The Drunkard, the Mortgage, and the Burial Money
Helen Tracy told a Seattle judge how her husband gambled away their Green Lake property and even the neighbors’ burial fund for their child.
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. Helen A. Tracy was yesterday freed by Judge Humes from the galling bonds that had wedded her to Arcellus Tracy, the grounds being desertion and intemperance. The wife told her tale of woe to the judge, showing how bad associates and evil companions made of a useful man a drunken sot, spending every cent he could raise and borrow, and even taking the little earnings of the wife to squander in dissipation, gambling and drinking. The couple owned some property at Green Lake, and Tracy induced his wife to mortgage it for $300 in order, as he alleged, to pay debts. Instead, however, he gambled and dissipated away the money. At one time they were reduced to such poverty, as the result of his drunken habits, that upon the death of one of their two children the neighbors had to raise a subscription in order to give the child a decent burial. A surplus of $25 was given to the wife, but the husband succeeded in getting that away from her, and of course got drunk with it. The two were married at Madrid, St. Lawrence County, N.Y., December 25, 1877, and have been in King County for sixteen years. Several witnesses were heard, who corroborated the wife's story, and Judge Humes at once granted her prayer, giving her the care of their only son, 14 years old, and the Green Lake property.
“A surplus of $25 was given to the wife, but the husband succeeded in getting that away from her, and of course got drunk with it.”
Divorce files like this one show how financial control and addiction could strip a family of property long before no-fault divorce. The Green Lake mortgage and the neighbors’ burial fund make the stakes concrete: who controls the money inside a marriage, and what a woman could do when she had almost none.
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