Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 50 years ago

The Northern Pacific railroad was recruiting in 1961 for a job that no longer exists: Stewardess-nurses for passenger trains.

“Applicants must be registered nurses between the ages of 21 and 27, with height and weight proportionate,” said Charlotte Hanes, the NP’s supervisor of stewardess services. “They can’t wear glasses.”

These train stewardess-nurses were principally concerned with the elderly, children and mothers with babies. In one month alone, said Hanes, they made and delivered 3,000 bottles of warm formula. Yet they also “posted letters and made train announcements.”

Hanes said there was no “time for courting on the train.”

“But the girls evidently make up for lost time at the end of the line,” said Hanes. “We have an 80 percent turnover annually because stewardess-nurses must be unmarried.”

From the sports beat: A famous baseball name – Don Newcombe – took the loss for the Spokane Indians in a game against San Diego.

Five years earlier, Newcombe had won both the Cy Young Award and the Most Valuable Player award with a 27-win season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But he was back in Triple-A, in what turned out to be his final year in baseball.