100 years ago in The Record

Sunday, March 31, 1918

Easter Sunday is marred for a Watervliet family when a 17 year old girl has her throat cut by her boyfriend this afternoon. Anna Assina of 2115 Fourth Avenue is “likely to live” according to doctors at Troy Hospital. Investigators across the river are hunting for her supposed sweetheart, Pasquale Lombardi, even though Assina refuses to identify her attacker and won’t let her relatives talk to police. Lombardi reportedly sent Assina a bunch of violets for today’s Easter walk to church, only to find that she credited the gift to, and walked with, someone else. The Record’s report gets somewhat confusing at this point. Our Watervliet correspondent speculates that Lombardi was enraged by “the spectacle of a rival parading about in the morning sunshine with the object of his regard.” One sentence earlier, the reporter wrote that Assina believed the violets to have come from “the young woman with whom she went to church.” This is most likely a typo, since a sub-headline reads, “Wrong Man Given Credit for Sending Easter Violets.” Lombardi grows angrier after trying to work his way into a family portrait in the Assina backyard. When Anna refuses to pose with him, they take their quarrel inside. The rest of the family rushes inside a few minutes later after hearing Anna scream. They find her lying in a pool of blood. Near her lies “a razor stained with [ blood] and to which clung strands of her hair.” Despite her injury, Assina “displayed Spartan hardihood in retaining her presence of mind so that, with blood pouring down her throat, she was able to take charge of the affair.”

While no one implicates Lombardi, the police learn that Assina was supposed to go with him to an Easter party thrown by Lombardi’s brother-in-law, Tony Conde. When Conde and the other partygoers appear genuinely shocked to hear of the attack, investigators are satisfied that Lombardi had not gone there. He remains at large as our Monday edition goes to press.

Rest House in Paris For Troy Soldiers

Today’s Sunday Budget reports that Carrie Van Duesen King of Lansingburgh, a veteran journalist long based in Paris, plans to turn her apartment in the French capital into a rest home and information bureau for local soldiers fighting in Europe.

Currently in New York City, King plans to return to France this May. She hopes to provide Troy soldiers with free coffee and sandwiches, and other amenities, whenever they visit Paris. She believes she can fund the project herself if necessary, but on the advice of friends issues an appeal for support to Budget readers.