Spenard divorcenoun · 20th century
Well attestedThe phrase entered Anchorage speech during a murder trial in 1959.
Spenard, a neighborhood on the southwest side of Anchorage, had a run of spousal killings in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at a time when Alaska had no no fault divorce. The trial of Regina Bowker, who shot her husband in their Spenard trailer in 1959, pushed the phrase into general use. The neighborhood is named for Joe Spenard, an early settler who ran a lumber camp there.
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