100 year ago in Spokane: Woman fights off attacker

Miss Kathleen Gonyou, 21, sent an attacker crying into the night at Regal Street and 17th Avenue.

She was coming home from her 21st birthday celebration on the Riverview streetcar at about midnight.

“After I had stepped off the car and was crossing the street in the darkness, I suddenly felt hands being placed over my mouth from behind and a man’s voice cautioned me to be quiet,” she told police, still shaken from the incident. “I struggled with him and in the struggle he knocked me down. He tried to put a handkerchief in my mouth. I struck at his face and at the same time managed to bite his fingers. He gave a cry of pain, released me and ran down the street.”

Her shouts roused several neighbors, who came to her assistance. She did not have a clear description of the thug, but she believes it was a man who exited the streetcar behind her.

“She’s the nerviest young woman I’ve ever seen,” said the investigating officer.

From the vaudeville beat: One of the vaudeville acts at the Hippodrome had a gender-fluid theme, even though that term had not yet been coined.

A singer named Octavo had a “feminine figure and a man’s voice,” and sings “soprano and baritone by turns.” A reviewer said that Octavo was “beautifully gowned” and “keeps the audience guessing.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

2008: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced his choice of running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, before a crowd outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois.