The Lonely End of an Umbrella Mender
After refusing medical aid and struggling in solitude, an elderly man dies in his downtown shop.
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 8 o'clock this morning, Policeman Nelson, while making his rounds, looked into the window at 1530 Pacific Avenue and saw a man lying prostrate on the floor. The body was that of T. Pringle, an umbrella mender who had made Tacoma his home for the past 12 years. Pedestrians passing the shop yesterday were attracted by the sight of an aged and emaciated man sitting in a chair near the window. A reporter who passed that way later in the afternoon became concerned and alerted the police. When found, Pringle had been suffering from asthma for years and refused to see a physician or go to a hospital. Though he had once been a saver, having lost $2,000 in the collapse of the Traders' National Bank, he had become estranged from his past and had no intimate friends in the city. He died alone, having received only minimal support from a neighbor.
“I have no relatives in this country. Further than that I do not care to discuss my affairs.”
Pringle’s story of losing his life savings in a bank failure and dying in isolation highlights the vulnerability of the city's elderly and unhoused residents, a struggle that persists in contemporary Tacoma's housing and social welfare landscape.
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