The Unwelcome Return of the Carpenter
When an injured husband returned home to Seattle after months of medical treatment in San Francisco, he found his wife had replaced him with a local fireman.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The divorce suit of Lena Moore against her husband, John Moore, assumed an entirely new aspect at the trial before Judge Lichtenberg yesterday. Mrs. Moore, when applying for the divorce on the grounds of cruelty, also obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent her husband from coming to her house at Fifth and Weiler streets, fearing he would kill her. The evidence developed the fact that Moore was an inoffensive cripple and had been driven from his home by his wife, who had installed J. J. Sullivan, a lieutenant of the fire department, in his place. The Judge vacated the restraining order and dismissed the suit for divorce.
John N. Moore told his story in an affidavit: He had been married to the plaintiff since December 1879. They lived happily until last September, when he went to San Francisco to be treated for a broken knee, caused by a fall from a building where he was working as a carpenter. When he returned to Seattle a few weeks ago, he went at once to his home. His wife ordered him out of the house, stating she had another man who would see that he was put out. Moore armed himself with a revolver to defend himself against J. J. Sullivan, the man who had taken his place. Witnesses testified that they had often heard the couple speak of each other in endearing terms before Sullivan's intervention. Judge Lichtenberg facetiously remarked that if he issued any restraining order at all, it would be against Sullivan, requiring him to stay away from the Moore household, and advised the wife to reconcile with her husband.
“Mrs. Moore had often said that her husband was 'the best man in Seattle' and she liked him so much. Moore had made equally complimentary remarks about his wife, and they always got along nicely.”
This case highlights the precarious nature of domestic stability in 1890s Seattle, where housing and social ties were often bound together by informal occupancy. Today, similar disputes over residency and household 'replacements' often play out in the context of the city's strained housing market and eviction court backlogs.
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