The Tragic Decline of Annie Rooney
A woman long known to the streets and saloons of Tacoma is returned to the state asylum, casting a light on the era’s brutal handling of addiction.
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.
Annie Rooney has again succumbed to the effects of bad whisky, and yesterday afternoon an order was issued by Judge Bell of Seattle committing her to the asylum at Steilacoom. Annie Rooney, the wreck of the once beautiful and refined Florence Story, was certified by the physicians to be a mental ruin from the excessive use of intoxicants and cigarettes. Witnesses testified that she slept in the lowest saloons and never undresses or cares for herself. Little of life is left to her, and it is thought that she will be less of a nuisance in the asylum than in the streets.
“They had a big dance there every week and I was the queen bee.”
Annie Rooney's story is a sobering look at how the 1900s treated mental health and substance abuse with institutionalization rather than care. Her story exposes the thin line between 'refined' society and the discarded, a dynamic that haunts Tacoma's unhoused population today.
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