100 years ago near Kettle Falls: Man whose wife drowned in Columbia River joins search for body

Dr. J.B. Crain of Pasco put on diving gear and personally assisted in the search for the body of his wife, who drowned in a ferry accident on the Columbia River north of Kettle Falls.

Other professional divers already had been searching, but Dr. Crain “asked the divers to show him how to don the outfit and work the signals.”

“I went down myself four times,” said Dr. Crain. “… We hope tomorrow to locate the body.”

The tragedy occurred after a ferryman asked Dr. Crain to shift his auto slightly, and he lost control and drove the car over the side. He was rescued but his wife was trapped in the car.

From the vocabulary beat: The fledgling aviation industry already was making contributions to the English language.

A story in The Spokesman-Review said 200 new words had entered the lexicon, including: aileron, fuselage, nacelle, and biplane.

The term “aviator” was also fairly new, and the story said it “applies to either a man or a woman who drives airplanes.”

A number of other airplane words had been borrowed from much older modes of transportation, such as “hangar,” previously meaning a shed for carriages, and pilot, a person guiding watercraft.