100 years ago in Spokane: Draft age extended, and even politicians make the list

Even Spokane’s politicians seemed destined for war under proposed new draft rules which extended the draft age to 45.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle reported that U.S. Congressman C.C. Dill would be eligible for the draft, if defeated in the fall. He was currently exempt as a member of Congress.

Judge J. Stanley Webster, running for the seat as a Republican, and V.V. Tustin, seeking the Democratic nomination, would also be subject to the draft unless they won the seat.

From the marriage beat: A former Spokane lumber baron died in California, and not one, but two women were laying claim to his estate.

Apparently, Lawrence Gilman Moon led a dual life, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times. In Spokane, he went by the name of Moon and his widow, Catherine Moon of Sandpoint, filed claim to his estate. However, in California he apparently went by the last name of Lawrence (Lawrence Lawrence?), and a woman who called herself Mrs. Lois A. Lawrence, also filed a claim to his estate.

She said that she took up residence in the Lawrence home in California about 12 years as a housekeeper. He had become estranged from his wife, who refused to grant him a divorce. Mrs. Lawrence apparently became more than a housekeeper, and she said that Moon, or Lawrence, failed to tell her that he “was a man of family.”

“I admit that I am not his legal wife, and have done what the world calls wrong,” she said in a tear-filled talk with a reporter. “It’s hard to explain and sad.”

Yet she said that as the man’s housekeeper and nurse during a long sickness, he “owed her much.”

The question was now in the hands of the court.