Granny and the Ax Murderer
as transcribed by her grandson
[Interview conducted by Ben Truwe with Winifred Etta Truwe Brown (1898-1999) summer 1990 at her apartment in Sunshine Terrace, East Grand Forks, Minnesota. Tapes transcribed 2002. Also on the tapes are Ben's wife Shelley Filipi Truwe, his daughters Anna Winifred Truwe and Matie Rose Truwe, and Shelley's parents Leo and Gladys Filipi.
Granny was the daughter of Benjamin Truwe and Bertha Martha Louisa Wiedenheft; she married Henry Wallace Brown (1894-1980) in 1920 and became the mother of Wallace Truwe Brown (1921-), Benjamin Ralph Brown (1922-1944), Martha Jeanne Brown Rassler (1926-2002), and Judy Brown (1940-1940).]
Granny: Come on over here where I can talk to you without - I talk loud enough, but I wouldn't want to shock the grownups.
Matie: [Talking about a stuffed animal?] I think you can carry him around wherever you go.
Anna: I don't.
Granny: That's your sister's. Oh, my, look at the fancy slippers too.
Well, we were sitting around the dining room table, and we - after supper, my father and mother, and my sister and brother and I. And somebody rapped at the door, and my father said to my sister, "Go to the door and see who it is." And my sister got - she was kinda funny sometimes, y'know, she thought she was kidding you, y'know, or saying something to make you-she went to the door and she didn't see anybody, so - "Oh!" It was dark out. She says, "Come right in! We've been waiting for you."
And this figure appeared in front of her, right away from the dark of the porch; as soon as she backed up but he just kept coming in and she just backed up, and stood there - I think she must have been about eleven or ten years old. And my father looked over at him; he thought he looked kind of funny, he says, "Oh, hello," he says, "how are you?" And he says, "I'm okay" or something. And he had a coat, and it was getting cold in the winter, and he had a scarf tied over his head and a couple of shawls around him. So he started taking those things off and his cap off, and it was a man. And so my mother said, "Well, have you had any supper?" "No, I haven't," he said. Well, she said, "Sit down; I'll make you some supper."
So while she was making supper he said, "Do you care if I draw some pictures?" And we all said, "Yes," you know. So he was drawing pictures and showing them to us. And they were the awfullest-looking things, 'cause they were drawn with, y'know, wavy lines and that, and then the animals with the horns, big horns, and the other side there'd be a person's head, y'know, on each end, and oh, the most weird-looking things-awful, you know. And my brother saw one of them, he says, "Oh, can I have that one?" "Oh, no," he says. "That's got a special meaning for me. You can't have that."
And the more my dad heard him talk he knew that there was something the matter with his head, that he wasn't right, you know. And he had his supper, and then he gave us each one of the pictures. And Mother went upstairs and she got our bedding off our beds and brought it downstairs and put it in the living room; she whispered to us kids to go in there and go to bed, see. And so she told him to go upstairs to bed, y'know. There was two bedrooms upstairs.
So he went upstairs, and while they were waiting for him to go to bed they heard him walking back and forth in the room, just back and forth-oh, back and forth and back and forth. "What's that guy doing up there?" So my Dad went out and he got the ax in the house, and he brought it in, put it by his bed. And he put a chair under the doorknob to the stairway going upstairs. So in the morning the man came down, and he said good morning to us, and Mother gave him breakfast. So he put all those clothes back on, and he went out - he walked out a little ways and he came back and he did like this on the post on the porch, like he was making a sign or something. Then he left. And my dad didn't even leave the house until he was gone. And when he left, when we couldn't see him anymore we went out to look at what was on that post, and there was nothing on there! He had just made those motions.
So we kind of forgot about him. And he had been talking to my dad; my father said, "Well, did you go through this town, or through that town? Or which way did you come?" "Oh, I missed the towns," he says. "I stopped one place 'cause I bought some writing - some tablets to draw on." Well, a couple days later when we got our newspaper there was his picture in the middle of the front page. "Ax murderer." He had stopped at a house, a place somewheres farther on from our
place, and he killed a man and his wife. With an ax. [To Anna and Matie] And that's the story he wanted me to tell you. Now you're not going to sleep tonight. But weren't we lucky that we were nice to him? If we hadn't been, he might have-sometimes you can't trust people like that.
Ben: Wasn't that a nice story?
Granny: It wasn't a story, it was the truth! Oh, it just made us all just sick when we saw that. We recognized the picture right away, then we saw what he had done. He had escaped from a - they had what they called insane asylums, y'know, places where people, y'know, when you couldn't do anything with them. You never knew what they might do; you couldn't-and so many of them they let loose - now that guy that shot Reagan [John Hinckley], he wants to get out and they're talking about it. And I don't think he should.
