction is exactly what it sounds like, historical event that has fictional elements. In this case, the historical event is the horrific axe murder/suicide of an entire family in 1917 in Sunrise, MN. But to get to the murder, you have to go back to the beginning. Which in this story is Fall of 1909 when Maud Petrie was getting ready to attend a local dance at the nearest town, which was Redwood Falls, MN.
While Maud was an adult at 21 years old, but still living with her parents...it was 1909, so not all that unusual for the time. So her parents were driving her into town where they would have a nice dinner out while Maud went to the dance. The stopped at a neighboring farm to pick up Maud’s friend, Julia Christensen.
At the dance, Maud would meet William Kleeman and the two would be instantly smitten and would begin courting each other, marrying just about a year later on September 10, 1910, and would immediately get pregnant, with Maud delivering their first child, Gladys Alice Kleeman on June 12, 1911. The couple initially were living in an additional house on Maud’s parents farm; however, they were literally having kids every other year, adding Lois Rosamond Kleeman on November 15, 1913 and Gordon Wallace Kleeman born March 15, 1915.
So with a rapidly growing family, they needed a bigger house, and accordingly located another farm for rent in Sunrise, MN, moving in to the property in 1916, and Maud soon after was pregnant again. Shortly after they moved in, William was approached by the local school board about boarding the new teacher for the following year, for which he would be paid a stipend, I think it was $19 per month, which is much needed money at the time.
For the record, all of this is perfectly reasonable, it was not unusual to have a teacher board with a family during the school year or even rotate which family he or she was living with during the school year. It was also not unusual for the teachers contract to include a moral turpitude clause, which teacher Mary Snelling’s did in the book. Also for the record, historically there was a teacher boarding with them but her name was not Mary Snelling. I found it online while trying to see which parts were fiction and which parts fact. I’m guessing he changed the name to protect the innocent, because author Marty Seifert broadly hints at inappropriate relations between William and Mary as being possibly part of Kleeman’s motivation.
Such relations would absolutely violate Mary’s moral turpitude clause, moral turpitude meaning “an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community.” Since this was a highly Christian community, sleeping with a married man would definitely be seen as violating an accepted standard of the community.
On February 7, 1917 the littlest one, Rosadell Elaine Kleeman was born, so now the family had four children, Maud and William, and their boarder, Mary Snelling. Seifert does not indicate if the inappropriate relations were an ongoing affair or a one time deal which occurred during one of Maud’s many trips with the children to visit her family.
What he does indicate, broadly, is that there was just something quite….OFF….about William Kleeman. While Maud was head over heels from the first moment they met, her mother Clara, who usually championed whatever Maud wanted, was not. She though William was a little too slick and a little too flirty. Maud’s father Henry was a little more blasé about it, basically acknowledging that Maud was gonna do what she wanted, so the rest of the family should just get with the program. The family’s hired man, Frank, who was initially living in the house that would be Maud and William’s first marital home, disliked William from the get go. But then again, he was in love with Maud himself, so he was unlikely to think anyone was good enough for her.
But beyond the Petrie’s, the author makes a thing about how animals in general don’t like William...unless the animal is all black. Which I think is about symbolism, not that the animals themselves are bad, more like their external darkness reflects the internal darkness that was the soul of William Kleeman. But the author makes a point to bring up how dogs and horses started to act aggressively towards Kleeman, and crows would circle the farm where he lived. There’s some nice biblical references as to William being very like the snakes that seem to dog his steps throughout the story.
And speaking of biblical, William was “not much for church.” In fact, he refuses to go to church, won’t sit at the table while the family says grace, when they marry William insists it not be in a church, so their wedding was at the Petrie family home. When William, Maud and clan moved to Sunrise, he insisted the prior tenants remove all the books, bible, and religious symbols that were on the property when they moved in. And rather than going with Maud to visit her family, he stays home, ostensibly to take care of the animals but really so he could go into town and meet his buddies and have a few drinks, before returning home and committing an act of moral turpitude with the teacher/boarder.
All of this comes to a head in March 2017 when one day Miss Snelling becomes ill. Now what is wrong with her is never specified. It COULD be food poisoning. OR, as is broadly hinted, she could be pregnant. What is historically known as true is on March 24, 1917 Snelling took a train home to visit her family. And that night, after the family had all had their baths, William Kleeman took an axe and murdered his wife and all four children, before hanging himself from a pipe in the kitchen.
Snelling would return to the Kleeman farm the following night during a fierce storm. She would walk in and see Kleeman hanging there and would cut him down and attempt CPR. This was all documented in a newspaper account from 1917. When she failed to revive William, she would call the closest neighbor, who would stay on the phone with her while sending the sheriff and doctor. And it would be these men who would read the back of the suicide note. See, William left a note, trying to claim that someone had tried to rob the family and killed everyone else, and then William hung himself in anguish.
Given there was literally no indication anywhere of anyone else having been in the house, this was rapidly dismissed by the inquest, who found that Kleeman had murdered his entire family with an axe before hanging himself.
And to this day, no one knows why. At the time the best speculation was money. William owed about $500 in various debts. Adjusted for inflation that’s only about $12,687 in today’s currency. The author doesn’t think this is it, mostly because both the Kleeman clan and the Petrie clan were very well off and could and would have assisted the couple with clearing any outstanding debts.
I think this is why Seifert floated the possible alternative of an affair and again, only broadly hinted at an extra-marital baby. If there was one, Snelling either miscarried or the baby did not long survive birth. The only thing I can think of that might have caused such a reaction is if Snelling said she would claim he forced her. Her reputation would still be mud, but that might get her a waiver on the penalty for violating the moral turpitude. Then again, after finding the body, she quit outright, and no one blamed her. That’s a pretty shocking thing to stumble into.
Ultimately the family would be more or less buried together, with the four children laying between William and Maud, since, for pretty obvious reasons, Clara Petrie did not want Maud buried next to William. The Kleeman’s and the Petrie’s split the funeral expenses for the four children, again this is known fact from records at the funeral home. And the motive remains a mystery.
Overall this was not a bad read. A little heavy handed on the imagery, and the dialogue was a bit rough, but I mean, of necessity the dialog was made up. And Seifert uses that to show that William was not the prince Maud thought he was. Or maybe he was the prince...until he wasn’t.
