A domestic tragedy in Port Townsend
A young woman, suffering from deep despondency and fear of her relatives, takes her own life in her home while her children are away.
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.
Mrs. Nicholas Schlitch committed suicide tonight by strangulation in Port Townsend. Her husband, a bartender, arrived home at 9:30 o'clock to find his wife hanging from a hall banister. She had sent her three children to a neighbor's house earlier that evening before carrying out her act. Mrs. Schlitch had been reportedly despondent for some time, suffering from the belief that her relatives held imaginary wrongs against her. She had been prevented from taking carbolic acid just the previous Thursday. She was 28 years old and had been married three times.
“She had sent her three little children to a neighbor's... and then deliberately took her own life.”
This tragic report highlights the limited support systems available for mental health and domestic distress in 1893, and the raw, often unvarnished way such deaths were reported in newspapers of that era. It serves as a reminder of the quiet, personal crises that often went undocumented beyond these grim society reports.
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