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Colorful wife
Frank's wife, Gertrude Louise Lewes Jandrew (c1887-1909),
was a chorus girl who performed for a few
years under the stage name Louise Elton. The pair
had married in April and Louise gave birth to their son,
Francis Jr., a few weeks before the Iroquois Theater
disaster.
Though Frank was not permitted to
return to New York with the company immediately
after the Iroquois fire, Louise attended the
homecoming party when the Bluebeard company's train
arrived in New York City. While there, she spoke to
a newspaper reporter and in a thoughtless moment,
joked that they were going to name their infant,
"Frank Bluebeard Jandrew." I found no evidence that
they did so.
The boy died of spinal meningitis when
he was six years old -- a few months after his
mother's death from a gangrene infection resulting
from a broken leg or spinal injury† incurred while
performing in Social Whirl at the Hyperian
Theater in New Haven, CT on October 9, 1909.
Louise was the oldest of three children born
to Ethel Temple (1870-1931) and Louis Lewis. A
nephew by marriage, Keith Rice, was also an actor.
A theater family
Francis Jandrew was one of twelve or thirteen children
born to Alexander Jandrew (1857-1920) and Anna Pack
Jandrew (1860-1921). His father founded Theatrical
Union No. 1 in NYC and was active in the
organization for over two decades. Several of
Frank's siblings worked as carpenters and electricians
in NYC theaters in the early 1900s. In 1898, before beginning his
carpentry career, Frank served in the U.S. Army
during the Spanish-American war.
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In the years after the fire
Louise performed in the chorus of "The Social Whirl" in
1906 and in 1908 in a stock company with Lulu Glaser
at the Lyric Theater in New York. In 1909 she
performed in the chorus of The Belle of Brittany
and may be among the performers in the top-most
photo.
In 1906 Louise and her mother
were shopping at the NYC branch of the Chicago-born
Siegel-Cooper department store. Mortar vibrated
loose from the interior walls of an elevator shaft,
fell down through the wire mesh ceiling of the
elevator car in which Ethel was riding, fell through
the mesh onto on Ethel's head and briefly knocked
her unconscious. She suffered various neural
injuries and two suits were brought against
Siegel-Cooper; one for her injuries and another for
her husband's loss of a companion. The cases were
found in their favor but the appeal went to the New
York supreme court and the awards were reduced from
$20,000 to $7,000. Nominal by today's standards but
the families of nearly six hundred other Iroquois Theater fire victims received zero.
Frank remarried after Louise's death but was widowed
once again. Between 1920 and 1930 he married and
divorced a third time. A son, Theodore, was born of
the second marriage in 1914.
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Discrepancies and addendum
Frank, Louise and their infant son lived at 345 East
31st Street in Manhattan in 1903.
* 1904 newspapers misspelled Frank's name as Frank
J. Andrews. The name was sometimes
spelled as Gendreau.
† The information about gangrene comes from a
descendent who connected it to a broken leg.
1909 newspapers reported that Louise suffered a
spinal injury but another actress in the company,
Elizabeth Brice, also fell and was reported to have
incurred a spinal injury. Seems like too many
spinal injuries in one gig.
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