The Last Hurrah of Seattle's Elite Before the Lenten Season
As the Lenten season loomed, Seattle society scrambled to squeeze in as many balls, card parties, and banquets as possible, showcasing a flurry of exclusive high-society events.
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.
In anticipation of the Lenten season drawing near, society in Seattle is surfeited with pleasure. Prominent among the happenings of the past week were the Cotillion Club dance, various card parties, and farewell banquets. Notably, the 'entre nous' subscription party has assumed a definite form, scheduled for the 16th of February at the Odd Fellows Hall in Belltown. The management, including Mr. Theodore N. Haller and Mr. George F. Fay, has secured a hall specifically adapted for the festivities, with Wagner's First Regiment orchestra providing the music. Meanwhile, the retiring county clerk, Mr. M. M. Holmes, hosted an elegant farewell banquet at the Chamber of Commerce for his staff, marking the end of a busy fifteen-month administration with toasts and poetry. Other social fixtures included the 'mirror party' at Professor Lopp's dancing academy, a candy pull at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. E. Shaffer on Bell Street, and a series of high-society weddings, including the marriage of the Post-Intelligencer's city editor, Will H. Parry, to Miss Harriet N. Phelps.
“Changing in some respects the wording of the quotation which issued years ago from King Richard's lips, into 'A dance, a dance; my kingdom for a dance!' is perhaps plunging from the sublime into the ridiculous.”
While the 1891 social calendar was governed by the liturgical calendar of Lent, today’s Seattle ‘social season’ is arguably governed by the tech industry’s quarterly cycles and seasonal real estate markets. The article’s mention of Belltown, then a burgeoning area for social halls, highlights the city's rapid expansion, a theme that remains central to Seattle's identity as it continuously reshapes its districts.
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