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Wednesday, 23 June 1937 would be a hot day for farm work in southeastern Manitoba. Nevertheless, that morning, eighteen-year-old George Klym, who lived on the family farm seven miles south of Sundown, cut hay along the undeveloped range line road allowance which separated the Klym property on the east from the farm of Onufry Mandziuk to the west. [1]
George’s father, John (Iwan) Klym, in his mid-forties, was born in Bukovyna (Bukovina) in 1891 or 1892, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later part of Rumania, and now shared by Rumania and Ukraine. At age eleven, with brief formal education, he came to Manitoba with his parents who settled in the Gardenton area. The Klyms, like other persons from Bukovyna and Galicia in southeastern Manitoba, were of Ukrainian heritage. Getting established was difficult, and John recalled much privation in his childhood. He worked as a farm hand at Humboldt, Minnesota, in 1912 and, also had a job setting monuments on the international boundary. In 1914, John and his wife Mary (Maria) moved to his farm, acquired as a homestead in 1909. [2]
John Klym as he appeared at the time of his murder trial in Minnesota.
Source: Roseau Times-Region, 18 December 1937, page 1.
Ukrainian settlement in southeastern Manitoba began in 1896 around Stuartburn and spread eastward. Typical of this settlement, the Klym quarter-section was in the “transitional” or “parkland” area of timber, scattered rock, and wetland between forest to the east and the Red River valley to the west. Ukrainian newcomers downplayed the potential drudgery on such land, seeing good prospects for livestock production, access to timber, seasonal employment in nearby areas, and neighbours who were relatives or who shared old country ties.
Just as he remembered the hardships of improving his father’s “very wet and stony” land near Gardenton, John Klym found that developing his own soggy farm was a long-term chore. To make ends meet during the 1920s, he found temporary jobs in northwestern Ontario, including employment “as a cook on the coal dock” and work at the paper mill in Fort Frances. One winter, with his family nearly destitute, he got a construction job at a “powerhouse” site where, amid “rock and dynamite, death looked you every moment in your eyes.” However, his diligence and ability impressed his employer who gave him carpentry work, and in April he returned with $170.00.
He also worked as a harvest hand in Manitoba, but with Mary’s help in “clearing bush” and the kindly credit arrangements of an Arbakka, Manitoba, merchant, he slowly advanced. [3] Klym praised the farmers for whom he had worked for having given him sacks of grain and a piece of equipment in addition to his pay. For many years he used slow and recalcitrant oxen as work animals, but in 1929 he obtained horses and “then I considered myself a farmer and I really began farming.” Klym purchased a hay press, and one year brought enough hay to ship “50 carloads” to Saskatchewan. He drained land and he later boasted, “I could raise nice grain. Sundown was a poor [agricultural] district but I had the nicest grain in the whole district.” But the struggle remained hard, and as he remarked in 1937: “My farm is very heavy bush.… Last year I grubbed 12 acres [of] new land.” [4] Nine children were born to the Klyms, of whom seven were still living in 1937. Two daughters had married and moved away and five children, ages five to eighteen, lived at home. John Klym was a member of the Greek Catholic Church. [5]
Like John Klym, his western neighbour, Onufry Mandziuk, was of Ukrainian origin, born in Bukovyna and had resided on his quarter-section since 1930. [6] Mandziuk was about forty years old and with his thirty-six-year-old wife Mary, an Austrian native, had four children, ranging from a baby to a fourteen-year-old. [7] In 1931, Klym dragged part of the ninety-nine-foot road allowance between the two farms, dug a ditch, and planted timothy seed along it. The result was a north-south strip of grass which by 1932 provided Klym with hay. [8] A trail—“only the semblance of a road”—ran along the northern part of the road allowance, but the southern part, marked at one point by “brush,” was obscure. [9]
Onufry Mandziuk (c1897–1937) as he appears on his gravestone in the St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery, some 30 feet from the grave of his killer.
Source: Harl A. Dalstrom
Adjoining Klym’s property to the north was the quarter-section farm of John Nastiuk, also born in Bukovyna. Nastiuk came to Canada as a three-year-old, grew up in southeastern Manitoba, and gained title to his land in 1930 from a previous owner. However, in 1937 he said he had lived there “14 year [s].” [10]
the Klym and Mandziuk farms and the north side of the Canada-United States boundary. A trail ran along the boundary, and to the south lay Roseau County, Minnesota. [11] The area along the international boundary south of the Klym and Mandziuk farms was open land with some adjoining bush. As one observer said, it was “hay slough;” another person said, “It is a hay meadow, a swampy meadow…” [12] Looking eastward 325 feet from just south of the middle of the road allowance between the farms, a boundary marker was visible. [13]
A shared ethnic heritage did not make John Klym and Onufry Mandziuk good neighbours. According to Klym, Mandziuk had unsuccessfully attempted to purchase Klym’s farm. Hence, in Klym’s words, his neighbour had said that he would “chase me from my farm; he is going to buy [it] for tax sale.” [14] The road allowance between their farms was public domain, but farmers routinely regarded grass growing along allowances as theirs to harvest as hay. [15] Trouble began when Klym and Mandziuk quarrelled over cutting hay along the middle of the road allowance, each believing that the other was crossing the midpoint and therefore trespassing. According to Klym, trouble began when Mandziuk cut hay across the centre in 1932 and that Mandziuk menaced him with a hay fork during a confrontation. A constable later admonished the men to stay on their respective sides of the middle of the allowance. [16] More ill-will came when Mandziuk shot Klym’s dog on grounds that the dog had harassed Mandziuk’s sheep and had killed some of his lambs. Taking this episode before a magistrate, Klym sought recovery of damages from Mandziuk, but lost the action and “paid cost” for bringing the case. [17] Klym recounted more troubles with his western neighbour. On the other hand, Mary Mandziuk remembered feeling unsafe because of their troubles with Klym. Her husband, she said, “he just say all the time that we have got to move from here.” [18]
Klym’s relationship with John Nastiuk, his northern neighbour, was also problematical. As Nastiuk would recall, he had told Klym that “his boy” was damaging his property. Nastiuk also believed that in 1936 and 1937 the police, acting at least partially upon information from Klym, had visited his farm seeking evidence that Nastiuk was a bootlegger. Nastiuk said, “We never had anything very bad between us.” However, gossip seemed to do much to fuel neighbourhood animosities. [19]
About 1:00 p.m. on 23 June 1937, as John Nastiuk was repairing a gate, Onufry Mandziuk appeared and told him that the Klyms had just cut hay on the road allowance. Mandziuk invited Nastiuk to come and take some of the hay that he said had been “‘cut over my side of the road.’” He anticipated that Klym might make an issue over the hay and said that he needed a “witness” in the event of a dispute. Nastiuk recalled that “I said I wouldn’t take that hay,” and told Mandziuk that he had not yet had “dinner,” whereupon Mandziuk departed. [20] Nastiuk’s wife apparently sensed trouble, and at her suggestion after lunch he went to the home of his neighbour to the west, Nick Dubnick, hoping to get him to go with him to Mandziuk’s farm, only to find him absent. [21]
Going to Mandziuk’s place, Nastiuk found Onufry Mandziuk, readying his horse-drawn hay rake. Nastiuk recalled advising Mandziuk to “leave that hay go.” Mary Mandziuk, also worried, urged her husband to take some cream to town. [22] But Mandziuk set about raking while Nastiuk, working north from the south end of the swath, piled hay. The Klyms saw what was happening and as Nastiuk worked about one-eighth of a mile north of the boundary, John and George Klym pulled up in their horse-drawn wagon. [23] John recalled asking Nastiuk why he was gathering hay, and saying that “If you were a right man you wouldn’t come over here and make trouble.” Nastiuk’s reply, he said, was “‘Well, he [Mandziuk] hired me,’” whereupon the Klyms drove off southward along the allowance. [24] Soon, Mandziuk, having finished raking and switching his rake for a wagon, drew up to Nastiuk and asked him to get aboard. Despite misgivings, he did so. They headed south, pursuing Klym’s wagon which George was driving. In the background was Mrs. Mary Mandziuk, with her baby, walking from her home toward the road allowance. [25]
The Klyms stopped close to the last haycock; George turned their wagon around, and his father got off and began to fork hay from a meagre pile. Mandziuk and Nastiuk soon drew up on the other side of the scant remainder. Mandziuk dismounted, took a fork, and confronted Klym over the last bit of hay. [26] John Klym recalled saying, “you had better get out from here, I have a gun, and I am going to shoot you.” Mandziuk, he said, replied, “I don’t care, I want you to shoot me.” Klym grabbed a twelve-gauge shotgun from his wagon. Mandziuk, he recalled, then “started to come to me with the fork,… he got within about four yards of me, and I shot him on the leg.… I was mad because they both wanted to kill me. He [Mandziuk] started to jump and shout, and I got on the wagon and went home. I saw Nastiuk and Mandzuik’s wife driving Mandzuik home afterwards.” It was now about 3:00 p.m. [27]
Shortly after being shot, Mandziuk turned to the west and fell face down in grass adjoining the cut hay. Nastiuk tried to make a tourniquet of hay to stem profuse bleeding from a wound above Onufry’s right knee which, as a physician later said, had “practically cut across” the thigh’s principal artery. When Mary Mandziuk with her baby arrived, they used a diaper as a tourniquet. [28] Loading Onufrey in the wagon, they drove near the Mandziuk home where Mary obtained water which revived her husband Going on to a shady place near Nastiuk’s home, one of John’s children summoned school teacher Nick Kassawan, who helped lift Mandziuk into Nastiuk’s truck. In the meantime, Onufrey was “yelling.” As Kassawan drove the nearly seven miles north to Sundown, Nastiuk told Onufrey, “I think Klym get it for this,” and Mandziuk replied, “Don’t forget to tell the truth.” Nastiuk tried to refresh his neighbour with more water, but “He was getting pretty weak.” At Onufrey’s request, at Sundown, Nastiuk secured “a faster truck” to go the thirteen miles west to the hospital at Vita, where Mandziuk was admitted at 5:20 p.m. with an “almost imperceptible” pulse. [29]
About 6:10 p.m., Nick Kassawan stopped by the office of RCMP Constable John D. Taylor, in Piney, east of Sundown, and told Taylor that he had helped take Mandziuk to Vita. After phoning the Vita Hospital and learning that Mandziuk’s condition was grave, Taylor drove to the Klym farm, where he met John who had just finished milking. Taylor informed Klym that he was arresting him for “unlawful wounding,” adding that “a more serious charge” might follow. [30] He read “the customary police warning” to Klym:
You need not say anything. You have nothing to hope from any promise or favour and nothing to fear from any threat, whether or not you say anything. Anything you say may be used in evidence against you at your trial. [31]
According to Constable Taylor, John Klym “seemed anxious” to talk about the episode and that “his attitude was that he was more the aggrieved party than Mandzuik was.” [32] They then went to the area where the shooting had occurred and back to the farmhouse where Klym made and signed a statement that he shot Mandziuk. However slanted, his concluding remarks revealed his long-festering relations with his neighbours to the west and north. In his words, “The reason I took the gun out on the wagon wa[s] because I knew that Mandzuik and Nastiuk wanted to make trouble for me when they came for the hay. They are always making trouble for me, and they say many times I am crazy.” After Taylor took Klym’s statement, he read it back to him and asked if he wished to sign the document and he readily did so. At his father’s request, George brought out the shotgun and a shell which Taylor took as evidence. George gave a statement to Taylor who then took John Klym to Sundown.
