100 years ago in Spokane: Fay McDonald planned to ‘go straight’ after her sentencing, she told a judge

Fay McDonald, one of the notorious McDonald siblings, was formally ordered during a court hearing to serve her three-year term at Walla Walla.

When asked by the judge whether she admitted to being the same Fay McDonald named in the warrant, she replied, “Why, certainly I do.”

Later she told reporters that she planned to “go straight” when she got out of Walla Walla. Her ambition, she said, was to “marry, settle down and raise a family.”

At least some of that prediction proved true. After she served her sentence, she moved to St. Louis and apparently committed no further crimes. It’s unclear whether she married.

(To read the full story about the infamous McDonald siblings, go to HistoryLink.org and search “McDonald siblings.”)

From the accident beat: Jack Lafferty, 12, had put up a rope swing in his cellar, and loved to perform acrobatic stunts.

Yet tragedy struck when his mother went downstairs to find him dead, tangled in the rope swing.

“A few days ago he had proudly told me that he had learned how to pull himself up on the swing, and turning over, hang by his toes from the rafter above,” his father said. “… I think he must have been trying to hang by his toes when he fell.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1957: Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard, a mostly Siberian husky, the first animal in space.