A Family Left Homeless in the Bitter Winter Chill
While the city debates local ordinances, a man in North Seattle forcibly evicted his own wife and children into the freezing cold.
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.
The following story is a sad account of a heartless domestic outrage: A man named T. T. Davis, residing in North Seattle in the vicinity of the hotel property, turned his wife and children out of their house on Saturday evening under the influence of liquor, and treated his wife in a shameful manner. He was also seen a short time afterward, as he carried all the furniture and bedding out of the house and carted them off, leaving his wife and children in the house helpless. She was cared for by her relatives, who furnished her with a home. That brutal husband has not been arrested.
“That brutal husband has not been arrested.”
This 1885 report of a man casting his family into the winter cold hits home against the backdrop of today's housing precarity. While the legal mechanisms and social support systems have evolved, the vulnerability of families facing sudden, localized housing crises remains a recurring, painful theme in Seattle's history.
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