A Former County Commissioner's Despair Ends in an Old Tacoma Room
Charles T. Fay, a well-known Steilacoom settler and ex-county commissioner, shot himself after financial worries and an election defeat.
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.
TACOMA, Feb. 16.—[Special.]—Ex-County Commissioner Charles T. Fay, an elderly man, suicided this afternoon in a room in the Pioneer block, Old Tacoma, by discharging a 38-caliber revolver in his right temple. A week ago Wednesday he disappeared from his home in Steilacoom and his whereabouts could not be learned definitely until 3 o'clock this morning, when John Conna picked him up on the street at Old Tacoma and took him to the Pioneer block. This morning he left his room while his friends were looking for him, and during his absence probably bought a revolver.
Those who conversed with him here during the past week found his mind giving way. He talked of his troubles, his invalid wife and her brother, a consumptive who lived with them. Although he was considered to be worth considerable money, he had no ready cash and had to negotiate a loan recently. Since losing his only means of support as county commissioner, having been defeated in the last election, he had worried unduly over his financial condition, and in a rambling letter he feared his wife was left without means. He had no children, but his second wife has a son and daughter by a former husband. He came here from Massachusetts, where in his youth he had worked in a shoe factory forty-two years ago. A nickel and jack knife were about the only articles found in his pockets.
Mr. Fay lived at Steilacoom and was generally known throughout the county, having been county commissioner for his district for a series of years. His snowy hair and kindly, smiling face will be missed by many an old settler, while his sudden demise will be keenly felt by friends and relatives. Mrs. Fay was his second wife, and the old couple were much attached to each other. Mrs. Fay has been an invalid for many years, and it is feared the old gentleman's rash act may be followed by her utter prostration and subsequent death. Mr. Fay was a man of some executive ability, of gentle manner and mild and inoffensive citizenship.
“His snowy hair and kindly, smiling face will be missed by many an old settler.”
Fay's death is a intimate record of how financial insecurity, public defeat and caregiving burdens could overwhelm an older man in the 1890s. It also shows how thin the safety net was: a former county commissioner with property but no ready cash saw suicide as the only way out. The story's tender language about his invalid wife makes the private cost of public life painfully clear.
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