100 years ago in Spokane: Worker at produce company bitten by tarantula as he reached for bunch of bananas

A worker at the Charles Uhden produce house reached into a bunch of bananas and felt a sting.

When he looked into the bunch of bananas, he found the largest tarantula ever seen in the city. A surgeon cauterized the wound in the man’s finger and predicted no serious effects. The tarantula was put “on exhibition, very much alive,” at a fruit merchant’s stand.

From the war beat: Marion E. Hay of Spokane, the former governor of Washington, said that all three of his sons had “answered the call of their country” and joined the army.

“Their mother said they would not be sons of hers” if they had not. All three boys were graduates of the Shattuck Military Academy in Minnesota.

From the navy beat: Three Spokane women enlisted for “yeoman’s service in the navy” at Spokane’s Navy Recruiting Station.

The recruiting officer said that every woman who signed up for the yeoman’s service was freeing up “some man for sea duty and thus increasing the efficiency of the fighting force.”

One of the women said, “I have not had the training for nursing and so cannot help that way, but I’m studying first aid and my experience as a typist should be of use to the government.”

The woman’s duties would be “shore jobs,” including serving as clerks and stenographers. The recruiting officer said that woman were not expected to scrub the decks or “splice the main braces.”