A Mayor's Daughter, a Botched Kidnapping, and a Crushed Rib
In Tacoma, would-be abductors snatched the wrong 10-year-old girl, then dumped her bleeding in the street—hours before her father was injured in a city hall elevator accident.
TACOMA.—Mistaken for the adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Seth W. MacDonald, Margaret Fawcett, the 10-year-old daughter of Mayor A. V. Fawcett, was stolen out of the mayor's yard by an unknown man, thrown into an automobile and whisked away. At intervals until two years ago Ruth MacDonald's mother, Mrs. Lizzie McCabe, has sought to get her away from her foster parents. Evidently the would-be abductors soon discovered their blunder, for by the time the police had arrived little Margaret came walking back, her nose bleeding and her face cut and scratched by the rough handling. She said they put her out of the automobile. The kidnapping incident happened a few hours before the mayor was crushed in the city hall elevator. The accident to Mayor Fawcett happened as he undertook to step into the elevator from the third floor of the city hall, when the machine suddenly started upward. The mayor was thrown from the passenger platform of the elevator to the freight platform below, receiving a broken rib.
“By the time the police had arrived little Margaret came walking back, her nose bleeding and her face cut and scratched by the rough handling.”
A child snatched from a mayor's yard and a father injured in a municipal elevator—both in one day—remind us that civic leaders and their families have always been vulnerable to the unpredictable. Today, security cameras and elevator inspections would likely prevent both incidents, but the story still resonates as a reminder of how quickly public and private life can collide.
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