A Blacksmith's Desperate Act of Heartbreak
After his sweetheart jilted him for flirting with her sister, a Tacoma man attempted to end his life.
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.
George Zimmer, aged 19, a handsome blacksmith in Tacoma, tried to secure strychnine today, intending to commit suicide. The druggist questioned him closely, so Zimmer claimed he wanted the poison for a horse. The druggist, suspecting the ruse, gave Zimmer citrate of caffeine, which resembles strychnine but is harmless. Zimmer ran home exclaiming, 'Everybody has gone back on me; I have no one to live for,' and swallowed the caffeine. His father and brother ran for a doctor and a stomach pump was applied. It appears that his girl went to Portland recently, and during her absence, Zimmer flirted with her sister. This enraged his sweetheart, who jilted Zimmer when she returned.
“Everybody has gone back on me; I have no one to live for.”
Public reporting on personal mental health crises in the 1890s was often framed as moralistic scandal, yet the human desperation remains strikingly recognizable. Today, suicide prevention resources are widely available, but the social stigma and the feeling of isolation that drove Zimmer to this extreme persist as enduring civic challenges.
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