There the constable received a phone call from another RCMP officer, advising him that Onufry Mandziuk had died at 9:20 p.m. After telling Klym that he probably faced a murder charge, Taylor, likely hindered by conditions resulting from a violent storm that evening, drove him to the RCMP barracks in Winnipeg, arriving about 4:00 a.m. Later on the morning of 24 June, Taylor filed a murder charge against Klym. [33] On his own initiative, Klym then made and signed a supplemental statement about Mandziuk’s death:
I didn’t want to shoot him, I wanted to shoot in the ground to scare him. I was holding the gun pointed in his direction but towards the ground. I pulled the trigger. I did not want to hit him. I saw him jumping around. I thought he was jumping for fun and that I didn’t hit him.” [34]
English was not Klym’s native language, but Constable Taylor later testified that “I have known him for over a year, and I have had many conversations, and I hadn’t any difficulty in understanding him, and as far as I knew he had no difficulty in understanding me.” However, upon Klym’s request, an officer read the charge, the police warning, and his own statements to him in Ukrainian. [35]
That same day, RCMP Corporal William Milligan and another officer went with John Nastiuk to the crime scene. After Nastiuk identified the places where Klym and Mandziuk were standing, Milligan took photos of the two men standing in these positions some fifteen feet apart. Based upon his sightings of boundary markers and his projections from the border to the points where Klym and Mandziuk had stood, Milligan concluded that the crime occurred south of the international boundary. Recognizing his own limitations in such measurements, he advised his superiors to send a surveyor to the crime scene. [36]
On 28 June, Milligan returned with Nastiuk and George A. Warrington, Chief Surveyor for the Manitoba Public Works Department. Warrington located the international boundary as it passed the site of the shooting between boundary cairns to the west and east and other reference points. At the place that Nastiuk identified as where Mandziuk fell, Milligan found “what looked to me to be a quantity of blood soaked into the grass…” Milligan later said that he “dug a piece of earth” from the place that appeared to be blood-soaked, but if an analysis was made from this sample, it was not brought out in judicial proceedings. Warrington drafted a blueprint map indicating that Klym was 34.5 feet inside the State of Minnesota when he shot Mandziuk, who collapsed at a point thirty-five feet south of the border. [37]
On 6 July, a coroner’s jury at Vita, after hearing testimony from the crime witnesses, police, and Warrington, found that John Klym had shot “from a point approximately thirty-five feet south of the International boundary line at a distance of fifteen feet from the deceased.” [38] Three days later, Roseau County Attorney R. J. Knutson filed a complaint before Justice of the Peace A. O. Hagen, alleging that Klym had “with a premeditated design” shot Onufry Mandziuk. Accordingly, Hagen issued a warrant for Klym’s arrest. [39]
With Klym in custody at Headingly jail near Winnipeg, the State of Minnesota engaged Winnipeg attorney A. M. Shinbane, K. C., as its counsel in extradition proceedings. On July 19, Shinbane presented Hagen’s warrant and a letter from Knutson to Justice W. J. Donovan of the Court of King’s Bench, Winnipeg, and stated that Minnesota would seek Klym’s extradition. [40]
It was late August before Minnesota Governor Elmer A. Benson, at County Attorney Knutson’s request, asked the U. S. Department of State to seek Klym’s extradition on a first degree murder charge. [41] On 11 September, Knutson received an extradition warrant signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Secretary of State sent extradition documents to Norman Armour, United States Minister in Ottawa, for transmission to Canadian officials and for forwarding to Edwin C. Kemp, U.S. Consul General in Winnipeg. [42]
In the meantime, with Justice Donovan serving as extradition commissioner, a preliminary hearing was held on 22 July in Winnipeg. At issue was the fact that although the shooting had taken place in the United States, Mandziuk had died in Canada. Winnipeg attorney Sam Greenberg, Klym’s counsel, argued that Canadian charges against his client should take precedence over the extradition request. [43] Why Klym fought extradition is perplexing, given the fact that life imprisonment was the maximum penalty facing him if convicted in Minnesota as opposed to a possible death sentence in Canada. Perhaps the answer lies in two points: Klym seemed convinced that he had acted in self-defense, and he later mentioned a 1922 case in his locale in which the person responsible for a homicide was exonerated. [44]
On 23–24 September, Justice Donovan heard testimony in the Klym case. The Winnipeg Free Press declared that the court faced “a problem probably unique in Manitoba legal history and, so far as is known, with a set of circumstances never dealt with before by the courts of this country.” However, A. M. Shinbane, Minnesota’s counsel, said that conversations with Manitoba’s attorney general had led him to conclude that the Crown would “stay” its charges against Klym if the court granted extradition. [45]
Although John Klym did not testify in his fight to avoid extradition, George Klym’s testimony sought to remove some of the onus for the tragedy from his father. George took responsibility for having cut hay in the morning and in readying the farm wagon for the afternoon trek along the road allowance. He said that at the showdown, Onufry Mandziuk, wielding a pitchfork, moved toward his father who was bearing the shotgun he had removed from the wagon. Some “four or five yards” separated the men, and as Mandziuk advanced, John Klym was “stepping back north-east” and “fired.” George said that Mandziuk had “started to run after him [John Klym] with the fork,” but he later said that Mandziuk “jumped” toward his father. When asked about the proximity of the two men to the boundary marker that was visible to the east, George said that “My dad was north of the boundary line and Mandzuik was south.” [46]
By contrast, John Nastiuk’s testimony portrayed the aggressive role of John Klym. Nastiuk said that as he and Mandziuk followed the Klym wagon toward the southern end of the swath of cut hay, John Klym raised his gun and declared, “Don’t come close. I am going to shoot.” As to the clash near the hay pile, Nastiuk said that he was so intent in watching John Klym get his gun from his wagon that he did not see what Mandziuk did with his fork, testimony that did not support George’s statement that Mandziuk had menaced his father with this tool. Nastiuk said that after Klym fired, “He say to me, ‘Don’t come close, or I am going to shoot you down, too.’” Nastiuk also recalled that as Mary Mandziuk approached, Klym said, “I am going to shoot you all down.” [47]
Nastiuk testified that at the time of the shooting he thought that the incident occurred “right on the boundary,” but gave no thought to the matter “because I was kind of scared and excited.” He described the boundary as a strip of land denoted at points by cleared bush. The boundary marker to the east was visible, and he saw it as the midpoint of a strip belonging part to Canada and part to the United States. He had perceived the swath as an entity not within either nation. As to the shooting, he said “I thought it was done between Canada and the United States.” Aside from George Klym’s testimony about the position of his father and Mandziuk in relation to the boundary, Nastiuk’s obliviousness to the border at the moment of the shooting probably held true for John Klym and the Mandziuks. [48]
Sam Greenberg, Klym’s counsel, questioned whether Corporal Milligan was “qualified” to testify on the location of the boundary. He also challenged Warrington to prove that the nearest international boundary markers were correctly located. [49] But, as in the coroner’s inquest, their testimony, including Warrington’s map, was undoubtedly critical in leading Justice Donovan’ to conclude that the homicide took place south of the border and he ordered Klym’s extradition to Minnesota. Klym would be held at Headingly pending removal to the United States. [50]
On 28 October, after time allowed for legal challenges to Justice Donovan’s decision and the receipt of an extradition order from Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe, John Klym was taken to Roseau, Minnesota, and then to Crookston, where he was jailed pending trial. The following week, the Crown stayed proceedings against Klym. [51] On 19 November, a Roseau County grand jury, after hearing testimony from key figures in the case, indicted Klym for first degree murder. [52] Klym’s trial in the county seat town of Roseau would last from 14 to 17 December 1937, with County Attorney R. J. Knutson serving as prosecutor, Roseau lawyer Bert Hanson as Klym’s court-appointed counsel, and Judge M. A. Brattland of Thief River Falls on the bench. [53]
Again, John Nastiuk’s testimony was critical and, while showing Onufry Mandziuk’s role in bringing about the episode, clearly portrayed Klym’s anger and aggressiveness. Describing his encounter with Klym as he was piling hay for Mandziuk along the road allowance north of the boundary, Nastiuk said that Klym “was so mad he start to swear and call me bad name and told me to go home.” He repeated his assertion that as John Klym went south in his wagon, he raised his gun and threatened to shoot if Mandziuk did not keep his distance.
