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Like a majority of people
sitting on the ground floor at the Iroquois Theater,
a party of five hosted by Charles Hewitt Adolph
(1858-1916) escaped from the 1903 inferno.
With Charles in the party was his wife, Anna Dora
Zeigler Adolph (1861-1924), son Charles Harold
Adolph (1891-1967), daughter, Mabel H. Adolph
(1886-1976), and Anna's sister, Irene Zeigler Beath,
visiting from Louisville, KY.
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The Adolph family lived at
613 Englewood. Charles worked as a ticket
agent for the Alton-Frisco railroad. His
father had been a tailor and his mother, a Virginia
Hatfield, died before his twelfth birthday.
Daughter Mabel,
grew up to marry a dentist, Leroy "Roy" Knapp, and have a
daughter of her own, remaining in Cook County.
Charles Harold Adolph married Kate Carstairs and
became a telegraph operator for the Chicago-Alton
Railroad. He and Kate settled in the
Bloomington, Illinois area.
Irene Zeigler Beath (1872-1943)
Irene's husband was oil salesman
David Kern Beath, who commonly went by "D.K." or
"Kern." The pair moved around often in the
early 1900s, living in Chicago, Bloomington, IL,
Louisville, Kentucky in 1903, Atlanta in 1910 and
finally back to Bloomington. By 1916 Irene was
widowed and lived with her mother in law, Elizabeth
Beath. Like Anna, Irene and her family are
buried in Evergreen cemetery in Bloomington, IL.
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It seems that Irene and David
did not have children. When Anna died in 1924,
her wake was held at Irene's house, as was a
reception for Charles in 1931 when he married
Tacoma, WA girl, Kate Carstairs.
Mabel and Charles were heirs to Irene's $10,000
estate in 1943.
The Zeigler girls, Anna and
Irene, were two of four children born to Elizabeth
Bossler Zeigler (1843-) and John Phillip Zeigler
(1838). In 1880 John Zeigler, who commonly
went by his middle name of Phillip, was the town
marshall in Farmer, DeWitt County, Illinois.
Talking with a Telegraph Key
Charles Hewitt Adolph died of
cancer of the tongue and could not talk during his
final months. His son, the telegraph
operator, rigged up a telegraph key so his father
could communicate with his family.
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