DASTARDLY DADS FROM THE ARCHIVES (Rochester, New York - 1909)

So many dastardly dads in the present...it's been hard to find the time to go back and muddle about in the archives. I hate that, since I'm a big history lover. But here's an interesting case about a father named JOHN KLEMA. Like a lot of these articles, some of the details may seem archaic (like someone who works as a shoemaker), but the the basic outline of the crime is depressingly familiar.

From the New York Times, Sepember 29, 1909

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E3D61F31E733A2575AC2A96F9C946897D6CF

ATTACKS GIRL; MOTHER SLAIN

Rochester Man is Arrested, Charged with Murder of his Wife.

Rochester, N.Y., Sept. 28. --John Klema, a shoemaker, is in custody here charged with having killed his wife with an axe last night after he attacked his fourteen-year-old daughter, Hannah. The cause of the murder is said to be trouble with money matters and the conduct of the father toward the child, Hannah.

Hannah says that after a quarrel between her mother and father the man ordered her to go to her bedroom. He then crushed his wife's head with an axe, she says, in the sight of four of the five children. Klema was captured about 12 o'clock to-day in Seneca Park.