The Struggle of the Nicholson Family
A coal miner in distress highlights the precarity of laborers facing mental health crises while attempting to relocate their families.
Last evening, Policeman Kramer found a man wandering around the streets. Judging from his actions that he was insane, he took him to the station. He gave the name of Alex. Nicholson and said he had been working in the coal mines near Seattle and was going East with his family, who were stopping at a downtown hotel. He appeared to be laboring under the idea that someone was going to kill him, and was afraid to go back to his hotel. His wife was telephoned for. She said that her husband had been suffering for some time from a slight mental aberration, on which account they were returning to his friends at the East. He has five children and only about $40 in cash to see them all through their long journey. His wife took him back to the hotel with her.
“He appeared to be laboring under the idea that some one was going to kill him, and was afraid to go back to his hotel.”
This incident exposes the lack of a social safety net in 1883 Seattle, where a family experiencing a health emergency had to rely on a police station for a welfare check. Today, the conversation has shifted toward the need for mobile crisis teams and non-police responses to mental health episodes, though the economic precariousness facing families in the region remains a persistent struggle.
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