Recalling the moments before the shooting, Nastiuk said that Mandziuk arrived at the last haycock where Klym had loaded almost all of the pile into his wagon. Dismounting, Mandziuk took a fork of hay to his wagon. This led to a brief, boisterous dialogue in Ukrainian. Klym threatened Mandziuk, who replied, “I am going to take some of that hay, anyway.” Klym then set his fork aside and got his gun from his wagon. Mandziuk responded, “You can shoot―go ahead, you can shoot if you have got right to.” Nastiuk, who had remained on Mandziuk’s wagon, said, “‘Don’t do that … You can settle the thing some other way,’ but they don’t listen to me. He [Klym] just fire a shot ….“ [54]
Cross-examined by Bert Hanson, Nastiuk said that before Klym fired he took a few steps backward with his gun pointed downward. An important issue was whether Mandziuk threatened Klym with a pitchfork, but Nastiuk again testified that he did not see what Mandziuk did with his fork after taking one scoop of hay. The fork, he said, was later in Mandziuk’s wagon, but he did not know how it got there. Although Nastiuk said that he did not see Mandziuk make any move toward Klym with his pitchfork, Hanson asked him if he had not told a Sundown merchant on the night of the crime that Mandziuk had moved toward Klym with the tool. Nastiuk denied having said this, but the businessman, Nykola Eliuk, then testified that Nastiuk said that Mandziuk had, in Eliuk’s words, “stepped into Klym with the fork.” Eliuk did not clarify this comment beyond noting that Nastiuk said that Mandziuk had shaken the fork. [55]
Mary Mandziuk recounted that she heard Klym “holler” even before he left his house in his wagon, and that as he approached the road he was speaking in both Ukrainian and English. As she put it, “He say, ‘God damn, God damn. I am going to take that hay. God damn, God damn, I fix him,” but when questioned, she said that “he didn’t say anything about shooting.” As to Klym’s remark about taking the hay, she later stated that “he said that to himself.” Mrs. Mandziuk, on foot when the two wagons reached the last haycock, said that she saw no pitchfork in her husband’s hands at the moment of the shooting. She said that after Klym fired, “he was hollering loud. He said, ‘There you got it. It hurts,’” and that when her husband, in pain, exclaimed “Eh, eh, eh, eh,” Klym repeated this sound. To emphasize this point, prosecutor Knutson asked her, “Klym, he started to make the same noise just like your husband?“ Mary Mandziuk replied, “Yes,” and Knutson asked, “‘Mocking’ him, as we call it?” to which she said ‘Yes.” Klym’s counsel, Bert Hanson, unsuccessfully objected to what he saw as Knutson’s “leading” questioning of Mrs. Mandziuk, but Knutson then asked her if John Klym made any remarks to her as he departed after the shooting. Her answer was: “‘I am going to shoot all of you.’” [56]
After the prosecution had rested the state’s case, Hanson put George Klym on the stand. Describing what happened just before the shooting, the younger Klym said that he did not hear his father utter any profanity. Mandziuk, he said, came to the haycock with a pitchfork “and he started to take the hay out of father’s fork. And then he said, ‘All right, shoot me, or we are going to shoot you.’” George said that Mandziuk, having seen the gun in the Klym wagon, moved to take this weapon, but “my father, he throw his fork and he took the gun sooner.” Holding his gun, John Klym moved back, and in George’s words, Mandziuk “jump after him with his fork in his hand.” Having retreated “about six steps” with Mandziuk “running” toward him, Klym, his gun pointed downward, backed into a ditch, “and then the gun was fired.” After the shot, “I told father to jump on [the wagon] and I was scared and we went home.” George said that his father did not threaten Nastiuk or Mary Mandziuk.
In cross-examining George Klym, Knutson asked if he thought that Mandziuk “had been hurt” by the shot. George replied, “No,” whereupon Knutson noted that in the extradition hearing he said that he heard Mandziuk “holler” after being hit. George said that he could not remember this statement. Thereafter, he was battered by Knutson’s questions, saying that he did not recall what he said in Winnipeg or in his statement to Constable Taylor. Knutson also used the extradition hearing transcript to discredit George’s current testimony that his father had stepped in a “ditch.” Perhaps bewildered, George did not say, as he had in Winnipeg, which his father was north of the boundary when he shot Mandziuk, but that he was “On the boundary line.” After this debacle, Hanson asked him if he “fully understood” Knutson’s questions, and he admitted that he had not grasped all of them. Hanson then asked, “In your locality and at your home what language do you generally speak?” George replied “Ukrainian.” [57]
John Klym testified to a scenario similar to that which his son had set forth. He also suggested that his purpose in going out in his wagon in the afternoon was to gather “old post[s],” but that he and George then saw Mandziuk and Nastiuk working with the hay. Fearing Mandziuk, he took his gun along because “I was scared… I thought if he… see I have a gun he don’t come after me… “ At the point of the showdown, Klym recalled that as he gathered the last of the hay, Mandziuk, using his own fork, “grabbed” this hay and put it on his wagon. “Then, “said Klym, “he was coming with the fork up to me.” Sensing that Mandziuk was about to make a fast move to Klym’s wagon and seize the shotgun, Klym acted first, and “I just throwed my fork and grabbed the gun.” Mandziuk kept coming toward him, and fearing his neighbour’s pitchfork, he said, “Get away” or he would shoot. Klym said that as he walked backward, pointing his gun down, he stepped into a “furrow,” and his weapon discharged. When Bert Hanson asked him if he intended to shoot, he replied, “No, I didn’t intend to fire at all,” adding that “I am sorry I did it.” [58]
Later, Knutson recalled Corporal Milligan, and asked him if he saw “any plowed furrows” at the crime scene. He replied, “No, sir, I didn’t,” and made it clear that he saw no ditch in the immediate terrain. [59] Given John Klym’s strong intimation that stepping in a furrow had caused his gun to fire, Milligan’s unequivocal statement on the absence of a furrow was important.
In the meantime, Knutson asked John Klym if his conflicts with Onufry Mandziuk had led him to fear “that he was going to kill you,” Klym replied “Well, I just keep away from him,” and that if he encountered Mandziuk, “I told him ‘Good day,’ every time and he don’t answer to me. He was very mad at me.” Klym denied having used the “bad language” that Mary Mandziuk attributed to him or having threatened her husband as the wagons moved south toward the boundary. In a confusing dialogue with the prosecutor he said that his weapon was loaded because “Before dinner there was hawks so I lay the shell there in the gun,” but he seemed momentarily to deny this statement.