Ben: No, he's still loopy.
Granny: Talking about places being so crowded and that, you know.
Ben: Matie, when Granny was a girl she had thirteen dolls.
Granny was the daughter of Benjamin Truwe and Bertha Martha Louisa Wiedenheft; she married Henry Wallace Brown (1894-1980) in 1920 and became the mother of Wallace Truwe Brown (1921-), Benjamin Ralph Brown (1922-1944), Martha Jeanne Brown Rassler (1926-2002), and Judy Brown (1940-1940).]
Granny: Come on over here where I can talk to you without - I talk loud enough, but I wouldn't want to shock the grownups.
Matie: [Talking about a stuffed animal?] I think you can carry him around wherever you go.
Anna: I don't.
Granny: That's your sister's. Oh, my, look at the fancy slippers too.
Well, we were sitting around the dining room table, and we - after supper, my father and mother, and my sister and brother and I. And somebody rapped at the door, and my father said to my sister, "Go to the door and see who it is." And my sister got - she was kinda funny sometimes, y'know, she thought she was kidding you, y'know, or saying something to make you-she went to the door and she didn't see anybody, so - "Oh!" It was dark out. She says, "Come right in! We've been waiting for you."
And this figure appeared in front of her, right away from the dark of the porch; as soon as she backed up but he just kept coming in and she just backed up, and stood there - I think she must have been about eleven or ten years old. And my father looked over at him; he thought he looked kind of funny, he says, "Oh, hello," he says, "how are you?" And he says, "I'm okay" or something. And he had a coat, and it was getting cold in the winter, and he had a scarf tied over his head and a couple of shawls around him. So he started taking those things off and his cap off, and it was a man. And so my mother said, "Well, have you had any supper?" "No, I haven't," he said. Well, she said, "Sit down; I'll make you some supper."
So while she was making supper he said, "Do you care if I draw some pictures?" And we all said, "Yes," you know. So he was drawing pictures and showing them to us. And they were the awfullest-looking things, 'cause they were drawn with, y'know, wavy lines and that, and then the animals with the horns, big horns, and the other side there'd be a person's head, y'know, on each end, and oh, the most weird-looking things-awful, you know. And my brother saw one of them, he says, "Oh, can I have that one?" "Oh, no," he says. "That's got a special meaning for me. You can't have that."
And the more my dad heard him talk he knew that there was something the matter with his head, that he wasn't right, you know. And he had his supper, and then he gave us each one of the pictures. And Mother went upstairs and she got our bedding off our beds and brought it downstairs and put it in the living room; she whispered to us kids to go in there and go to bed, see. And so she told him to go upstairs to bed, y'know. There was two bedrooms upstairs.
So he went upstairs, and while they were waiting for him to go to bed they heard him walking back and forth in the room, just back and forth-oh, back and forth and back and forth. "What's that guy doing up there?" So my Dad went out and he got the ax in the house, and he brought it in, put it by his bed. And he put a chair under the doorknob to the stairway going upstairs. So in the morning the man came down, and he said good morning to us, and Mother gave him breakfast. So he put all those clothes back on, and he went out - he walked out a little ways and he came back and he did like this on the post on the porch, like he was making a sign or something. Then he left. And my dad didn't even leave the house until he was gone. And when he left, when we couldn't see him anymore we went out to look at what was on that post, and there was nothing on there! He had just made those motions.
So we kind of forgot about him. And he had been talking to my dad; my father said, "Well, did you go through this town, or through that town? Or which way did you come?" "Oh, I missed the towns," he says. "I stopped one place 'cause I bought some writing - some tablets to draw on." Well, a couple days later when we got our newspaper there was his picture in the middle of the front page. "Ax murderer." He had stopped at a house, a place somewheres farther on from our
place, and he killed a man and his wife. With an ax. [To Anna and Matie] And that's the story he wanted me to tell you. Now you're not going to sleep tonight. But weren't we lucky that we were nice to him? If we hadn't been, he might have-sometimes you can't trust people like that.
Ben: Wasn't that a nice story?
Granny: It wasn't a story, it was the truth! Oh, it just made us all just sick when we saw that. We recognized the picture right away, then we saw what he had done. He had escaped from a - they had what they called insane asylums, y'know, places where people, y'know, when you couldn't do anything with them. You never knew what they might do; you couldn't-and so many of them they let loose - now that guy that shot Reagan [John Hinckley], he wants to get out and they're talking about it. And I don't think he should.
Ben: No, he's still loopy.
Granny: Talking about places being so crowded and that, you know.
Ben: Matie, when Granny was a girl she had thirteen dolls.
