The Barber of Walla Walla’s Trail of Ruin
After abandoning his wife and children to a life of poverty, a local barber's volatile affair in Spokane ends in an arrest.
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.
Perry Heath, the barber whose recent disreputable acts caused him to leave Walla Walla, is in trouble in Spokane, where he was arrested Wednesday evening. According to the Review, he was jailed on complaint of Mabel Strauss, who accuses him of going into her room and cutting up about $75 worth of clothes with a knife. Heath had been working in a barber shop on the corner of Howard street and Riverside avenue in Spokane. Heath formerly worked in Twist’s barber shop in Walla Walla, where he compelled his wife to go on the town so that she could support him. He eventually deserted her and his three children to take up with Strauss, whom he also compelled to lead a life of shame. His wife became sick and was eventually forced to allow the children to be given to other families; one was recently sent to the Homefinding Association at Spokane. Heath left Walla Walla with $500 in unpaid bills, and his parents are said to reside in the city.
“He also compelled [her] to lead a life of shame.”
This account exposes the era's brutal intersection of economic desperation and domestic exploitation. While the newspaper frames the story through the 'scandal' of a jilted lover, the subtext reveals a man who systematically coerced two women into sex work to support his own lifestyle, a pattern of gender-based violence that remains a critical issue in contemporary advocacy.
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