The Ballard Tragedy
A 14-year-old nursemaid is accused of murdering an infant in her charge with rat poison.
The inquest on the remains of Richard Parker, the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Parker, who died Monday morning of arsenical poisoning, resulted in the child's nurse, Hildegard Rudberg, a 14-year-old Swedish girl, being arrested upon a charge of murder. Frank W. Parker testified that the day before the child died, he was putting 'rough on rats' powder on a piece of salmon, and the girl had asked, 'Will that stuff kill people, too?' On Sunday, Mrs. Parker found the nurse attempting to force water down the crying baby's throat and wiped a brown substance resembling the poison from the child's mouth. Physicians confirmed the presence of arsenic. When arrested at her parents' home in Ballard, the girl cried piteously and declared her innocence.
“The girl acted very queerly and, when questioned as to how the substance came in the baby's mouth, said she did not know.”
This story illustrates the high stakes of domestic life in the late 19th century, where highly toxic household pesticides were left accessible, and the lack of social safety nets often led to tragic, irreversible outcomes for vulnerable workers and families.
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