Violence in Small-Town Hotels

Illustration by Eric Deschamps, 2003 Image source

My friend Ruth asked me when I was going to post an article about barroom brawls and other violent incidents that occasionally happen in small-town Saskatchewan hotels. Here's a sampling of some of the sad and sordid stories I've come across in my research.

Murder-Suicide at the Commercial Hotel 

The bodies of A. Willis Armstrong and his wife Hannah, owners of the Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, were found by their daughter Dorothy in their living quarters at the hotel on June 20, 1925. Mrs. Armstrong had a bullet hole behind her right ear. Her husband had shot her with a .45 calibre revolver and then turned the gun on himself.   

The Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, 1919.  Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo Image source

The coroner’s jury concluded that the tragedy was caused by the effects of homebrew obtained from a bootlegger. “Being of the opinion that the late A. W. Armstrong might have kept sober and thus refrained from committing this awful crime … we feel that public opinion demands a searching investigation into the matter of the source of homebrew in this district….  Should the investigation bring to light the party or parties who supplied the homebrew to the late Mr. Armstrong, we ask that they should be prosecuted.”  “Home Brew is Death’s Cause, Opines Jury,” June 23, 1935, p. 1.   Click to read full story

Dorothy and her brother Leslie (about 10 years old) went to live with relatives in St. Catherines, Ontario. 

Jealousy at the White Fox Hotel

At 9:10 PM on April 10, 1959, White Fox hotel keeper Albert Boscher was shot dead by Frank Schoenburger. Albert left behind his wife, Isabel and their five children, Jeanine, Denis, Anita, Rita, and Terry. Mrs. Edith Schoenburger, estranged wife of the killer, was severely wounded during the incident. She had been living and working at the White Fox Hotel. She and Boscher, her employer, were sitting together in the hotel dining room when her husband, a labourer in town, burst in and shot them both with a heavy calibre rifle.

John Wankel, an engineer boarding at the hotel, was sitting in the hotel lobby reading the paper when he saw Schoenburger walk in carrying a rifle. Wankel said the man ripped out the wires of a pay telephone, and then disappeared into the hotel dining room.

Boscher was shot first. As Mrs. Schoenburger struggled with her husband for possession of the gun it fired again, shattering her right arm. “That wasn’t meant for you, Edith,” Schoenburger said after the bullet struck his wife. Her arm later had to be amputated above the elbow.

L. J. Vickers was drinking beer in the hotel beer parlour at about 9:00 PM when he heard the sound of gunshots. Vickers opened the door between the beer parlour and the hotel lobby only to run smack into Schoenburger who was carrying a rifle. “Get out of here or I will shoot you, too,” Schoenburger said. “Accused Seen Carrying Rifle,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, October 30, 1959 

The killer then disappeared into the bush surrounding the village of White Fox. RCMP searched unsuccessfully for him all night. At 645 the next day, a nervous and haggard Schoenburger turned himself in to the RCMP at Nipawin, saying he couldn’t remember anything about the night before. He denied knowledge of having killed a man and asked to see his wife.

Testifying in court in November, 1959, Schoenburger described a week of drinking in beer parlours and of hearing insinuations involving his wife and Boscher before the night of the shooting. On November 6^th, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged on January 26, 1960 at the provincial jail in Prince Albert. The hanging was delayed when an appeal was launched.

Over 30 grounds for appeal were listed by defense lawyer D. L. Tennant of Melfort during a two-day hearing in February 1960. Schoenburger’s conviction was quashed on appeal, and a second trial was opened in June, presided over by Mr. Justice Stewart McKercher.

During the retrial, Mrs. Schoenburger described her 22-year marriage, during which her husband would go on drinking binges that lasted several days. He would do things during these binges that he could not remember later. Eventually, Mrs. Schoenburger left her husband and went to live in the White Fox Hotel, where she also worked. Her husband had tried to get her to stop working at the hotel, mainly because of the rumours about her and her employer, Mr. Boscher. “Pitiful Tale is Related,” Regina Leader-Post, June 20, 1960:   

Frank Schoenburger was convicted of manslaughter for the murder of Albert Boscher on April 10, 1959, and sentenced by Judge McKercher to eleven years in the Prince Albert Penitentiary. Click here  and here and here to read more.

Fight at the Pennant Hotel 

21-year-old William Zeller of the Pennant area was charged and found guilty of stabbing and wounding Arlyn Jamieson, 29, of Cabri during a fight outside the Pennant Hotel.  Jamieson had been drinking in the bar for almost eight hours prior to the fight, and had consumed at least twelve drinks. 

The trouble started when Jamieson repeatedly used an accent to pronounce the name of Zeller’s brother Raymond, who was sitting at the same table. Zeller became angry, and after about three quarters of an hour they went outside to fight. The men wrestled on the ground in front of the hotel and Jamieson was quickly pinned to the ground by Zeller, who had been in the hotel for about two hours. After being allowed back on his feet, Jamieson wanted to continue fighting. Zeller pulled out a knife and said "I’m going to get you, boy." He cut Jamieson on his left forearm, his chin and his left armpit. Zeller testified that he pulled out the knife because he wanted to scare Jamieson away from the hotel, where he was "being a nuisance.” “Men Sentenced in Swift Current,” Leader-Post, June 10, 1980, p. 20 Click here for full story

“I Think I’ve Killed My Wife” 

Arthur Charles Colton, 63-year-old owner of the Village Inn hotel in Candiac, was charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, Doris Colton, 54, on August 29, 1981. He later told the RCMP he “just grabbed a goddam knife and let her have it.” 

Colton and his wife had been arguing and fighting during the early morning hours. She left their bedroom in the hotel for a while but came back again and started arguing all over again. Colton finally got out of bed and found his wife in the hotel bar pouring another drink. That’s when he "went nuts" and grabbed the knife. 

