Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A melodramatic tale of thwarted romance filled a Spokane courtroom as R.L. Ashcroft sued Lunette Cashman, nee Miss Lunette Daley, for breach of contract.

He claimed he had courted her for 17 years despite the fact that her parents objected to her marrying a hired hand. He said he had given her an engagement ring out behind the woodshed at her farm at Five Mile Prairie and she “embraced” him. He said they agreed to marry once her parents died.

When they finally died, he returned and asked her to set a date. She kept putting him off. Finally, he discovered that she had already married “the other hired man, William Cashman.”

Lunette Cashman told an entirely different story in court. She said she was just trying to “get him away and keep him away.” When confronted with a series of endearing letters she had sent to Ashcroft, she said that she treated him kindly only because she “feared he would kill her mother.”

She admitted that Ashcroft gave her a ring, but “denied with emphasis” that she ever permitted Ashcroft to caress her. The case was continuing.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1889: Washington became the 42nd state.

1918: Fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.