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Sisters Mary Baldwin Stephenson and
Theresa Baldwin took acting lessons in
1903 and set off on stage careers that
brought them together in Chicago on
December 30, 1903, at the Iroquois
Theater. Theresa was in the
audience with cast members of another play being performed in the city that had
been suspended that day due to the funeral of its lead comedian, and Mary
was in the chorus
performing Mr. Bluebeard.
Theresa Jane Baldwin, age twenty-one, had been
performing in the chorus of The Billionaire
in Chicago until the unexpected death of
Jerome Sykes, caused the production
to be cancelled. Rather than attending his funeral the
afternoon December 30, 1903, some of his fellow cast members,
offered free tickets, attended a Mr. Bluebeard matinee.▼1 Theresa
Baldwin's enjoyment of the performance would have been keener because her
sister was in the cast.
Both sisters escaped from America's
worst theater disaster that afternoon;
but the details of their escape are not
known. They were among the lucky
performers who found new positions in less that a month,
performing in Winsome Winniein Pittsbrgh.
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Mary E. Baldwin Stephenson (1870–1944) was married
to printer and newspaper linotype compositor Leonard L. Stephenson (1865–1943).
According to 1891 marriage records in Massachusetts, before marriage she worked as a weaver.
Though some genealogy researchers disagree, my findings show that she and Stephenson divorced by 1910 and she married a
spinner in a mill, Alfred N. Law. (In 1901 he'd completed a
two-year course in worsted spinning at the
Lowell Textile School in Lowell, Mass, a member
of the second class to graduate from the school.) She then
married William Craven, a widowed carpenter.
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Theresa
Jane Baldwin (1882–1962), married Rolland Rolla Lester Halsted (1877–1951) in 1914. He was an
optometrist. His first marriage to Nellie E.
Woodford in 1906 had failed. Sometimes Jane went by
Jane, other times by Theresa. In 1908 she was
performing as a comedienne in The Serenaders
in Cincinnati. Her stage career lasted until at least 1913 (see news story at
right).
Jane and Rolla spent most of their lives in Pekin, Illinois. In
1920 her widowed mother lived there with them.
Theresa and Mary Baldwin Stephenson were born to English immigrants from New Bedford, Massachusetts,
Thomas and Anna Johnson Baldwin.
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1913 story in New York Clipper
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