100 years ago in Spokane: Distraught Danish woman decides not to end it all

From our archive,

100 years ago

Christina Madison, 21, a “pretty Danish girl waitress,” left a note saying her body might be found in the Spokane River. Then she jumped into the frigid, rushing water near the High Bridge.

She was swept downstream about 200 yards at which point she had a sudden change of heart. She managed to clamber up the bank and walk shivering to a nearby home.

She was taken to the hospital and plied with hot drinks. She said she had been despondent because she was not in love with her fiance and didn’t have the heart to tell him. She decided that ending her life would be easier on him.

After warming up, she said she was now glad to be alive and was planning to return to her home in Copenhagen.

From the entertainment beat: Hawaiian banjo?

The Pantages Theater featured Joe Roberts, “banjo wizard,” who did a lot of “spectacular slurring of the strings in Hawaiian fashion.”

His “big serious number, ‘Poet and Peasant,’ sounds like an orchestra in itself.”

Also on the bill: Winston’s Educated Sea Lions and Diving Nymphs.

“Two svelte diving sprites, Maude Gray and Mina Glaze … perform in a huge glass tank, the sea lions duplicating the feats of the young women.”