Jim Kershner’s This Day in History

From our archives, 100 years ago

Someone at the Church of Truth was not telling the truth.

Two nurses were suing the church for $702 in back wages. The nurses said the Rev. A.C. Grier of the Church of Truth hired them to take care of Mrs. Rebecca Coumerilh, “who was helpless and required much attention.”

The nurses claimed they were promised $35 per week for 20 weeks of care.

The reverend said they were simply unemployed women who offered to take care of Mrs. Coumerilh for a “small charge,” because they were getting room and board. He said they never even told him they were trained nurses.

The judge called it a peculiar case. There was apparently no proof that the two women were, in fact, trained nurses. They also accused their elderly patient of “using drugs and liquor.”

The judge said he did not believe anybody’s testimony, which was odd considering that all parties belonged to the Church of Truth.

He eventually ruled that the two “nurses” were entitled to only $260.

From the suicide beat: A conductor on a train eastbound from Spokane found the men’s lavatory locked. When he forced it open, he found it blood-spattered and empty, with the breeze blowing into an open window.

The engineer of a later train spotted Peter Olson, a middle-aged man, sitting beside the tracks near Kildee, Montana, with a gashed throat. He was alive, but just barely. He was taken to a hospital in Thompson Falls, where he died.