Surveyor Warrington and Corporal Milligan had stated that the swath of hay that George Klym had cut ran eight feet across the centre of the north-south road allowance. Moreover, John Nastiuk testified that Mandzuik had told him that “I don’t touch any [hay] on Klym’s side,” adding, “I just want to take what belongs to me.” However, when Knutson asked John Klym if at the time of the showdown he thought that his son might have encroached on Mandziuk’s side of the allowance, it was clear that he had not done so. Strangely, Klym said that he would not have objected to Mandziuk taking hay “from the center” of the road allowance, but he admitted that he had not discussed this with his neighbour. [60]
Knutson also asked Klym if he said anything after he shot Mandziuk, and he replied, “I didn’t talk a damn word.” Earlier, John Nastiuk had testified that Mandziuk had stood for a moment and “yelled” before turning and falling, but Klym said that after he fired, he was frightened and did not remember if Mandziuk uttered anything. Klym said that as he rode away, he saw Mandziuk “go to his wagon and talk to Nastiuk” and he denied having then threatened Nastiuk or Mary Mandziuk or having seen Onufrey drop to the ground. Klym admitted that after going home he did not ascertain if his shot had hit his neighbour. “I didn’t think he get hurt,” he said, but obviously anguished, he spent the next few hours “laying in the grass. I was scared. I was sick ….” Klym finally went to his house, shaved, and thought, “I want to go to Sundown … report myself, … and maybe he [Mandziuk] got hurt or something like that.” He then did his milking, and as noted earlier, Constable Taylor arrived. [61]
ier, Constable Taylor arrived.61 Defense counsel Hanson called witnesses whose testimony was favorable to John Klym. Businessman Nykola Eliuk, a civic leader in Sundown, said that Klym had “a good reputation” and was a “good hard working man.” Farmer Steve Sokliuk witnessed an encounter in which Mandziuk seemed to threaten Klym if he trespassed. Selmer Lind, a Roseau County farmer and hunter and the only American to testify, said that in March he had seen Mandziuk across the boundary “going to a hay stack” and hailed him. When Mandziuk replied, “He said if I was Klym’s boy, when I come over to the stack, I would have been dead. … anyone, any animals or anything of Klym that got in on his farm, he said he will shoot it.” Lind noted that “I told him it was dangerous to do it in that way.” [62]
After R. J. Knutson and Bert Hanson made their closing arguments, Judge Brattland told the jurors that their options were either to convict John Klym of first degree (premeditated) or second degree (unpremeditated) murder or acquit him on grounds of justifiable homicide. As to the last option, Brattland stated that the law held homicide to be justifiable “when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished.” He added that “The law does not permit the taking of human life to repel a mere trespass as in this case .…“ Judge Brattland denied Bert Hanson’s request that the jury be given the additional option of finding Klym guilty of first degree manslaughter. [63]
After deliberating about three and one-half hours, the jury convicted Klym of second degree murder. Before Brattland passed sentence, he asked Klym if he wished to speak. He replied, “No, I don’t know. I can’t talk very good English. …” Brattland then sentenced him to life imprisonment “at hard labor” and he was taken to the State Prison in Stillwater. [64] The judge later noted that “Defendant’s manner of conduct during the proceedings indicates that he is of a nervous, excitable disposition. He is bitter and resentful. …” [65]
In March 1938, less than three months after entering prison, John Klym wrote in Ukrainian to Warden L. F. Utecht, blaming John Nastiuk for his plight. He said that Nastiuk induced Mandziuk to bring about a confrontation and that both men wished him dead. He contended that the two men were “in partnership,” Mandziuk producing whiskey and Nastiuk making beer, while he did not use alcohol. Klym stated that Nastiuk was “drunk” when he encountered him on the road allowance. Showing the political tensions among Ukrainian-Canadians in the 1930s, he described Nastiuk and Mandziuk as “drunk Bolsheviks [who] did not want to work” and suggested that they envied his achievements as a hard-working farmer. He firmly maintained that the tragedy had occurred in Canada. Klym said that there had been a heavy rain on the night of 23 June and strongly suggested that his adversaries had later placed new blood and wagon tracks at the boundary area. He also attributed his conviction to not having a translator at his trial and asked the warden for a translator so that he could tell his story to Utecht. [66]
In other letters written in Ukrainian, Klym repeated these arguments. For one he sketched the crime scene area, including the location of the shooting, but his muddled depiction of the boundary detracted from his argument. [67] Writing to the RCMP in Winnipeg, he said that when he went with Constable Taylor to the crime scene on the evening of the shooting, neither man saw any blood. Klym said that there was ample daylight, a contention that differed from Taylor’s testimony at his trial. Probably to buttress his argument that the storm on the night of 23 June would have obliterated blood or wagon tracks, he said that rain began when Taylor took him to Sundown. Apparently referring to the subsequent drive to Winnipeg, he said that “the water was four inches deep on the ground. …” Klym concluded that Nastiuk and Mary Mandziuk later made wagon tracks and placed blood at the supposed crime scene just south of the boundary prior to the June 28 investigation. [68]
The Mandziuk crime scene is shown on a portion of a blueprint prepared by surveyor G. A. Warrington on 28 June 1937. The vertical dashed line to which measurements refer was the eastern boundary of Section 1 in Township 1, Range 9 East PM. The mapped hay cutting area was located on the 99-foot road allowance between SE1-1-9E (the Mandziuk farm, at left) and SW6-1-10E (the Klym farm, at right).
Source: Harl A. Dalstrom
Indeed, on the evening of 23 June 1937, after the day’s extreme heat, a severe storm hit southern Manitoba. Because precipitation amounts were highly localized, it is impossible to say if there was heavy rainfall at the crime scene. [69]
Apparently writing to Judge Brattland, he depicted Mandzuik and especially Nastiuk as persons who did not represent constructive community values. He recalled that Mandziuk had boasted to him about his whiskey-making talent and that Nastiuk had erected a dance “platform” at his farm. Drinking was common at dances, and Klym asserted that Nastiuk “was angry at me because I did not send my boys to his place for drinks and tried to discourage others from excessive drinking ...” He also said that Nastiuk’s promotion of communist literature had alienated “our teacher” and that Nastiuk “called me a capitalist because I would not order a bolshevik magazine.” [70]
Perhaps in light of R. J. Knutson’s strong opposition, the State Board of Parole in April 1938 denied a clemency request from Klym. [71] The Klyms then engaged Grady & Grady, a Crookston law firm, to appeal his conviction. M. J. Hegland, a Roseau lawyer, joined them in the case. Judge Brattland rejected a motion from Klym’s counsel for a new trial, but in late August Hegland and Grady & Grady submitted an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. [72]
In the meantime, Warden Utecht heard Klym’s version of the shooting through an interpreter. Utecht, wishing to help Klym make his best case, passed this on to Grady & Grady, noting that their client “speaks very little understandable English.” Contrary to his trial testimony and assuming no communication errors, he now said his shotgun was in his wagon because that morning he had decided to shoot a ground hog. Remarkably, Klym stated that the physician attending Mandziuk had told him that Mandziuk’s injury did not seem to be life-threatening and that Mandziuk died, as Utecht phrased his words, “some days” after the shooting. As to the spot of “the accident,” the warden said that “Klym insists [that it] was on the Canadian side of the line.” [73]
In Klym’s appeal, his counsel portrayed Onufry Mandziuk as the aggressor in the incidents leading to the fatal encounter. This request for a reversal of Klym’s conviction and a new trial centred upon two main arguments. First, the judge had erred and acted with “pontifical finality” in not permitting the jury to consider convicting Klym of first-degree manslaughter. A key point in this contention was that Klym had kept his weapon pointed toward the ground and had not intended to slay Mandziuk. Stepping “back into the furrow or ditch, his balance was disturbed,” causing the gun to fire, which “would ‘pull’ the gun barrel upwards. …” [74] Second, Judge Brattland had in essence prevented the jury from considering evidence that Klym had acted in self-defense in carrying his shotgun in his wagon and in grabbing the weapon as he retreated from a fork-wielding Mandziuk. That Klym had a shotgun at the scene of the confrontation was probably not exceptional in the isolated “‘frontier’ community” where the incident unfolded. [75]
On 2 December 1938, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed Klym’s second degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial. Basic to this decision was Judge Brattland’s failure to give the jury the option of finding Klym guilty of first degree manslaughter. The justices found that “There was evidence tending to prove that Mandzuik charged toward Klym with his pitchfork held in a threatening manner.” They also objected to that part of Brattland’s charge to the jury in which he said that “The law does not permit the taking of a human life to repel a mere trespass as in this case.” The words, “as in this case,” essentially told the jurors that they could not consider the possibility that Klym acted in self-defense. [76]
On 25 April 1939, Klym’s second trial began in Roseau. Given the circumstances leading to the new trial, Judge James E. Montague from Crookston replaced Judge Brattland. Because Klym’s former counsel, Bert Hanson had been elected Roseau County Attorney, J. J. Hadler, Koochiching County Attorney, replaced Hanson as prosecutor in this case. A dispatch to the Winnipeg Free Press described the proceedings as “picturesque,” apparently because the Greek Catholic Church ritual was followed in swearing witnesses.
