02/03/2026
WOMAN WITH BROOMSTICK KEEPS ORDER IN TRINITY. Mother, Angered by Son’s Injury, Quells Near Riot in Lewiston.
Lewiston (Trinity Co.), Dec. 1 – A woman with a broomstick quelled a near riot in Lewiston, Trinity county [sic], after an armed deputy sheriff had been run from the field. Twenty-five alleged members of the I.W.W.,* half of a crew employed there by the Northern California Power company, demanded free meals on rainy days when they could not work. Their demands being denied, the men commenced to raise rough house with the chauffeur of the company’s auto truck. Deputy Sheriff Mark Van Matre, who was not armed, attempted to quell the disturbance, but when the band set upon him and bade him go inside the store and stay there he obeyed orders immediately.
Leas Dickey, son of Mrs. Louis Domenici, had his nose smashed in assisting Van Matre. Hearing this, Mrs. Domenici, armed only with a broom-handle, rushed out of the butcher shop next door and smashed right and left with it so furiously the trouble makers retreated from the field and departed afoot for Redding. Mrs. Domenici is hailed as the heroine of Lewiston. (Sacramento Union, December 2, 1916)
* “I.W.W.” stands for the “Industrial Workers of the World,” an inter-national union with an anti-capitalistic ideology and ties to the Communist Party. Some people interpreted the “I.W.W.” as the “I Won’t Work” movement.
