#52Ancestors - SURPRISE! (or Did You Know About the Axe Murderer in the Family?)

                In all of the years of research (close to thirty now!) there has been no greater surprise than finding the true story of L.J. Tremblay.

                I need to start out by saying that I do collateral genealogy.  I research all of the children, not just the one we are descended from.  I have found information and some great photos by tracking down those siblings.  My mother-in-law is descended from the French-Canadians that settled in Cloud County, Kansas.  I have done quite a bit of research on the French-Canadians and help people with them. 

                 Louis Julien Tremblay was doubly connected to my mother-in-law.  He was the nephew of her great-great grandfather, John Baptiste Tremblay.  On the third of April 1894 he married Corinne Boisvin, who was the niece of Gayle’s great grandfather, Marcel Balthazor.  Louis Julien was known as L.J. Tremblay.  He and Corinne were the parents of 15, yes 15 children!  They lived in Cloud County for most of their married life, with the exception of three or four years spent in Canada.  L.J. was well known in the county.  He was the township assessor. 

                On March 14^th 1921, Corinne Tremblay passed away after gall bladder surgery, leaving L.J. with seven children still in the home; Theodore (17), Philip (15), Albert (13), Francis (11), Alphonse (9), Cleo (6) and Mary Anne Valerie (4).  Little Mary Anne went to stay with her older, married sister Rosanna Sorrell, instead of staying in the houseful of men. 

A newspaper print of a family photo of the L.J. Tremblay family, taken around 1920.  There were three children that died in infancy and one as a teen.

Back row L to R: Philip, Alphonse, Francis, Theodore and Albert.  

Front row L to R: L.J., Cleo, Rosanna (Tremblay) Sorrell, Adelaide (Tremblay) Savoie, Margaret (Tremblay) Ribordy, Mary Ann and Corinne.  

                I found L.J.’s date of death and decided to look for his obituary.  I was just starting to put the pieces of the family together and obits are a great place to start.  I went to the local library and fast forwarded through microfilm, looking for the date.  When I stopped the microfilm on the correct date a cold chill washed over me.  The newspaper headline read, “The L.J. Tremblay Family Victims of an Arch Murderer.”  I started to read.  The articles were long and covered the front pages of every paper in the county. 

                Theodore had spent the night in the barn with a mare that was about to foal.  L.J. and Cleo slept in the same room on the first floor.  Philip was staying with a neighbor and working for him.  Francis, Alphonse and Albert slept in a bedroom upstairs. 

                At around three in the morning on April 4th, the neighbor across the road awakened to see the Tremblay barn on fire.  It was fully engulfed and the roof was ready to collapse.  Mr. Bachand and his sons ran toward the house to try and keep the fire from spreading there.  They found L.J. on the back porch.  His hands were bound in front with wire and he had some cuts on his forehead.  The boys went inside, where they found L.J.’s bedroom on fire.  Cleo was in his father’s bed with a mild head injury.  They took Cleo out and put out the flames.   Upstairs, they found blood all over the walls and bedding and the three boys suffering from severe head injuries.  The next morning after the remains of the barn had cooled, they found Theodore’s body and his skull had been caved in as well.

                The three with the most severe injuries were taken to the hospital in Clyde, Kansas.   L.J. and Cleo were invited across the road to stay with the Bachand family.  Cloud County Sheriff Carl Moore brought in his famous blood hounds to try to track whoever had committed the heinous crime.  The dogs went from the barn, to the well, to the house and back to the barn.  They never deterred or strayed from the path.  The bloody axe had been found in L.J.’s bedroom, an axe that was used regularly by the family, and was fingerprinted.  The only prints found were those of L.J. Tremblay. 

                The priest came and talked to L.J.  Sheriff Moore questioned him several times.  Two days after the axe attack and fires, L.J. crossed the road to his farm and went down in the cellar.  He went back to the well at the Bachand farm and drank some out of the dipper, then went back into the house.  Within hours, L.J. Tremblay was dead and Mr. Bachand’s daughter was ill.  L.J. had mixed Paris Green (arsenic) in the dipper and drank it.  Mr. Bachand’s daughter drank out of the dipper after him.  She recovered. 

                L.J. Tremblay’s body was taken to be autopsied.  The result was suicide by Paris Green.  He was buried the following week in the Potter’s Field section of St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery with not one mourner present, for the truth had spread quickly over the county.  Three days after L.J.’s death, Francis passed away from his injuries.  Albert and Alphonse recovered, but were never the same.  Albert roamed the country and died on a boxcar somewhere in Colorado.  Alphonse suffered seizures for the rest of his life and lived at a home for epileptics in Parsons, Kansas where he died in 1944.

                The sad truth was that L.J. Tremblay had murdered his son Theodore and attempted to murder the other boys.  He had slightly injured his own forehead and bound himself with wire to make it look like he was a victim as well.  Rumors spread like fire about what caused L.J. to do snap.  Why would L.J. Tremblay do that? 

                There was a large insurance policy on Theodore – over $5000.  L.J. was having financial difficulty and it was believed by some that he murdered Theodore for the money and then did the rest so it wouldn’t look obvious.  The other school of thought was that L.J. had started seeing someone new and that his new lady love was not interested in a ready-made family.  We will probably never know the true reason L.J. committed such a hideous deed.  But it was the biggest and most unpleasant surprise I’ve ever had while climbing the family tree.