John Klym now used his ground hog argument for having placed his gun in his wagon. In a post-trial report to the Board of Parole, the prosecuting attorney dismissed this argument, saying that “A fair inference from the record would indicate that he placed the gun in the wagon box when he saw [the] deceased starting to take the hay.” In a similar report, Judge Montague observed that “his [Klym’s] claim that the gun went off accidentally because of his stepping into a furrow and losing his balance was not borne out by the evidence. …” The prosecutor also made this point, adding that “The testimony of Klym and his son are lacking in candor and contain such improbabilities that the jury might well have found that they were willfully testifying falsely.” On the evening of 27 April, the jury, after lengthy deliberation between a second degree murder or manslaughter verdict, found Klym guilty of first degree manslaughter and Judge Montague sentenced him to five to twenty years’ imprisonment. “As the trial court told John at the time of the sentence,” recalled prosecutor Hadler, “he was very fortunate that he was not being tried in Canada— no doubt the Court having in mind that he probably would have been subject to the death penalty.” Klym was returned to Stillwater after having spent over two months in the Crookston jail awaiting the new trial. [77]
John Klym’s plight brought polarized views of his community standing. After the first trial, County Attorney Knutson reported to parole authorities that he had visited with people in Klym’s area. His impressions reflected a significant cultural gap between Anglos and Ukrainians. Of the latter, he said,
These people live in a rather different stage of civilization than most of us are accustomed to encounter. They live in mud-plastered, thatched houses, with littel [sic] or no furniture, just as they or their parents lived in Buckowina. It seems that upon the least provocation they talk about shooting and killing. Upon the coming up of any argument whatsoever, it appears that threats of killing are made.
Knutson said that during these visits he had heard an unverified report “that Klym’s family had made threats to shoot Mandzuik’s family.” In arguing against parole, Knutson noted that after firing his gun, Klym did not ascertain if Mandziuk had been hit nor did he make an effort to provide assistance. [78]
A May 1939 report—apparently the work of J. J. Hadler—said that the author, in interviewing many persons, found that “The reputation for peace and quiet of both [Klym and Mandziuk] was not 100%,” but that “the reputation of Mandzuik seemed to be a great deal better than that of Klym.” The document noted that Klym had been “convicted of a simple assault in Canada for assault upon his neighbour’s wife.” This report also pointed out that Klym had not tried to help Mandziuk after the shooting. In June 1940, Hadler said, “I would think it would be a miscarriage of justice to commute his sentence.” Judge Montague made a similar statement. [79]
By contrast, two persons who had testified favorably about Klym’s reputation at his first trial repeated their positive judgments in letters to the Board of Parole in 1938. Later, Bert Hanson gave his insights on John Klym’s place in the Sundown area Ukrainian community:
Both Mr. Klym and the deceased were born in Austria and came from the province of what is known as Ukrania. They are not well educated but I would not say that they are illiterate. They are hard-headed, stubborn people and believe that what is theirs is theirs and no one else must molest it.… I learned while investigating this case that Mr. Klym was one of the hardest working men and had one of the finest farms of any of those living in this vicinity. He was fair and square in paying his bills and I would say that he was possibly more highly respected and had a better reputation for being quiet and peaceable than the deceased. [80]
In March 1940 the Board of Parole continued Klym’s prison term for four years. Klym frequently sent his wife small sums of money, apparently from his earnings that had been placed in the prison’s Social Welfare Fund. [81] Although John Klym had little formal education, he carried on a good bit of correspondence, was interested in learning, and studied English “in evening school.” [82] Between 1941 and 1943 he wrote letters in English to the Board of Parole seeking a hearing. As in the past, he portrayed John Nastiuk as the moving force in his fate. The shooting, he said, “was done accidentally by… fear at home in Canada[,] not at Minnesota.” He repeatedly said that that he had been found “not guilty” in Canada and that evidence based upon a “false map” had led to his conviction. [83] His wife joined in his parole effort, stressing the hardship that her husband’s incarceration had placed upon their family. [84]
In March 1944 the parole authorities continued Klym’s incarceration for three years, with a maximum term to end in December 1952, but this would prove irrelevant. In December 1943 he was hospitalized and tentatively diagnosed as having cancer. An operation in June 1944 indicated that he was suffering from cancer of the stomach and it was soon evident that his condition was terminal. The penal authorities seemed willing to allow him to return to Manitoba, but his condition did not permit him to travel. He died on 10 August 1944 in Stillwater and was buried in the St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church cemetery at the hamlet of Sirko, less than a mile north of his farm. [85]
In the legal proceedings on both sides of the border, John Nastiuk’s testimony was decisive, for he gave the RCMP and surveyor George Warrington the details about the crime scene. In short, Nastiuk’s testimony and Warrington’s map brought John Klym’s extradition and subsequent convictions. Following Klym’s second trial, a report to the Board of Parole apparently authored by prosecutor Hadler described Nastiuk’s testimony as “candid and persuasive.” Yet Nastiuk and Klym had clashed, and Nykola Eliuk’s testimony suggesting that Nastiuk had stated on the night of the crime that Mandziuk had menaced Klym with a pitchfork is troubling.
Klym’s contention in his first trial and after that stepping into a furrow caused him to shoot Mandziuk was unconvincing. It is noteworthy that he did not mention a furrow in his statements to the police. Likewise, his later contentions that he had placed his shot gun in his wagon to get rid of a hawk or ground hog did not square with his original statement. His argument that he had been acquitted in Canada is inexplicable. John Klym’s relations with Onufrey Mandziuk and John Nastiuk were deeply troubled, but his conspiratorial assertions about their conduct did not help him. Yet in answering a prison questionnaire he at least momentarily moved away from his self-righteousness. After his first conviction, his reply to the question, “What do you consider the main cause of your downfall?,” was “Crime was committed in self defense,” but responding after his second conviction he said “Temper.” [86]
Minnesota v. Klym dramatically illustrates the potential importance of where something happens and the dreadful consequences of unchecked animosities. If Klym had left his weapon at home; if Mandziuk had taken cream to town, or if Nastiuk had either stayed home or more vigorously admonished his neighbours to calm down, the tragedy might have been averted. John Klym was an able, diligent farmer who seemed to be winning a battle against environmental challenges that defeated many a borderland settler, making his story especially poignant. This said, Klym was able to present his sympathy-evoking story of life’s struggles, something that Onufry Mandziuk could not do. Moreover, neither Mary Mandziuk nor John Nastiuk were in positions to respond to Klym’s post-conviction allegations respecting their conduct.
John Klym’s manslaughter conviction was appropriate and should have been the outcome of his first trial. Justice was done, but opinions differed as to whether Klym could use English well enough to serve his interests in court. As the extradition hearing closed, Justice Donovan asked Klym’s counsel, “Does he understand English, Mr. Greenberg?” Sam Greenberg replied, “Not sufficiently, but I can explain it.” [87] Klym’s ability to understand court proceedings and hence his constitutional right to a fair trial was not raised as a point of law in his appeal of his first conviction. However, his counsel noted that Ukrainian was the “daily” language of the Klyms, Mandziuks, and Nastiuk, and that they used English “only with noticeable difficulty.” Although Klym later made appeals in English to the Board of Parole, he mentioned his difficulty with English and the fact that he had not received the service of an interpreter. [88]
On both sides of the border in 1937, the right of a defendant in a criminal trial to interpreter service was much less firmly established than would be the case by the end of the twentieth century. [89] However, implementing the principle of fair trials for persons lacking fluency in the language of the court would be a huge challenge. [90] As in the Klym case, the ability of a defendant to speak and comprehend the language of the court may be difficult to ascertain. [91]
Finally, the tragedy of 23 June 1937 tells us something about rural life and medical emergencies. After the shooting, John Nastiuk, Mary Mandziuk, and teacher Nick Kassawan did their best to stem Onufrey Mandziuk’s bleeding and get him to the Vita hospital quickly, but the journey took about two hours. At the coroner’s inquest, a jury member asked Dr. Walter J. McCord, who saw Onufrey when he was admitted to hospital and who later performed an autopsy, if Mandziuk might have survived had he received optimum “First Aid.” Dr. McCord replied, “If the hemorrhage had been arrested immediately, he likely would have lived.” [92] Of course, generations of advances in transportation, communication, and emergency medicine have made it more likely that a critically wounded person living in a remote place will survive. Still, medical services in remote areas remain a significant matter of public policy.
In the St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church Cemetery, among other Ukrainian pioneers, John Klym rests some thirty feet from Onufry Mandziuk. Here too are Mary Mandziuk and Mary Klym who died in 1966 and 1982 respectively, and other family members. Visiting this beautiful place on a bright summer day one finds that two former adversaries share a peace that transcends troubles past. [93]
Looking toward the crime scene as it appeared in August 2010.
Source: David Malaher
An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Northern Great Plains History Conference, Brandon, Manitoba on 25 September 2008. I thank Professor Emeritus Francis M. Carroll of the University of Manitoba and Mr. David Malaher, Kenora, Ontario and Whistler, British Columbia, for their comments upon the original paper. Thanks also to Mr. Malaher for his additional assistance, particularly in putting me in touch with Mr. Nick Kristalovich, Kenora, who translated letters written in Ukrainian and who was a huge help in this project. I am indebted to Ms. Theresa McDonnell, Administrator, District Court, Roseau, Minnesota, and the staffs of the Roseau County Historical Society, the Kenora Public Library, the Manitoba Legislative Library, and the document depositories noted below. Finally, this project could not have been done without the steadfast help of my wife, Kay Calamé Dalstrom. Of course, I am responsible for any shortcomings.
In citing court testimony, names of the witness will be given in parenthesis as needed.
