The Cleopatra of Tacoma and the 'Mock Marriage' Scandal
A prominent society man and insurance broker found himself at the center of a public scandal after a fake marriage to a theater 'box rustler' was exposed in Tacoma.
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 cat has finally jumped out of the bag and with it comes the facts of the alleged mock marriage of Seymour L. Rau, one of the most prominent of Tacoma’s young society and businessmen, to Louise E. Dearborn, a beauty who has figured in a certain class of society here for two years. Mr. Rau is secretary of the Washington Republican Club, and a director and prominent member of the Tacoma Athletic Club. Mrs. Dearborn, known as the 'Cleopatra of Tacoma,' was a frequenter of the Tacoma theater and employed in the lucrative but debasing occupation of 'box rustler' at Harry Morgan's Theater Comique. Last June, Mrs. Dearborn and a lady friend went to Seattle and she was there married by Justice Nagle, under the name of Louise McBeety, to Mr. Rau, who gave the name of Conrad L. Kawe. In her application for a divorce, she says: 'It was a joke all through—I was told that as we took wrong names it would amount to nothing, and so I stood up. Mr. Rau never claimed me as his wife, nor attempted to provide a home.' The decree of divorce was granted and the original names were restored. Mr. Rau remains in Tacoma, where he is one of a gay party of young men who have had entre to society.
“Her male admirers called her 'charming' and the 'Cleopatra of Tacoma.'”
This 1892 scandal highlights the rigid social hierarchies of early Tacoma, where 'society men' and 'box rustlers' (women who sat in theater boxes to encourage men to buy expensive drinks) inhabited vastly different worlds. It captures a moment where municipal politics and private morality collided, not unlike contemporary scrutiny of local figures' personal lives.
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