Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Anthony Braun, 26, of Spokane, just returned from a hair-raising 6,000-mile adventure through war-torn Europe.

He said he rode his bicycle through parts of France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Spain. He carried a large pack on his back and slept in the open. He met wounded French soldiers, German prisoners of war and, in Holland, was arrested briefly on suspicion of being a German spy.

Braun was of German descent, but American-born. He spoke English, German, French and Spanish.

He worked on a farm in Switzerland for five months, but when the war broke out, he was visiting relatives in Germany. He was unable to get back across the border. He eventually managed to return to Switzerland by taking a boat to Spain and then traveling by land through Spain and France. He said he met German prisoners being transported by the French to Morocco, “which makes escape harder.”

He related one detail sure to make area orchardists happy: The apples and cherries in Europe were “scrubby and small,” and that all of the really choice apples he found were from Washington.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1981: Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.