The Sudden Passing of Ole Eine
A longtime laborer at the Weatherwax mill collapses on his way home, leaving behind a family across the ocean.
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.
Just after the whistle blew at Weatherwax's mill on Monday night, Ole Eine, one of the workmen there, left his work and started for his home on the east side of the Wishkah. He had only gone a few steps when he dropped down dead. The deceased was a Norwegian, about 60 years of age, and leaves a wife and eight children in the old country. One of his children, a young man about 20 years, lived here with him. Coroner Stapp held an examination today, and the body was buried at the cemetery this afternoon. Death was caused by cerebral hemorrhage at the base of the brain.
“He had only gone a few steps, when he dropped down dead.”
Ole Eine’s story highlights the precarious nature of life for immigrant laborers in the 1890s mill towns, where workplace exhaustion and sudden, isolated deaths were a quiet but common tragedy. Today, while the mills have largely receded from Aberdeen's riverfront, the memory of these workers remains embedded in the landscape of the city's older cemeteries.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.