This day in history: A ‘professed witch’ told Eastern students her favorite pets were ghosts; Woman injured in Spokane City Hall elevator filed suit

From 1975: Katherine, a “professed witch” from Portland, gave a talk to a small group of Eastern Washington State College students.

Topics included auras, ghosts and witchcraft.

“Ghosts are my favorite pets,” she said.

She was dressed entirely in black, from “the tip of her turban” on down, but she said she is a “white witch.” She said that “witchcraft is natural truth that hasn’t been put into math formulas yet.”

Some students walked out of the talk early, despite having paid 50 cents admission, but most took it “ all in seriously, attentively.”

From 1925: Gladys Ayler, 25, a Davenport Hotel waitress, sued the city for $2,000 in damages after she took a wild ride in the Spokane City Hall elevator.

She was one of a number of passengers in the elevator car when the cable snapped two weeks earlier and the car plummeted several stories into the basement.

Ayler suffered from “a badly sprained and wrenched right ankle, bruises on the legs, strained ligament in the leg, nervous shock and possibly other injuries not yet determined.”

She said that she had not been able to work at the Davenport since the accident.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1933: Nazi Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, is destroyed by fire. It is possibly set by the Nazis, who blame and execute Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe.

2012: Wikileaks begins disclosing 5 million emails from private intelligence company Stratfor.