1. Dominion of Canada, Department of Marine, Meteorological Service of Canada, Monthly Record of Meteorological Observations, June 1937 (Ottawa: J. O. Patenaude, 1939), p. 13; Depositions Taken at Inquest on body of Onufrey Mandzuik at Vita, Manitoba, 6 July 1937, pp. 22-23 (G. Klym). Hereafter cited as Coroner’s Jury; The State of Minnesota against John Klym, Proceedings on Application for Extradition [Winnipeg, Manitoba], p. 27 (John Nastiuk). Hereafter cited as Extradition Proceedings, court documents, Klym trial file, Minnesota State Archives, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
2. John Klym, “Dear Mr. Editor,” 18 April 1938; “About old country man,” 18 April 1958 [sic 1938 - There are three letters with the same date], Klym prison file, 125 D 4 4 F, Minnesota State Archives. Hereafter cited as Klym prison file. Letters translated from Ukrainian by Mr. Nick Kristalovich, Kenora, Ontario; Roseau County, District Court, Fourteenth Judicial District, File No. 536, The State of Minnesota vs. John Klym, Defendant, Examination Preliminary to Sentence, pp. 160-165 (John Klym), Klym trial file. Hereafter cited as Examination Preliminary to Sentence, 1937 or Impressions of the Court. For an overview of the history of Bukovyna, see “Bukovina,” Wikipedia online (accessed 17 November 2013); Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (accessed 17 November 2013).
Although other sources relating to this article use the name John Klym and give his wife’s name as Mary, an indenture of 2 July 1955 shows Maria Klym as the widow and administratrix of Iwan Klym, who had owned the SW ¼, Section 6, Township 1, Range 10 E. Details in this document show that Iwan Klym and John Klym were the same person. This indenture and related documents are from The Property Register, Winnipeg Land Titles Office, Province of Manitoba.
John Klym’s birthplace in Bukovina is uncertain as is his birth date. In his letter of 18 April 1958 [sic 1938], he said he was born in Shurka on 11 May 1891. A Report of Alleged Alien Inmate, Minnesota State Prison, gives his birthplace as Shernuwickj, Austria, 11 May 1891, and a Deputy Warden’s Examination Sheet gives this date. However, another Deputy Warden’s Examination Sheet and two State Board of Parole history sheets say that he was born in Genevieva or Genevieve, Austria, on 21 April 1891, Klym prison file. His headstone in the St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church cemetery, Sirko, Manitoba, gives his birth year as 1892. Photos by Kay Calamé Dalstrom and David Malaher, 25 August 2010.
Two of the above prison documents state that Klym’s formal schooling ended at the second grade, but in a letter Klym said “I went to school in the old Country only three years.” See Klym to “Mr. Editor” [probably The Ukrainian Voice, Winnipeg], 18 April 1938, Klym prison file translation, Nick Kristalovich.
3. Examination Preliminary to Sentence, 1937, p. 162 (J. Klym); John Klym, “About old country man,” 18 April 1958 [sic 1938], Klym prison file. On the hard physical environment that confronted Ukrainian and other settlers in this part of Manitoba, see Nickolaus Wagenhoffer, “Some Socio-Economic Dynamics in Southeastern Manitoba With Particular Reference to the Farming Communities Within the Local Government Districts of Stuartburn and Piney,” MA thesis, Department of Geography, University of Manitoba, 1972.) Of course, Klym was not unique in finding it necessary to find employment away from his homestead. Indeed, those persons who initially guided Ukrainians to southeastern Manitoba contemplated that settlers would find temporary employment away from home. See Peter Humeniuk, Hardships & Progress of Ukrainian Pioneers: Memoirs from Stuartburn Colony and Other Points (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1976), pp. 53-63, 201; John C. Lehr, “‘The Peculiar People’: Ukrainian Settlement of Marginal Lands in Southeastern Manitoba,” in Building Beyond The Homestead: Rural History of the Prairies (Calgary: The University of Calgary Press, 1985), pp. 28-46, explains the attraction of the southeastern Manitoba land to Ukrainian immigrants as does his Community and Frontier: A Ukrainian Settlement in the Canadian Parkland (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2011), which covers other settlement topics noted above. Professor Lehr’s book is an excellent contribution to the literature on ethnic settlement in the rural Canadian West.
4. John Klym, “About old Country man,” 18 April 1958 [sic 1938]; Klym to “Court, Winnipeg, Man.,” [no date], p. 12 (quote, grain); Klym to “Dear Sir” [apparently to Judge M. A. Brattland, 1938], p. 8, Klym prison file, all translated, Nick Kristalovich; Examination Preliminary to Sentence, 1937, p. 164 (quote, land clearing); File No. 536, The State of Minnesota vs. John Klym, Defendant, Settled Case and Transcript of Testimony [1937], pp. 4-5 (Nastiuk, noting size and location of farms p. 123 (J. Klym), Klym trial file, Minnesota State Library, Minnesota Historical Society. Hereafter cited as District Court trial, 1937.
5. Examination Preliminary to Sentence, 1937, p. 164. Here, Klym said that he was a Greek Catholic, but prison documents noted earlier indicate “Greek Orthodox” or “Orthodox.”
6. District Court trial, 1937, p. 74 (Mary Mandziuk); County Attorney’s Report to the State Board of Parole and Board of Classification, Re: Register No. 14419 (John Klym) by Bert Hanson, Roseau County Attorney, 5 May 1939, Klym prison file; Roseau Times-Region, 15 July 1937, p. 1.
As a result of transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet, the English spelling of Mandziuk’s name varies. His Manitoba Certificate of Title to the SE ¼ , Section 1, Township 1, Range 9 E, dated 14 June 1930, The Property Registry, Winnipeg Land Titles Office, gives his name as Onufry Mandziuk. The name “Mandziuk” appears on the headstone of his wife Mary in the cemetery of St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Sirko, Manitoba. (photo by Kay Calamé Dalstrom, 25 August 2010) However, L. Harris, R. Wach, F. Cox, and E. Bjornson (transcribers), Cemetery Transcription #689, Sirko St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery (Winnipeg: Manitoba Genealogical Society, Inc., Aug. 1992), p. 10, while also using “Mandziuk,” render his first name as “Onufrey.” I will give his name as Onufry Mandziuk.
7. Coroner’s Jury, p. 3 ( Dr. Walter J. McCord ); District Court Trial, 1937, p. 59 (M. Mandziuk); Roseau Times-Region, 16 December 1937, p. 1.
8. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 107, 121-122 (J. Klym). The road allowance is shown on G. A. Warrington, Plan [blueprint map] Showing Portion of Road Allowances Adjacent to S.E. Sec 1, T’P [Township] 1 Rge [Range] 9.E. & S.W. Sec 6, T’P 1. Rge 10 E. [,]… June 28, 1937, Klym trial file. Hereafter cited as Warrington, Crime Scene Map.
9. Coroner’s Jury, p. 43; District Court trial, 1937, p. 56 (William Milligan); copy, hand-drawn plat map of Klym and adjoining properties, in John Klym to “Court, Winnipeg, Man,” Klym prison file.
10. District Court Trial, 1937, pp. 4-6, 10, 16 ( Nastiuk); Manitoba Certificate of Title, John Nastiuk, 29 January 1930, The Property Registry, Winnipeg Land Titles Office; notations by R. Dale Gilchrist, Old System Clerk, The Property Registry, re: questions respecting Nastiuk property, on letter from author, 7 January 2010.
11. Coroner’s Jury, p. 48; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 103-104; District Court trial, 1937, pp. 52-53 ( George Warrington); Extradition Proceedings, pp. 110-111; District Court trial, 1937, p. 57 (Milligan). As Warrington said at the trial, the U.S. land across from the Klym and Mandziuk was in Section 29, Township 164 North, Range 43 West. This was in an unorganized civil township in northwestern Roseau County. See Lyle and Alice Wood (comps.), Roseau County Atlas 1935, Baudette, MN, 1935, on CDROM, Roseau County Historical Society, p. 25.
12. Coroner’s Jury, p. 44; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 96-97, 100 (Warrington); District Court Trial, 1937, p. 141 (Milligan).
13. Extradition Proceedings, pp. 100-103 (Warrington); Warrington, Crime Scene Map.
14. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 109-110.
15. Extradition Proceedings, p. 33 (Nastiuk).
16. Ibid., pp. 61-62; District Court trial, 1937, pp. 28, 43-44 (Nastiuk); pp. 59-60 (M. Mandziuk); pp. 107-108, 122 (J. Klym).
17. District Court Trial, 1937, pp. 68- 69 (M. Mandziuk); pp. 110, 123 (J. Klym).
18. Ibid., pp. 121-123 (J. Klym); pp. 68 (quote) 73-74 (M. Mandziuk).
19. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 28-29 (Nastiuk), p. 93 (G. Klym), pp. 110-111, 123 (J. Klym) Coroner’s Jury, p. 15; Extradition Proceedings, p. 91 (Nastiuk). Nastiuk’s downplaying of his strained relations with Klym contrasts to Klym’s later writings. In “Dear Sir” [apparently to Judge M. A. Brattland, 1938] Klym devotes most of the twenty-six hand-written pages to detailing his clashes with both Mandziuk and Nastiuk.
