100 years ago in Spokane: Mrs. Corbin’s lover offered a vastly different account of how their relationship began

Louis Lilge, accused of first-degree arson, told the court that a search for a lost camera in Indian Canyon furnished widow Anna Corbin the chance to profess her love to him, Lilge testified in their joint trial.

She went with him on the search, and in a secluded place, said Lilge, “She put her arms around me and asked me to put my arms around her. I told her I didn’t want to and she said that I was timid. She said that I was modest and that was one of the reasons that she liked me.”

Lilge paused in his testimony to say, “I don’t like telling this stuff. I’m not used to telling these things. …

“Well, then Mrs. Corbin said that she was in love with me. I told her not to kid herself and I laughed.”

The next day she read “The Taming of the Shrew” to him and talked to him about marriage. He said he would “not marry anybody for their money.”

Corbin had earlier testified to a vastly different story.

She said he made all of the advances and in a weak moment she gave in.

Yet when Lilge was asked if he made any advances to her, he replied, “No, none whatsoever.”

He said she told him he “looked lonesome all alone” in the garage, and told him he should come in to play cards in the evening. Then she asked him to move into the house from the garage to “protect it from any danger.”