Search Underway for Missing Fifteen-Year-Old
A Puyallup teenager has vanished, and police suspect she may have run off with a young man.
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.
Police of Tacoma and Seattle are today looking for Miss Bertha Gunderson, who disappeared from her home in Puyallup Saturday. The young lady is described as having large brown eyes and brown hair. When last seen she wore a brown dress, white sweater and brown silk hat. She is fifteen years old and believed to have eloped with a young man who has also disappeared.
“The young lady is described as having large brown eyes and brown hair.”
Runaways were often reported with this tone of moral concern, but elopement was a common social framing for young women's departures in the early 20th century. Today, Puyallup is a major suburb of Tacoma, connected by the same transit corridors Bertha likely traveled.
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