20. Coroner’s Jury, p. 5; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 27-28; District Court trial, 1937, p. 25.
21. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 7, 42-43 (Nastiuk).
22. Ibid., pp. 60, 68 (M. Mandziuk); Coroner’s Jury, p. 6 (Nastiuk), pp. 18-19 (M. Mandziuk).
23. Coroner’s Jury, p. 17; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 28-29, 62-65 (Nastiuk).
24. Coroner’s Jury, p.33 (John Klym, statement to Constable John D. Taylor, 23 June 1937); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 114-115 (J. Klym).
25. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 8-9; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 30, 66-68 (Nastiuk); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 62-64 (M. Mandziuk).
26. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 9-10 (Nastiuk); p. 26 (G. Klym); p. 33 (John Klym, statement to Constable Taylor); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 116-117 (J. Klym); Extradition Proceedings, pp. 71-72 (Nastiuk).
27. Coroner’s Jury, p. 23 ( G. Klym); pp. 33-34; (John Klym, statement to Constable Taylor); Extradition Proceedings, p. 156 (G. Klym).
28. Coroner’s Jury, p. 3 (McCord), pp. 13-14 (Nastiuk), p. 21 (M. Mandziuk); Extradition Proceedings, pp. 34-35 (Nastiuk); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 18-21, 39 (Nastiuk), pp. 66-67 (M. Mandziuk).
29. Coroner’s Jury, p. 3 (McCord), pp. 13-14 (Nastiuk); Extradition Proceedings, pp. 37-39 (Nastiuk); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 76-77 (Taylor).
30. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 30-31; District Court trial, 1937, pp. 76-77.
31. Constable Taylor’s reading of the police warning is in Extradition Proceedings, p. 117.
33. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 32-35, including Klym’s signed statement. On the storm, see Winnipeg Free Press, 24 June 1937, pp. 1, 5.
34. Coroner’s jury, p. 37 (Klym statement quoted in Taylor testimony). The sentence beginning “I was holding the gun pointed in his direction” in the Coroner’s Jury transcript reads “I was holding the gun pointing in this direction” in the District Court trial, 1937, transcript. (p. 83). As to his 23 June statement to Taylor, Klym later said that because of fright and lack of fluency in English, “I don’t know what I may have told him…” Klym to “Court Winnipeg, Man” [probably 1938], p. 12, Klym prison file.
35. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 32, 37. For initial press coverage of the homicide, see Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 24 June 1937, p. 1; Winnipeg Free Press, 25 June 1937, p. 3. Although the latter story contained minor errors, it noted that the crime occurred “near the international border.”
36. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 41-44; District Court trial, 1937, p. 55.
37. Coroner’s Jury, pp. 44-45 (Milligan), pp. 46-49 (Warrington); Extradition Proceedings, pp. 15-18; 94-96 (Warrington), p. 108 (Milligan); District Court trial, 1937, pp. 48-53 (Warrington).
39. Criminal Complaint against John Klym, Justice’s Court, A. O. Hagen, Justice of the Peace, Roseau County, Minnesota, 9 July 1937, RG 59, Box 1155, National Archives and Records Administration - College Park, Maryland. Hereafter cited as RG 59, Box 1155, NARA-CP.
40. Information and Complaint, Abraham Mark Shinbane, before W. J. Donovan, 19 July 1937, John Klyn [sic Klym] file, RG 13, file no. 138359, extradition files, Library and Archives Canada. Hereafter cited as Klym file, LAC.
41. Robert J. Knutson to Elmer A. Benson, 17 August 1937; Elmer A. Benson to Secretary of State, 27 August 1937, RG59, Box 1155, NARA-CP.
42. [Secretary of State] Cordell Hull to Governor of Minnesota, 7 September 1937; [Acting Secretary of State] R. Walton Moore to Norman Arthur, 7 September 1937, ibid. The Roseau Times-Region, 16 September 1937, p. 4, described the warrant signed by the President, but the author did not find this document. A staff search at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library did not uncover a copy. Email, Bob Clark, Supervisory Archivist, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, to author, 11 May 2010.
43. Extradition Proceedings, pp. 2-5. See also undesignated clipping, “Minnesota Aims To Try Klym In Sundown Death,” in AMICUS No. 24747761, LAC; “Crime: Murder: Accused: Klym, John; Victim: Onefry Mandziuk, 1937-1938,” (“Newsclippings from the Winnipeg Tribune”), held at Archives, Elizabeth Dafoe Library, University of Manitoba, email of file to author, courtesy, Lewis St. George Stubbs. Hereafter cited as Klym case clipping file, UM Archives; Winnipeg Sun, 20 February 2010 (article by Bob Holliday), courtesy, RCMP Historical Section to author, email, 12 July 2010 (attachment).
44. Undesignated clipping, 10 July 1937, “Border Murder Hearing May Go To U. S. Court,” Klym case clipping file, UM Archives; John Klym, “old Country man,” to Ukrainian Voice, 18 April [1938], Klym case file, MHS, translated by Nick Kristalovich (mentioning 1922 case). Minnesota had abolished capital punishment in 1911; Canada would not do so until 1976. The above July 10 news report noted that a life term was the maximum penalty that Klym might face in Minnesota, but erred in saying that if judicial proceedings found in favor of extradition, Klym would “most likely would insist on trial by the United States courts.” Despite errors, Bob Holliday’s Winnipeg Sun article is a good summary of the Klym case. However, Minnesota’s effort to secure Klym’s extradition did not result in a cross-border “squabble.” Holliday correctly notes that Klym “fought the extradition to Minnesota,” but the article’s headline, “Bilking the hangman,” grossly distorts the facts.
45. Winnipeg Free Press, 24 September 1937, p. 1; Extradition Proceedings, pp. 8-9.
46. Extradition Proceedings, pp. 149-151, 154.
47. Ibid., p. 31 (first quote) p. 36 (subsequent quotes), pp. 76-77.
48. Ibid., pp. 42-45, 48-52, 80-82.
49. Ibid., pp. 98-99, 106-107. Boundary Cairn 876, west of the crime scene, and Cairn 877, the next marker to the east, are, according to current reckoning of the International Boundary Commission, .17 second and .12 second, respectively north of the forty-ninth parallel. Hence, Cairn 876 is slightly over seventeen feet north of the ideal site and Cairn 877 is a little over twelve feet north. For boundary marker coordinates, see International Boundary Commission, Definition of Boundary between Canada and the United States, NAD 27 Official Values, 49th Parallel, http://internationalboundarycommission.org/coordinates/M49thp.txt
50. Extradition Proceedings, pp. 160-161; Warrant of Committal by W. J. Donovan, 24 September 1937, Klym file, LAC.
51. George Fuller, American Consul, Winnipeg, to Secretary of State, 2 November 1937, RG 59, Box 1155, NARA-CP; Winnipeg Free Press, 30 October, p. 16; 4 November 1937, p. 6; Roseau Times-Region, 9 December 1937.
52. Indictment, State of Minnesota against John Klym, 19 November 1937, Klym trial file; Roseau Times-Region, 25 November 1937, p. 4.
53. District Court trial, 1937, p. 3.
54. Ibid., pp. 14-17, 31, 33, 34. The last page gives the clearest sequence of how the showdown unfolded.
55. Ibid., pp. 44-45, 86-88 (Nastiuk); District Court trial, p. 103 (Nykola Eliuk /Nickal Iliuk, Synopsis). “Nykola Eliuk” is correct.
57. Ibid., pp 91-92, 94-101. See also Extradition Proceedings, pp. 151, 158.
58. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 113-114, 116-120, 132-134.
60. Ibid., pp. 124-128, 130, 137-138 (J. Klym); p. 9 (Nastiuk); p. 51 (Warrington); pp. 56-58 (Milligan); Warrington, Crime Scene Map.
61. District Court trial, 1937, pp. 135-140 (J. Klym); pp. 17, 38 (Nastiuk).
63. Ibid., p. 145-157 (quotes, p. 148) The transcript does not include closing arguments.
64. Ibid., p. 160; Examination Preliminary to Sentence, 1937, p. 165 (J. Klym); Roseau Times-Region, 23 December 1937, p. 1; Winnipeg Free Press, 18 December 1937, p. 1; Winnipeg Tribune, 18 December 1937, p. 3.
65. Impressions of the Court, p. 166, signed by Judge Brattland, 27 January 1938.
66. John Klym to “Mr. Warden,” 6 March 1938, Klym prison file, translated by Nick Kristalovich. Klym later told the warden that he had put his gun in his wagon because “when I was clearing land before noon I saw a ground hog,” in contrast to his trial statement that he had loaded his gun because he had seen “hawks.” Letter to warden, 23 June 1938, translated by Nick Kristalovich, Klym prison file. For an introduction to the conflict within the Ukrainian-Canadian community over Communism, see Jars Balan, Salt and Braided Bread: Ukrianian Life in Canada, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1984.
