A Tragic Discovery in Everett's City Park
An 11-year-old schoolboy makes a grisly find after a suicide in the local park.
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.
When Alger Rodgers, an 11-year-old schoolboy, left school yesterday afternoon, he was attracted to the city park by a crowd which had gathered there, only to discover the body of his father, Norman Rodgers, who had just committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. The police had just arrived and taken charge of the body when the lad appeared. Although the face was marred, the boy saw the man's clothing and exclaimed, 'Why, that's my papa.' He was able to give his father's name and address, which were afterward confirmed by letters in the dead man's pocket. Rodgers was seen by two witnesses, Roy Sherron and Thomas Phillips, before he died.
“Why, that's my papa.”
Public spaces like parks often become the site of private tragedies, a reality that remains unchanged even as our understanding of mental health crisis intervention has evolved since 1904. The raw, blunt reporting style of the early 20th century highlights how such personal disasters were once fodder for daily news.
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