100 years ago in Spokane: Two mysterious young women who showed up at a funeral ended up having a sad connection to the decedent

The body of Louis Gatewood was lying in the Padgett Funeral Home when “two well-dressed young women approached and gazed upon the face of the aged man.”

They whispered a few words and then stood in the windows and watched as a funeral procession formed. They then reluctantly told a reporter that they were his daughters.

“Father left us 20 years ago to devote his life to the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies),” one of the daughters said. “During his last illness, we visited him at the St. Luke’s Hospital and tried to do something for him, but he would not permit us to. He had been only two weeks at the poor farm when death came.”

Louis Gatewood was a well-known organizer for the Wobblies before he became ill and went to the county infirmary.

At the funeral home, “every inch of available space was taken by men wearing red ribbons signifying their adherence to the cause of the industrial workers.”

The Wobblies then formed a procession and marched to the Greenwood Cemetery.

From the accident beat: The children of Hyman Cohn, well-known Spokane businessman, embarked on a risky trip to Walla Walla to be with their mother after the car accident that left her injured and her husband dead.

Abe Cohn, a son, reached Central Ferry too late to cross after dark. So he and his uncle went on foot across the new – and apparently uncompleted – bridge over the Snake River.

“In places all there was between them and the river was a single plank,” The Spokesman-Review reported. “But Mr. Cohn was so anxious to reach his mother’s bedside that they paid no attention to the danger.”

They arranged for cars to pick them up on the other side.

Mrs. Cohn was recovering from her injuries and was expected to return to Spokane with her sons by train.