100 years ago in Spokane: Fire chief issues warning about flammable Christmas trees

Spokane’s fire chief issued warnings about a serious fire danger: Christmas trees. This was an especially urgent appeal when many still lit their trees with candles. Here was his advice:

• Don’t decorate a tree with paper, cotton or other flammable material.
• Don’t allow children to light or relight candles without parents present.
• Electric lighting is far safer, because candles “always offer a temptation to the youngsters.”
• Don’t leave matches where children can get them.
• Don’t place a lighted candle “behind the Red Cross window card on Christmas Eve.” Candles used for this purpose have set fire to the curtains and “burned down many homes in this country.”
• Do not spread a white cotton sheet under the tree to represent snow. Cotton is too flammable.
• Don’t allow trees to remain in the house after the holidays. They are especially flammable when dry.

From the baby beat: Lucille, a baby seemingly abandoned by her parents, was now in high demand.

The story had begun weeks earlier when Mrs. Warn asked her neighbor, Mrs. Brooks, to watch Lucille for an hour while she went to get milk.

Mrs. Warn never returned. When Mrs. Brooks checked, she found the Warns gone, their apartment empty.

At first, Mrs. Brooks said she could not take care of the baby, but after a few days she said that she and her husband had decided to keep Lucille.

After a story appeared in the paper, a man named Nichols showed up at the Brooks house and demanded the baby. He said Lucille was his and that her mother was dead. Mrs. Brooks refused to hand over the baby.

The ultimate decision over her custody rested with the Superior Court.