Abandoned in the Storm
Three children, orphaned and penniless, were found wandering the streets of Seattle in the rain, clutching tags that pleaded with strangers for help.
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.
George Sheahan, while patrolling on Union Street yesterday morning, observed three girls—aged 11, 8, and 5 respectively—wandering about the street, apparently looking for a refuge from the storm. He approached them and learned that all three were penniless and strangers in the city. The eldest gave the name Aubie Lane and said she had come to Seattle from Nebraska to seek employment as a domestic. The other two girls, Myra and Laura Boyd, she had picked up on the train between Pasco and Seattle. Upon the breasts of each were three tags bearing the following inscriptions: 'Orphan A. K.', 'Odd Fellow's Orphan,' and 'Trainmen and all charitably disposed persons will please help these orphans on their journey.' The tag also bore traveling directions from Kansas City, Mo., to Seattle. It appears that the father of the two little girls died in Kansas City a short time ago, and his friends sent the children to their mother, who, for some reason or other, had come to Washington ahead of her family and who is now living somewhere in the county. They started out with tickets to Seattle and lunch, and depended entirely upon the kindness of trainmen and passengers, whose attention was attracted to their forlorn condition by their labels, for assistance. Officer Sheahan took the three waifs to police headquarters, and Captain Kinley provided for their stopping-place at the city's home for the friendless. Later in the day, he secured a situation in a respectable family for the eldest girl. The two little ones will be sent by the police to join their mother as soon as her exact location can be learned.
“Trainmen and all charitably disposed persons will please help these orphans on their journey.”
This 1889 account of children traveling unaccompanied across the country to reunite with a struggling parent reflects the vulnerability of families in an era of massive migration. Today, while the mechanism of travel has changed, the lack of a social safety net for transient families remains a resonant, often invisible struggle in the urban landscape of Seattle.
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