Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane city employee Charles J. Vedder received yet another heartbreaking letter from his son, Edward Vedder. 

This letter, like another before it, was written while he was serving on the German cruiser Gneisenau in the Pacific. Vedder, who had joined the German navy after being stranded in China as a merchant seaman, told how the Gneisenau was evading its enemies on the way home. 

The letter took nearly six months to arrive in Spokane. In the meantime, the younger Vedder had apparently drowned when the British navy sank the Gneisenau off the Falkland Islands.

The elder Vedder said he had given up hope that his son had survived. He had pursued one report that his son was being held as a prisoner of war in England, but that proved false. Reports indicated that only 10 members of the Gneisenau’s crew survived.

From the court beat: John Nordlund, whose wife was suing the Stockholm Bar for getting him habitually drunk, told the court his wife knew he was a “saloon man” from the beginning. He didn’t drink any more than he did seven years ago, when they first were married, he said, and she wasn’t entitled to any damages.

Nordlund said he sometimes drank port wine and beer, but never got drunk. Some of Nordlund’s friends testified that he “usually drank buttermilk.”

The case continued.