From our archives, 100 years ago

Mrs. Anna Happel and her daughter Julia were in the Davenport Hotel, telling a harrowing tale of escaping the European war from their native Antwerp, Belgium. They said they fled Antwerp the same day a German zeppelin rained bombs down at the Belgian army headquarters and powder magazine in Antwerp. 

However, the Happels’ two autos were soon commandeered by the Belgian government. Their fancy touring car was used to “haul fresh meat to the Antwerp barracks.”

Mother and daughter managed to make it to Rotterdam, in an attempt to find a ship to America and rejoin Mr. Happel, already in Spokane. But when most of those sailings were canceled, a throng of desperate stranded tourists and refugees poured across the Holland-Belgium border back to Antwerp. From there, they all pushed on to Ostend, where 10,000 Americans were “clamoring for passage.”

The Happels gladly paid premium rates for steerage passage belowdecks on the liner Philadelphia. The ship, designed for 500 passengers, carried 1,500. They finally made it to the U.S. and arrived in Spokane by rail, where they reunited with Mr. Happel. Their family business in Antwerp, a “large physical culture institute,” was taken over by the Belgian government for war purposes, and their investment was “next to worthless.” They planned to make their home in Spokane.