The Tragedy of a Ballard Shack

A. B. Whitman, 74 years of age, applied for relief at the office of the Bureau of Associated Charities and told Superintendent Dooley a pitiful story of the poverty of his family. The people live in a shack near the steel works in Ballard. When the agent got there, he found Miss Allen, a woman of 30, lying on a bed exceedingly ill. She had been working some months ago in a Seattle hotel, but her cousin, Mrs. J. W. Foster, was taken ill and she had gone out to the place to nurse her and care for her children. Not being strong, she broke down under the cares of the sick room and attendance on two children, added to meager food, and now she seems to be on a bed of sickness from which she may never rise again. The Mrs. Foster whom she attended was a daughter of the old man, and a few days ago she died and was buried beside a baby who had died two days before. When the infant breathed its last, the old man took it, wrapped it in rough cloth, and buried it in the yard. He said he knew his daughter would die soon and then both the mother and babe could be finally put in one grave together. The husband of the woman had proved worthless and, a short time before her death, had abandoned the family, which consisted of two remaining children.