The Roll Showed No Absences: Seattle Mourns Vernie Backus, 12, Drowned
The Boys' Brigade of the First Presbyterian Church enters a formal minute on the drowning of a twelve-year-old brother — remembered first for perfect attendance, and his parents commended to heaven.
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.
At the meeting of the Boys' Brigade, in connection with the First Presbyterian church of this city, held last Friday evening, the following action was taken in reference to the death by drowning of Vernie Backus, aged 12 years, the son of Attorney W. B. Backus and Mrs. Backus:
Whereas, God in his inscrutable providence has taken out of this world our beloved comrade, Vernie Backus, on the 9th of July instant; therefore, resolved, that we, his sorrowing companions, while bowing submissively to the will of God, hereby express our sense of the great loss which we are called upon to sustain, for our dear brother was one of the faithful ones, the roll showing not a single absence against his name. Resolved, also, that we extend to his bereaved parents our sincere sympathy, and pray to our Father in heaven that He may vouchsafe to them His sustaining presence and by His Holy Spirit so guide them in all their future journey that they may at last be given an abundant entrance into the home of the blessed, where they shall meet their Vernie again, never to be separated more. By order of the Boys' Brigade, First Presbyterian church, Seattle. R. J. Fisher, captain. Seattle, July 13, 1894.
“our dear brother was one of the faithful ones, the roll showing not a single absence against his name.”
In 1894 a drowned twelve-year-old was mourned by name and by attendance record — the Boys' Brigade measured Vernie Backus's worth in a roll with no absences against it. Seattle's lakes and rivers still take young swimmers most summers, though the argument now is over lifeguards, swim lessons and who can reach the water at all. What survives from this clipping is the habit of organised public grief: a congregation making certain a child was written down.
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