Скачать или смотреть History Bytes March 29, Tieland Murder

History Bytes March 29, Tieland Murder

My name is Sheila Willis of Impact Tourism, the developer of the History Check Mobile App. Welcome to History Bytes, your dose of Alberta Historical Trivia. Brought to you in partnership with Belt Drive Betty Media and the Canadian Motorcycle Tourism Association.

You can Register to answer the questions for a shot to win prizes or just take the quiz to satisfy your own brain power! Either way, we are excited to see how much of Alberta’s History you really know!

And our last question was:

In November 1936 a murder that some headlines described as the worse mass murder in Alberta’s history took place in:

A Ponoka
B Red Deer
C Tieland

Answer C Tieland

I need to offer my apologies. This may have been one of the worst mass murders, but it was not THE worst. It has at least one other that compares that I found during additional research.

This story is close to home as the 15 year old girl that went to babysit and found herself alone with a murderer later became my mother-in-law. Doris Willis nee Sand.


In November of 1936, she took her very first job babysitting for Carl & Alma Nelson, the station master and his wife at the Tieland Railway station. Alma was soon to leave for Westlock to deliver their second child.

There are different versions of events but this is essentially what unfolded.

When she disembarked from the train she heard a pinging sound as it pulled away which she later told an Edmonton Journal reporter was 5 rifle shots.

Carl Schvests came out and asked her what she was doing there. When she said she was there to babysit, he told her that the Nelson’s had gone to Flatbush and would not return until later.

She declined when he invited her to his shack for something to eat so he told her to stay in a bunkhouse located near the Nelson’s house. She could see in their windows and said that it looked disordered but she didn’t know what that meant at the time.

Several hours after breakfast the next morning Alma Nelson’s sister, Erma Ristock arrived with her fiance Joe Garry and a man named Jack Towns.

When shots started ringing out Erma and Joe were walking toward the Nelson's house, Jack Towns was walking along the tracks and Doris Sand was in the bunkhouse.

Towns did not hear the first shot but when another shot rang out and he stopped dead in his tracks.

It was a foggy morning and through the mist he saw a man with a rifle who he thought was hunting weasels. That idea quickly evaporated when a third shot rang out and hit the dirt by his feet.

He took off running in a zigzag course towards the Nelson’s home as the man fired the fourth shot warning him if they didn't leave they would be killed.

At the house he found Erma and Joe peering out the window trying to see the man in the fog. As they were looking, a cat with blood stained paws jumped on the window sill and they knew something was very, very wrong.

The four managed to get on a speeder or a motor driven handcar used on the railway for transportation to make their getaway. Schvests followed them for about 200 yards before he disappeared into the mist.

They went to Chisholm and reported the events to Superintendent Beaton of the Northern Alberta Railways (NAR). He in turn notified the Mounties who went to the scene and found the bodies of Carl Nelson, his pregnant wife Alma, his three year old son, John Marciniuk and George Ruel. The men had been shot and the wife and son had been bludgeoned to death.

Schvests, the murderer had committed suicide.

Why would Schvests do such a thing? He had worked for the railway from 1927 to 1935 when he resigned due to ill health.

Carl Nelson was his replacement as Station Master and Schvests owed both him and Marciniuk money and while he felt he was being hounded for it said he was not.

We will never know the reason as Schvests committed suicide after the four escaped.
Regardless, it was a tragedy that plagued those involved for a long time. I know it deeply affected my mother in law.

And the next questions is:
The captured buffalo that began Elk Island Park were descended in part from a herd from:

A Montana
B Jasper
C Wainwright

Come back for the answer and the story that goes along with it.
Then we will load you up with the next question.. Enjoy!

Research & Credits:
Shannon’s Research Services

Edmonton Journal Archives; November 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 23, 1936

Glenbow Museums & Archives
http://ww2.glenbow.org

Peel’s Prairie Provinces; University of Alberta Libraries
http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/

Provincial Archives of Alberta
https://provincialarchives.alberta.ca/

Find us at:
historycheck.ca
impacttourism.ca
bkcnewsbytes.com
Motorcycletourism.ca

#AlbertaHistory
#HistoryBytes
#Alberta
#More2Explore
#HistoryCheck
#CMTA
#MotorcycleTourism
#CanadianMotorcycleTourismAssociation
#ImpactTourism
#BeltDriveBettyMedia
#GetYourINGOn
#AlbertaMotorcycleTravel
#travelalberta