The Remarkable Life of Mrs. Jack Scoopes
One of the oldest women on the Puyallup reservation, who saw the land change before Tacoma was founded, passes away at an estimated age of 100.
There will be another big funeral on the Puyallup reservation tomorrow. Mrs. Jack Scoopes, perhaps the oldest woman on the reservation, is dead. For a long time, she had been considered the oldest woman among the Puyallups. Her years were so numerous that she could not tell the exact number; she was known as the woman who had lived 100 years, and some say she was 106. She was married twice and leaves two daughters, one of whom is three-score years old. Her relatives today bought a $100 coffin, covered with brocaded drab plush and lined with drab silk. Her shroud will be of white silk, with white silk gloves placed on her hands and black silk slippers on her feet. For a time, Mrs. Scoopes worked as a domestic. That was before Tacoma was thought of. She did not use tobacco, had a neat home and thirty-six acres of land.
“That was before Tacoma was thought of.”
The respectful tone regarding the funeral arrangements—a $100 coffin in 1893 was a significant expense—highlights the esteem in which she was held by her community. It captures a vanishing era of the Puyallup people, documented by a newspaper that usually ignored Indigenous life unless it was for 'exotic' interest.
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