67. John Klym to “Dear Mr. Editor” [apparently The Ukrainian Voice], 18 April 1938; Klym to “Dear Sir” [apparently to Judge M. A. Brattland, 1938]; map sketch by John Klym in letter to “Court [,] Winnipeg, Man.” [probably 1938], Klym prison file, all translated by Nick Kristalovich.
68. E.C.P Salt, i/c C.I.B., RCMP, Winnipeg, to The Warden , Stillwater Penitentiary, 26 July 1938, enclosing John Klym to RCMP, 4 July 1938 [apparently translated by N. Lyssey, RCMP], Klym prison file.
69. Meteorological Service of Canada, Monthly Record of Meteorological Observations, June 1937, p. 28; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau, M. R. Hovde, Climatological Data, Minnesota Section, XLIII, p. 28, Climatological Data for the United States By Sections, XXIV, Part 2: April, May, June (Washington: Weather Bureau, 1937).
70. Klym to “Dear Sir” [apparently 1938], Klym prison file. Whatever the validity of Klym’s allegations respecting the conduct of Mandziuk and Nastiuk, excessive drinking and other “substance abuse” was a serious problem in the Ukrainian community in southeastern Manitoba especially in the early twentieth century. See Lehr, Community and Frontier, pp. 156-165, for a thoughtful discussion of this topic.
71. State of Minnesota, State Board of Parole, re: John Klym, 13807: R. J. Knutson to Board of Pardons, 30 March 1938, including notation, Klym prison file.
72. Roseau Times-Region, 16 June 1938, p. 6; F. A. Grady to L. F. Utecht, 2 July, 26 August 1938, Klym prison file; M. J. Hegland, Grady & Grady, Appellant’s brief, State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. John Klym, Petitioner, case file 31852, Minnesota Supreme Court, filed 29 August 1938, Minnesota State Archives. Hereafter cited as Appellant’s brief.
73. L.F. Utecht to F.A. Grady, 1 July 1938. Klym prison file.
74. Appellant’s brief, pp. 3-41, 75 (quotes, pp. 37, 41).
75. Appelant’s brief, pp. 64, 76. Klym’s appeal placed much emphasis upon two Minnesota Supreme Court decisions, State v. Joseph Gardner ( 96 Minn. 318; 104 N.W. 971; 105 Minn. LEXIS 551) and State v. Robert Miller (151 Minn. 386; 186 N. W. 803; 1922 Minn. LEXIS 678) which originated in remote northern areas. Albeit not germane to the legal issues in the Klym appeal, both cases involved homicides originating from disputes over cut hay. See Appellant’s brief, pp. 42-44, 62-65. Although John Lehr, in his Community and Frontier has no occasion to mention the Klym case, he notes that violent crime in the Ukrainian community in southeastern Manitoba was exceptional and that a stereotypically “lawless American west” did not prevail. See Community and Frontier, p. 154.
76. Roseau Times-Region, 8 December 1938, p. 1; State v. Klym, 282 N.W. 655-656.
77. Roseau Times-Region, 9 February, p. 8, 16 February, p. 8, 13 April, p. 1, 27 April, p. 1, 4 May 1939, p. 1; Winnipeg Free Press, 28 April 1939, p. 3; First page, Affidavit of Prejudice by John Klym, contending that he could not receive a “fair trial” under Judge Brattland, Klym trial file; County Attorney’s Report [apparently by J. J. Hadler] to State Board of Parole and Board of Classification, Received 27 May 1939; Reports [to State Board of Parole] J. J. Hadler, 26 June 1940, and J. E. Montague, 28 June 1940 ( both on same page), Klym prison file.
78. R. J. Knudson [sic Knutson] to Board of Pardons, 30 March 1938, Klym prison file.
79. County Attorney’s Report [apparently by J. J. Hadler] to State Board of Parole and Board of Classification, Received 27 May 1939; J. J. Hadler, 26 June 1940, and J. E. Montague, 28 June 1940, ibid.
80. Nykola Eliuk to A. C. Lindholm, 20 July 1938; John M. Shipit to State Board of Parole, 8 August 1938; Bert Hanson, County Attorney’s Report to State Board of Parole and Board of Classification, Received 8 May 1939, all in ibid.
81. Parole Record, No. 14419; statements accompanying Social Welfare Fund checks, L. F. Utecht to Mrs. Mary J. Klym, 12 May 1938 to 13 December 1943, ibid.
82. Minnesota State Prison, Record of Letters Written by John Klym; Record of Letters Received by John Klym; L. F. Utecht to Ukrainian Voice, 6 July 1938; John Klym to Deputy Warden (no date); Klym to Reuben C. Brustuen, 14 February 1943 (“evening school” reference), ibid.
83. John Klym to A. C. Lindholm, 22 June (second and third quotes), 4 July, 9 October 1941, 30 May 1942; Klym to Reuben C. Brustuen, 14 February (first quote) 28 February 1943, ibid.
84. Mrs. John [Mary J.] Klym to Board of Parole, 26 February 1940, 25 September 1941, 3 January 1944, ibid.
85. Parole Record No. 14419; Abstract of Physician, Physical Examination, Minnesota State Prison Hospital, 1 February 1944; “Ed.” to Doc. Johnson, 3 July 1944; E. M. Jones, M.D. to L. F. Utecht, 7 June, 10 August 1944, all in ibid.; photo by Kay Dalstrom, St. Elias Cemetery, Sirko, MB, 25 August 2010.
86. County Attorney’s Report to the State Board of Parole and Board of Classification [apparently by J. J. Hadler], Received 27 May 1939; Deputy Warden’s Examination Sheet, John Klym, MSP 13807 and same sheet, John Klym, MSP 14419, Klym prison file.
87. Extradition Proceedings, p. 161. By contrast, prosecutor Knutson deemed Klym capable in English. See R. J. Knudson [sic Knutson] to Board of Pardons, 30 March 1938, Klym prison file.
88. Appellant’s brief, p. 5 (quote), 33-34. Klym’s letter of 9 October 1941 to A. C. Lindholm, the shortest and the best in English usage, was in a handwriting that differed from the others.
89. For example, in 1969, Minnesota, enacted a law providing for interpreters in criminal cases. In 1970, Judge Irving R. Kaufman’s opinion in the Second Circuit Court decision in U. S. ex rel Negron v. New York stated the rights of a defendant in a criminal proceeding to proper interpretation under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Section 14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), providing for “the right to the assistance of an interpreter,” found explication in Chief Justice Antonio Lamer’s opinion in Quoc Dung Tran, appellant; v. Her Majesty The Queen, respondent (1994). See Angela McCaffey, “Don’t Get Lost in Translation: Teaching Law Students to Work with Language Interpreters,” Clinical Law Review 6 (Spring 2000), pp. 365-370; Daniel J. Rearick, “Reaching Out to the Most Insular Minorities: A Proposal for Improving Latino Access to the American Legal System,” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 39 (Summer 2004), p. 553; Cassandra L. McKeown and Michael G. Miller, “Say What? South Dakota’s Unsettling Indifference to Linguistic Minorities in the Courtroom,” South Dakota Law Review 54 (2009), pp. 58-60; The Gazette (Montreal), 2 September 1994, p. A-10 (article by Stephen Bindman); The Globe and Mail (Canada), 2 September 1994; United States of America ex re. Rogelio Nieves Negron, Petitioner-Appellee, v. The State of New York, Respondent-Appellant, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 434 F. 2d 386; 1970 U.S. App. LEXIS 6907. R. v. Tran; Quoc Dung Tran, appellant; v. Her Majesty The Queen, respondent, [1994] S. C. J. No. 16, all from LexisNexis Academic.
90. For example, see William E. Martin and Peter N. Thompson, “Judicial Toleration of Racial Bias in the Minnesota Justice System,” Hamline Law Review 25 (Winter 2002). The challenge of finding capable court interpreters in Canada and the U. S. is shown in Globe and Mail, 19 November 2005, p. A-25 (article by Christie Blatchford); The Toronto Sun, 7 November 2010, p. CE 8 (article by Terry Poulton); USA Today, 19 November 2008, p. 3 A (article by Maite Jullian), all Lexis-Nexis Academic.
91. As McKeown and Miller put it in “Say What?’,” “The borderline cases where defendants or witnesses know some English but are not necessarily fluent are the most difficult and the most prolific cases.” (p. 62)
93. Visit by author to St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church Cemetery, Sirko, MB, 25 August 2010; L. Harris, R. Wach, F. Cox, and E. Bjornson (transcribers), Cemetery Transcription 689, Winnipeg: Manitoba Genealogical Society, p. 10; photos by Kay Dalstrom and David Malaher.
An ironic illustration of the entwining of the lives of the Mandziuk and Klym families is the notation in this Cemetery Transcription for the marker of Kateryna Klym, who died on 25 March 1926: “Placed by Onufrey Mandziuk, 14 July 1931”.
We thank Clara Bachmann for assistance in preparing the online version of this article.
Page revised: 15 November 2019
