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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

Mrs. Minnie McGatlin was plugging away at the never-ending task of getting herself and six children through another hard winter in Wardner, Idaho. Her husband had died three years before of “miner’s consumption, a disease all too well known in the Coeur d’Alenes.”

Suddenly, she found herself a wealthy woman.

She was informed that she would receive $7,000 – a relative fortune – in an inheritance settlement. 

It turned out she was the daughter of a wealthy Italian mining man named Joseph Arbicor, who had fathered her during a short-lived marriage and then abandoned Minnie and her mother.

Only when Arbicor died did all of these complicated family relations come to light. Minnie received the money as part of a compromise with the other heirs of his estate.

From the school beat: Ralph Weeks, 13, was banned from Holmes School, across the street, and had to go to another school 15 blocks away.

Why? Because Ralph was one of “the worst” ever enrolled at Holmes, according to teachers. 

One time, his fed-up teacher called his mother for a conference. The mother scratched the teacher’s face and had to be removed by a janitor.

Mrs. Weeks admitted she slapped the teacher, but said the teacher deserved it, because she said Ralph “was only fit for reform school.”