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A family is like a pond and death is like a stone into it,
making ripples that impact survivors for decades. Because
people attend the theater in company with others,
the Iroquois fire resulted in multiple fatalities
for most families, and the rippling was more like a
tsunami. As a result of the deaths in this one Iroquois
party of four, one man lost his wife, both sons and
his stepdaughter. Parents lost a daughter and three
of their five grandchildren. Another man lost his
only daughter. Another his mother, sister and two
half brothers. A woman lost her sister, a niece and
two nephews. A man lost his aunt and three cousins.
Four deaths produced twenty-one lost relationships just
among immediate family members.
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The victims:
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Louisa Kehres Bogg Corbin, age 37
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Mamie Bogg, age 17
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Vernon Corbin, age 12
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Norman Corbin, age 10
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Born in 1865, Louisa Kehres was the youngest daughter of
German immigrants, John Kehres (1831-1909) and
Ernestina "Christina" Kehres (1839-1909).
At nineteen, Louisa married William Thomas Bogg
(1861-1954). Their son, Harry Joseph Bogg
(1884 -1936), was born soon thereafter, followed by
Mary Louise "Mamie" Bogg in 1886. Mamie was named
after her aunt and her nickname probably came about
to avoid confusion. The two women lived in the
same household.
William Bogg was from a large family that emigrated
from England when he was a toddler. He worked as a
bookkeeper at the Armour company in the Chicago
stockyards.
The marriage was not successful and in March 1891, Louisa
and William divorced. Louisa remarried that same
year, to Victor V. Corbin (b. c1865), a
flour salesman for the Pillsbury company. It was a
second marriage for Victor. The identity of his
first wife is not known.
The divorce was amicable enough that nine years
later, in 1903, ex-husband William and their
daughter, Mamie, lived in the same house at 6933
Princeton. Louisa's parents and sister lived with
them. They were John and Christina Kehres, and Mary
Louise Kehres Hinckley (1861-1923). Mary Louise had
married a Spanish immigrant, Carlos "Charles" B.
Hinckley (1859-1924), the same year Louisa married
Victor Corbin, 1891.
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With Victor, Louisa bore two sons, Norman W. Corbin (b.
1893) and Vernon W. Corbin (b. 1891). In 1903 the
Corbin family lived at 6938 Wentworth in Chicago.
Norman and Vernon attended the Yale Practice School.
On December 30, 1903, Louisa, then thirty-seven
years old, took ten-year-old Vernon, nine-year-old
Norman, and seventeen-year-old Mamie to a Christmas
matinee performance of Mr. Bluebeard at
the Iroquois Theater. All four perished.
The task of identifying the bodies of his wife and sons
fell to Victor Corbin and his brother in law,
Charles Hinckley. Mamie's remains, taken to Gavin's
Mortuary, could have been identified by her father
or uncle Hinckley. She was buried in Mr. Hope
Cemetery in Chicago.
William Bogg remarried four months after his
daughter Mamie's death, to Iola "Ola" Mackie. He
lived to age ninety-three and moved to California after Ola's
death in 1962.
Victor Corbin became the sales manager of the
western division for Pillsbury Flour. In 1918 he
co-founded the Corbin Flour Co. and a decade later
the Marek Oil Company, to prospect for oil in New
Mexico.
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