The Girl Who Wanted to Make a Sensation
A 15-year-old from Los Angeles was stopped at Yesler dock on her way to a Tacoma elopement—and told Seattle police she had only been bored.
Ollie Maxfield, aged 15 years, a very pretty blue-eyed, light-haired girl from Los Angeles, who was running away from home to Tacoma to marry a young man named Zeao Merdithe, a hostler, was taken in charge late yesterday afternoon by Detective Hart when the steamer Garland arrived at Yesler dock. Her mother had sent a telegram to Chief of Police Rogers explaining that she had run away from home and requesting that she be stopped.
Before the steamer had fairly docked the detective was aboard and had no difficulty in recognizing the person he was after. She was dressed in a nice-looking black dress with brown cape and a jaunty little cap.
“I guess I will have to take you up to the police station,” said Hart.
Miss Maxfield maintained her dignity, and with perfect composure replied: “I guess you have made a mistake. I have telegraphed my husband to meet me.”
“I had a telegram, too,” replied Hart.
Miss Maxfield had nothing more to say and took up her residence with Police Matron Taylor without remonstrance.
She does not like reporters, but it was too much for her when accused of running away to get married to a young man she had never met. She replied indignantly: “It is not so. I don’t know only one man in Portland and he is married.”
“Why did you run away from home?” was asked.
“I got tired and wanted to create a sensation, but I have not been very successful. I suppose I will go home now, but I don’t know how my mother found out I had gone. She thought I was at grandma’s, and grandma thought I was at home. Papa was away and today mother had company. I guess it was—” and here memory failed. “And won’t I shake her if I find who did it?”
Her mother arrived in the city last night on the Monticello and took her in charge.
“I got tired and wanted to create a sensation, but I have not been very successful.”
A teenage runaway became a front-page sensation in 1895, with a detective, a steamer landing and a mother’s telegram all converging at the dock. Today the same story would raise questions about child protection, online enticement and how the press treats a 15-year-old’s bravado. The waterfront corner where she was stopped is now Yesler Way at Alaskan Way, but the tension between parental authority and a teenager’s bid for attention is not dated.
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