Abandoned Children Seek Their Mother After Tragic La Grande Killing
Two young brothers travel to Seattle to find their mother following their father's violent crime in Eastern Oregon.
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.
Two boys, Johnnie and Eddie Palmer, aged 13 and 8 respectively, arrived on the 12:45 a.m. train from Walla Walla, expecting to meet their mother, who they say is remarried in Seattle to a man named John Ward. She failed to meet them, and Officer Sandstrom took them to the police station. The boys are the children of James Palmer, who killed Eli Ryson in La Grande about a month ago for criminal intimacy with his wife. Their mother had divorced James Palmer prior to the tragedy, and the younger boy was in La Grande when it occurred. They had been in the care of their uncle, Ennis Palmer, before being sent to Seattle.
“They are both sharp boys, the younger one being especially bright, and were fairly dressed, though looking dirty.”
Stories of children caught in the wake of domestic violence were common in the 19th-century press, often treated with a mix of lurid fascination and civic charity. Today, this reminds us that Seattle has long served as a destination for those fleeing regional trauma, seeking safety or family reunification in the growing city.
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