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

From our archives, 100 years ago

The angry wives of Spokane’s druggists resolved to “remedy an evil”: Their lack of a home life.

The problem, they said, was that competition was so fierce in the business that druggists were forced to stay open until late in the evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. One druggist’s wife had been married seven years and had spent a grand total of seven evenings with her husband.

The wives complained that other kinds of storekeepers had made agreements to limit hours – but not druggists.

So the wives formed their own campaign to get drugstores to agree to close all day on Sundays and early on weekdays.

Several husbands wished their wives success in this campaign.

From the love and marriage beat: A Spokane man sued his wife to get back a $3,000 piece of property he had signed over to her on the operating table. He was afraid that if he died, the probate court would grab the property.

Yet he survived and discovered, to his shock, that his wife had no intention of giving back the property. He sued her for violating their “understanding.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1861: Georgia became the fifth state to secede from the Union as delegates to a special convention voted 208-89 for separation.