Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A Spokane man named Frank Warren was in jail, accused of giving away two of his daughters to a band of professional beggars.

Authorities said Warren and his wife gave his two young daughters to a crew of “blind men who are professional beggars in the wake of circuses traveling about the country.”

One little girl, Winona Warren, “became the pawn of a blind beggar at Boise,” and had been found and returned to Spokane, where she was being cared for by authorities.

The authorities were looking for the second child, who “was last heard of in the middle west.” They were pursuing leads that she was “the unadopted ward” of one of the other blind beggars.

A third Warren child, an infant, had been given by the Warrens to a local family and was being well cared for.

The Warrens apparently gave their children away after they had decided to separate, police said.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1934: Bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in a police ambush in Bienville Parish, La.

1984: Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report saying there was “very solid” evidence linking cigarette smoke to lung disease in nonsmokers.