Klemme, Amelia K. (Meyer) 1904-1951

KLEMME, MEYERS, MEYER, FEUERHELM, TWITE, JENNINGS, LEIRON

Posted By: AMK (email)
Date: 11/9/2008 at 09:04:14

Amelia Klemme Funeral Is Held

Amelia Katherine Meyer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herman Meyer was born Sept 2, 1904 near Eitzen, Minn. Her death occurred May 18, at the Waukon Hospital. On Dec. 3, 1928 at LaCrosse, Wis., her marriage to Arthur Klemme took place, and the past 22 years this county had been her home. She was the mother of four children, Clarence serving in US service at Camp Pickett, Virginia, Kenneth, Rose Mary and Laura Lou at home. She also gave a mother's care to two step-children, Arthur E. Klemme, Waukon and Mrs. Helmer Leiran of LaCrosse. There are two grandchildren. Also living are a brother, Lewis Meyer of Washougal, Wash., a sister Mrs. Peter Twite, Caledonia, Minn., and a half sister, Mrs. Arthur Feuerhelm, Waukon. Funeral services were held Monday at 1:30 p.m. at Martin's Funeral Home and 2:00 o'clock at the Presbyterian Church. Burial in Oakland cemetery with the following pallbearers: Donald Deeney, Ralph Wickham, Kenneth Ferguson, Louis Burseth, Delbert Stone, and Ben Klein.

Waukon Republican Standard May 1951

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Added by Reid R. Johnson 3/13/2015:

Cedar Rapids Gazette, Sat., May 19, 1951
Waukon- A statewide search was on Saturday for a Waukon painter who reportedly shot and killed his wife and critically wounded his daughter-in-law, a waitress in a Cedar Rapids café.

Officers who were on the scene within minutes and a pack of bloodhounds imported from La Crosse, Wis., failed to turn up any trace of the man by Saturday noon.

Object of the search is Arthur Klemme, 55, a painter and paperhanger.

Killed was his wife, 51, who died within 15 minutes after she was shot in front of the Klemme home.

In critical condition in the Waukon hospital is Mrs. Clarence Klemme, about 20. She was in an oxygen tent Saturday and was being given transfusions. A bride of about six months, she has been working in a café in Cedar Rapids but had been staying with her parents-in-law in Waukon off and on since her 22-year-old husband entered the service. She is the former Darlene Jennings of Ossian.

Her husband was reported en-route to her bedside Saturday from Ft. Pickett, Va. Her mother, Mrs. Nellie Jennings of Ossian, was at the hospital.

Sheriff William Huffman reported that Klemme shot his wife with a .38 caliber revolver at about 11 p.m. Friday after they pulled up in front of the Klemme home in a car the daughter-in-law reportedly had driven from Cedar Rapids.

Mrs. Clarence Klemme, who was sitting beside her mother-in-law, jumped from the car and ran screaming toward a neighbor's home. The sheriff reported that Klemme shot her as she ran.
"He shot her down in the street. She was hit several times, once in the chest."
Huffman said Klemme and the two women had been drinking in a downtown tavern before the shooting.
Just before they left the tavern, the sheriff said, Klemme walked up to a Waukon funeral director, Howard Hanson, and said "Maybe I can drum up some business for you."
Hanson said later that "I didn't think anything of it. I thought he was kidding."

The sheriff said he had found no witnesses to the shooting, which "woke up the entire neighborhood."

He said Klemme fled on foot after the shooting, apparently to the south part of town, and that he must have been picked up by a passing motorist or had somebody waiting for him.
"The bloodhounds couldn't get a track."
"We were out after him in a matter of minutes," the sheriff said. "I'm amazed that he got away so fast." A posse of 10 men with bloodhounds scoured the area but found no trace of the fugitive.

A statewide alarm was sounded immediately, and highway patrolmen were alerted to be on the watch for Klemme.

Mrs. Clarence Klemme told Deputy Sheriff W. R. Ryan, before she was taken to the hospital, that they had arrived in front of the house at about 10:40.

Klemme told her to drive on, she said, but she refused. That precipitated an argument, which culminated in the shooting.

Huffman said Klemme was known to have a violent temper, and that he had been involved in a local shooting fracas "some time ago," but that no charges were brought against him at that time.

Klemme and his wife were married Dec. 3, 1928, in La Crosse. They were divorced Dec. 24, 1947, but had gone back together again. They reportedly were not living together at the time of the shooting.

They had six children: Mrs. LaVera Leiron of La Crosse; Arthur, 25, who lives in Waukon but could not be located Saturday; Clarence, in the Army; Kenneth, 21, of Waukon, and Rosemary, 19, and Laura, 16, who lived with their mother.

Mrs. Klemme's body was taken to the Martin Brothers funeral home here.

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Note: a compilation of newspaper articles detailing the shooting can be found on the Allamakee IAGenWeb site in the section 'Lil Bits. There is also a photo of Amelia Klemme included.

http://iagenweb.org/allamakee
 

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