Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The only clue Mrs. Dooley had was the whispered nickname, “Skinny.”

She found a group of boys “despoiling her flower beds” at 11 p.m., and the only thing she knew about the young miscreants, before they fled, was that one of them answered to “Skinny.”

She soon discovered that the boys had been burying a cache of what looked like stolen loot in her flower beds. She found baseballs, candy, cake, butter and pencils.

So Mrs. Dooley marched over to the Sheridan School the next day and found out which boy bore the nickname Skinny. It was Darwin “Skinny” Belden, 9. She confronted him and his brother, William, but they at first denied any wrongdoing.

However, when two Spokane police detectives showed up, both Skinny and William confessed, and so did two older boys, 16 and 11. Apparently, the four had forced open the doors of two stores, the Lake Mercantile Co. and the C.C. Morford Co., ran off with the items and buried them in Mrs. Dooley’s lot.

The boys all were turned over to the juvenile department.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1915: Jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, also known as “Lady Day,” was born in Philadelphia.