The 'Destitute' Widow Who Owned $20,000 in Property
A Snohomish woman on the county charity rolls turns out to hold a small fortune in King County real estate — and the commissioners want their money back.
The county commissioners have just discovered that they and the taxpayers of the county are the victims of a confidence game — that Mrs. Zwifelhofer, a diminutive old German woman who resides in the Third ward, and who was supposed to be destitute, has been drawing $10 a month from the charity fund, and owns between $13,900 and $20,000 worth of property in King county. That pension has been stopped and suit will probably be commenced to recover the total amount paid her.
“A diminutive old German woman... who was supposed to be destitute, has been drawing $10 a month from the charity fund, and owns between $13,900 and $20,000 worth of property.”
Then as now, the question of who truly needs public aid — and how to catch those who don't — drove both outrage and reform. Modern welfare-fraud detection is automated; in 1895 it took a suspicious commissioner and a title search. The case also shows how property could be quietly held across county lines to slip past the local poor-relief office.
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