Kicked Into the Street in Her Nightclothes: A Tacoma Wife’s Ten Years of Abuse
A police-court hearing heard how Amos West terrorized his wife and eight-year-old daughter—and how a tent on Center Street became the backdrop to a decade of violence.
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.
A shocking tale of suffering and misery at the hands of a hard-hearted husband was poured into the ears of Judge Arntson of the police court yesterday afternoon, when Mrs. Amos West and her eight-year-old daughter, Myrtle, appeared to testify against Amos West, husband and father. West was arrested yesterday morning on a warrant charging him with wife-beating, and after hearing the evidence, the court unhesitatingly put him under peace bonds of $600 for six months, in default of which he will spend six months in prison. The little family lives in a tent on Center Street, and Mrs. West told of having been literally kicked from her home into the street at night, clad only in her night clothes, and forced to go to the homes of neighbors. There were plenty of witnesses to substantiate her story. Both she and the little girl told of dire threats made constantly by West, and Mrs. West stated that this manner of miserable existence had continued for ten years. Mrs. West showed bruises and cuts which she said her husband had inflicted.
“Mrs. West told of having been literally kicked from her home into the street at night, clad only in her night clothes, and forced to go to the homes of neighbors.”
The case is a reminder that domestic violence and housing insecurity were entangled long before modern shelters or protective orders; a tent on Center Street was the family’s only home. Tacoma, like most cities, still reckons with intimate-partner abuse and the scarcity of safe places to flee.
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