A Mother’s Tragic Descent
A young woman’s mental health crisis in the Harvard House leads to a desperate, late-night intervention.
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.
Mrs. Lu Routhier, a neatly-dressed young woman of 22, who has been living at the Harvard House on Second and Virginia streets, was taken to the city jail last night by City Officer W. H. Walsh. Her sister reported that the young woman had threatened to kill her child and that she was afraid she would go through with it. Routhier has been under a mental health crisis for some time. Recently, she has had violent spells where she would attack her mother and the child, and recently she has set lighted lamps and dashed them through the window. The neighbors became alarmed and last night someone sent for the police. Capt. Willford sent Officer Birdsell up to investigate the matter and he led Mrs. Routhier to the station. Her home is in Bellefonte, Pa., whence she came with her sister last May to visit her father, Theodore Dwanboer, a blacksmith at 1115 Front street. Both of the sisters are accomplished and for a while worked on a Snohomish newspaper.
“The neighbors became alarmed and last night someone sent for the police.”
Mental health crises in 1890s Seattle were often handled by police, who transported the afflicted to jail—a practice that reflects the lack of supportive infrastructure, a struggle that persists in contemporary debates about crisis response and civil rights.
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