The Untimely Passing of a Working Student
A young man who balanced night shifts at the print shop with university studies dies of typhoid fever, leaving a city in mourning for his potential.
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.
Melvin K. Crawford died at Providence Hospital in this city at 7 o'clock yesterday morning, after a week's illness with typhoid fever. He had been ailing for some time, but his condition was not such as to alarm his friends until a few hours before his death. He then had two internal hemorrhages, which were followed later by a third. These were more than he could stand, and shortly after the last, his life passed away. 'Mel,' as he was familiarly known to most of our citizens, was in his 23rd year. For three years he worked on the Intelligencer printing press all night, and by day attended the public school. Since then he has attended the University, working during vacations and employing himself at other times as best he could. He was fitting himself for the legal profession and had already begun study in the office of Struve, Haines & McMicken. The life of this young man had been singularly spotless and pure, being unmarked by the blemishes and recklessness of dissipation so painfully common among the young men of the present day. His aim was high, and his perseverance and determination great.
“For three years he worked on the Intelligencer printing press all night, and by day attended the public school.”
The struggle of balancing low-wage night work with higher education is a perennial feature of the Seattle experience. Crawford’s story is a sobering look at how precarious life was for the 'working student' in the 1880s, long before modern public health and the expansion of the university system.
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