Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history
From our archives, 100 years ago
A grizzled old Civil War veteran, 69, found himself in a romantic pickle.
He said that he got married to a Spokane woman named Mary a few years earlier. Then he got it in his mind that he also needed a housekeeper. A lady friend in Colorado, named Belle, said she would be interested in the job, so he went there to settle the terms.
He received a “royal welcome” from her and they shared a “wine dinner” that first night. When he woke up the next morning, Belle started referring to him as “hubby.”
He told her to stop joking. She said, “Don’t you remember us getting married last night?”
He said he remembered nothing that they did after dinner. He also discovered his wallet was lighter by $700.
He resolved to abandon the housekeeper plan and go back to his wife Mary in Spokane. Yet Mary was now peeved about the entire situation and asked for a divorce.
The entire mess was now in the hands of a judge.
From the Big Burn beat: The superintendents of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe national forests embarked on a 10-day snowshoeing trip to the headwaters of the St. Joe River.
The reason: To reconnoiter the burned-over land from the Big Burn the summer before.