The Disappearing Cigarmaker
A Seattle tradesman vanishes after a trip to the butcher, leaving behind a worried family and rumors of financial despair.
Bernard Lindeman, a cigarmaker who lives on Fourth Street in the Pontius addition, has disappeared, and his friends fear he has made away with himself. Last Saturday, he left home after promising his wife to buy meat for Sunday dinner. Michael Ball, a friend, searched for him but could not track his movements beyond Saturday afternoon, when he was seen at George Probst's saloon at the foot of Columbia Street. Lindeman was not a drinking man and had no known domestic troubles. The night before, he had attended a party at August Mehlhorn's house on Ninth, between Columbia and Marion streets, appearing in good spirits. However, he had recently struggled to support his family and had been disappointed in his hopes of opening his own cigar store. He had previously remarked that he might end his struggle if he could not earn a living. It is suspected he may have taken his own life or left town in search of work.
“It is known that at different times in general conversation he said that if the time ever came when he could not earn a living he would be inclined to end the struggle by suicide.”
The pressures of the 1890s economic climate on laborers and the prevalence of disappearance as a result of despair reflect the perennial struggle of working-class families in high-cost cities, a concern that echoes in Seattle's housing and wage crises today.
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