The Stingy Grocer of South Seattle
A local real estate agent’s wife files for divorce, detailing a marriage defined by her husband’s bizarre and extreme parsimony.
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. C. B. Waisworth, wife of C. B. Waisworth, a well-known Seattle real estate agent, commenced a suit for a divorce in the superior court yesterday on the grounds of her husband's failure to provide for the support of his wife and their daughter. Mrs. Waisworth claims that from August 1892 to April 1, 1893, while her husband was in the grocery business, he made no suitable provision for the family, often bringing home for the family usage nothing but stale eggs, rancid butter, and other scraps. She further alleges that he invited his mother to 'set up over her' and attempted to force her to receive a woman of bad reputation into their home. Mrs. Waisworth has since left to live with her father and is seeking the custody of her daughter, Jheaita Mildred Waisworth.
“Mrs. Waisworth complains that almost from the day of her marriage she had been badly used by her husband, who failed to provide for her according to her status.”
This story offers a window into the domestic power dynamics and gendered expectations of the 1890s, where a spouse's failure to provide 'suitably' served as a formal legal grievance. While the 'thriftiness' of a grocery business owner is framed as a personal scandal here, the struggle to afford basic necessities in Seattle remains a central, though far more systemic, crisis today.
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