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Thirty-four-year-old Clara was the wife of William
A. Mills (1864-1928) and had two daughters,
five-year-old Ruth and eight-year-old Mildred
Elizabeth.
The family rented a flat in the Lincoln Park area of
Chicago at 628 Sedgwick St., since renumbered as
1924 Sedgwick, and still standing.
William identified his wife's body. Newspapers did not
report the identity of Clara's theater companions.
Perhaps her husband and/or her children. Perhaps he took
charge of the children and Clara was swept
under by the crowd. Alternatively, if she was at
the theater with the children and her husband
wasn't with them, there were
reports of children being passed out through the
crowd.
William Mills
worked as a foreman at Wilder & Co. a leather
tanning company at 212 Lake owned by John E. Wilder.
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Clara was the daughter of
Benjamin and Emma Laflin Robinson. She had at least
two siblings, brothers Leon and Fred. The family was
from Massachusetts but in 1900 were living in
Chicago. Her father also worked in leather
manufacturing.
In the years after the fire
Clara's daughters, Mildred and Ruth, went to live
with Harriet and Paul Bruso, their aunt and
uncle (their father's older sister and her
husband), in Worcester Massachusetts west of Boston. By 1918
they lived with their father and his new wife, Marian
Fish (1873-1942). He worked then as a sole cutter in
a shoe shop.
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