Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A story out of Reno, Nev., the divorce capital of the West, had Spokane tongues wagging.

“Two young and pretty women” of “high social standing,” Carroll Sheldon Fassett, of Spokane, and Lillian Griffin McCallie, of Chattanooga, Tenn., were old school chums. They both happened to be getting divorces in Reno at the same time, so they renewed their friendship during the required waiting period. They enjoyed months of social companionship in Reno’s “merry divorce colony.”

Apparently, they each got a chance to know each other’s husbands as well, because “it was agreed by both girls that Mrs. McCallie should marry Mr. Newton Fassett “immediately after the divorces were secured.”

And that’s exactly what happened. Newton Fassett and Lillian McCallie were married in Medford, Ore., as soon as the divorces became legal.

“Mrs. McCallie’s 20-month-old son held her hand while the ceremony was performed,” a news story said.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1999: The Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives. … 2010: An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico.