The Runaway Romance of Spokane’s High Society
A teenage bride and her bookkeeper groom flee to Idaho to escape her wealthy father’s disapproval, settling into a Seattle hotel for their honeymoon.
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.
A young couple, who have joined their lives without the parental blessing, arrived in this city yesterday on the Great Northern train to spend their honeymoon, and thereby hangs a tale of elopement in high life at Spokane. The couple are Mr. and Mrs. Paul Dormitzer, the groom about 23 years of age and the bride 17. Mrs. Dormitzer is the daughter of ex-State Senator Tall, of Spokane, and until very recently had been attending a seminary in Virginia. Young Dormitzer is a young man well thought of in Spokane, and for the past year has been employed as a bookkeeper. He is regarded by everybody except the young lady's parents as an exemplary young man, but the fact that he was not abundantly supplied with this world's goods and that Mr. Tall is one of the wealthy citizens of Spokane made a serious objection to the match. The young people were determined and so planned an elopement. For several reasons young Dormitzer could not obtain a marriage license in Spokane, and on last Tuesday the expectant groom and willing bride took a sleigh ride to Rathdrum, Idaho, where they were made man and wife. As the temperature on that day was ten degrees below zero and did not cool their ardor, it may be taken for granted that their constancy will not quickly wane. After the ceremony was performed the young couple took the Great Northern train for this city, where they arrived yesterday and took rooms at the Ripley.
“As the temperature on that day was ten degrees below zero and did not cool their ardor, it may be taken for granted that their constancy will not quickly wane.”
Elopements were a staple of Victorian-era society reporting, often pitting 'true love' against the rigidity of parental class aspirations. While the setting has changed from 1894 Spokane to the modern digital age, the tension between economic status and romantic autonomy remains a persistent theme in Seattle’s social landscape.
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