A transcript of a taped telephone conversation quotes the caller as saying, "RCMP, this is the Village Inn at Candiac, ah, better send the police down here and an ambulance. I think I’ve killed my wife." The caller went on to explain, "Well, I, she’s been drunk all night and she just kept on pestering and pestering. And I got so god dam mad that I just, well, I lost my temper. And I think I stabbed her to death." 

Shirley Fayant of Lebret, a guest at the hotel, testified she discovered the body on the floor of the beverage room in the middle of the night. She had been sleeping but got up and went into the nearby beverage room in search of a washroom. When she saw Mrs. Colton's body, Fayant backed into the kitchen and found Colton there, holding the telephone receiver in his lap. "Officer Says Man Told Police He ‘Let Wife Have It’ With Knife,” Regina Leader-Post, June 19, 1982, p. A5 Click here to read full story

Death at the Broadview Hotel Bar 

Matthew Troy McKay, age 18, was stabbed to death during a barroom brawl at the Broadview Hotel on the night of October 30, 2009.  Jordan Lee Taypotat, 20, received severe lacerations to his face during the same incident. McKay was from the Ochapowace First Nation, while Taypotat is from the Kahkewistahaw First Nation, both in the Broadview area. An argument apparently broke out which got out of hand. A 20-year-old man turned himself into the Broadview RCMP detachment a few days later. Click here and here to read more.

Broadview Hotel.  Image from Google Street View, 2011

 

© Joan Champ 2011

Tragedy in Blaine Lake: The Commercial Hotel

The Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, 1919.  Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo.  Image source

In November 1912, a year and a half after Blaine Lake voted to go “dry,” three men died of alcohol poisoning as a result of drinking wood alcohol. The men were railway workers from out of town. It was a Saturday night, and since Blaine Lake was a dry town, they went to the local drug store looking for an alcohol-based substitute. The workers told the druggist that they intended to use the alcohol to rub down their horses. According to the Shellbrook Chronicle, “None survived the resulting consequences. Two died in the livery barn and another was found in a granary a few miles away on the farm of Silas Jones, having died trying to cool his throat and stomach with a mouthful of grain.” This tragic incident led to the end of Blaine Lake’s self-imposed prohibition. When it was put to a vote in the village on December 8, 1913, the decision to go “wet”was unanimous. 

Keefer Pollard (left) in front of his livery stable, c 1912. Source: Bridging the Years; Era of Blaine Lake and District, 1984 

Keefer Pollard

The livery barn where two of the three men died was owned by Keefer Pollard. He had come West in 1902 from Ontario with his parents and 12 brothers and sisters. All the Pollard men were trained in carpentry, and had built railway stations for the CPR and the CNR in some of the larger centres. Pollard sold his farm and moved into Blaine Lake in 1911 – the year the village went dry.  His first project was to build the village's first livery stable. His second project was the Commercial Hotel. When Blaine Lake voted to go wet in 1913, Pollard already had the hotel well under construction. He sold it to A. W. (Willis) Armstrong prior to its completion in 1914. The whole province went dry in 1915, and once more liquor for the purpose of intoxication could not be purchased in Blaine Lake.

Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo. Image source

In 1953, Walter and Julia Krewniak bought the Commercial Hotel. They came to Blaine Lake in 1930 from the Ukraine. Julia’s brother, Stanley Bereziak, came to live with them after the Second World War, and worked as the hotel bartender. While living in the Ukraine with his wife and two young daughters, Stanley was captured by the Nazis and sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp where he was held for six years. Shortly after his admission to the PoW camp, Stanley ’s wife gave birth to a daughter, Helen, in their home village of Stratyn in Western Ukraine. About two years later, his wife died, and the three girls had to fend for themselves. Read full story here

Helen Bereziak, 1967.
Image source

In October 1967, Stanley’s daughter Helen came to live with her father in Blaine Lake. From an early age, Helen had worked as a field labourer on the communal farms in the Soviet-annexed Ukraine. She worked at the Commercial Hotel, and married Jack Popoff in 1973. Helen eventually became the owner of the hotel through her family connections. Even after it stopped operating sometime in the 1990s, Helen continued to live in the large hotel building. 

Commercial Hotel in 2005. Joan Champ photo

Commercial Hotel in 2006. Joan Champ photo

Saskatchewan Architectural Heritage Society - 3D Model Saskatchewan
© Joan Champ 2011

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Hotel Fire Escapes

Many hotels once had covered balconies on upper floors and front verandas. As they were made of wood, however, they eventually became fire hazards and had to be removed. In their places, fire escapes were constructed. Some, like the Hafford Hotel, just had a hefty, knotted rope anchored by a metal ring near a window, long enough to reach the ground. Others had variations on stairways and ladders such as these, shown in my photos.

Commercial Hotel, Blaine Lake

Invermay Hotel

Royal Hotel, Weyburn

Royal Hotel, Strasbourg

Pennant Hotel

King George Hotel, Melville, 2006

King George Hotel, Melville, Feb. 17, 2010. Photo: Melville Advance

 “On the road, hotel fire exit locations were always implanted in my mind in the 50s after check-in.  I sometimes even checked to see if those doors really opened. ... There were guests, after lifting a couple too many in the beer parlour, who verified these escape routes." - Dave Anderson, To Get the Lights; A Memoir about Rural Electrification in Saskatchewan (2006)

© Joan Champ 2011

Hotel Entrances: Walk Right In

My photos -- Some hotel entrances are inviting, others -- not so much!

Bladworth

Watrous

Kayville

Alvena

Blaine Lake

Pilger

Maymont

Rabbit Lake

Radisson

 © Joan Champ, 2011