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

From our archives, 100 years ago

Advice columns have always dealt with the same issues: the complicated business of love.

However, the advice they gave 100 years ago was not exactly the same as it might be today. Here’s an excerpt from the Laura Jean Libbey advice column published in The Spokesman-Review on this date 100 years ago:

“Dear Miss Libbey: I am a school teacher. I have a boy friend who always likes to take me to amusements, such as dances, etc. The other evening, Henry took me to a dance, and on the way home he kissed me. And, of course, I did not like it. Since that he had not looked at me or called me up. Shall I write and ask him to call on me? I am broken-hearted, as I love no one else but my dear friend, Henry. Signed, Lydia.

(Reply) “Lydia, leave Henry alone. Under no consideration write Henry or have anything to do with him. He is a good type of boy not to have anything to do with.”

By the way, here’s another bit of Libbey advice, from the same column: “The wife is not wise who allows her husband to note that she is not as charming as other women.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1953: The Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks.