A Heartbreaking Scene of Poverty
After a mother dies in North Yakima, authorities discover seven children starving in the family home.
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 tragic case of destitution, sickness, and death came to light in North Yakima when Coroner Frank was called to the Woolery home. Mrs. Flora M. Woolery died Sunday evening after a week of illness, leaving behind a husband suffering from consumption and seven children. When undertaker Sessions arrived at the house to collect the remains, he found all seven children without food. The three eldest were leaning over their mother’s deathbed, desperately trying to wake her, while the younger siblings slept, entirely unaware of their surroundings.
“Three of the eldest children were leaning over the deathbed of their mother in an effort to call her back to life.”
This account highlights the brutal intersection of poverty and health in the early 20th century. The lack of social safety nets meant that the death of a parent could leave children immediately destitute, a situation that remains a haunting, if evolved, concern in modern social services.
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