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Forty-year-old engineer Nathaniel "Nat" M. Stark (1863-1935) and his
brother in law, Lynn Joe Tuttle (1864-1930), were partners in a bridge
-construction businesses in Des Moines, Iowa. Between Christmas and New
Year in 1903 they took their wives along on a business trip to Chicago,
the two couples staying at the Majestic Hotel.
While their husbands conducted business the afternoon of December
30th, sisters Minnie and Edith went to see Mr.
Bluebeard, a Christmas pantomime. It was a lavish production of aerial dancers,
elaborate lighting and hundreds of performers, at Chicago's newest
playhouse, the Iroquois Theater on Randolph Street.
The two couples had planned to board a train that evening to return to
Des Moines. Instead, Nat and Joe spent the evening looking through
hospitals and morgues for Minnie's and Edith's bodies. They had become
two of nearly six hundred victims of America's worst theater fire.
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The victims:
Thirty-eight-year-old Minnie S. Givin Stark (1865-1903)
Thirty-one-year-old Edith A. Givin Tuttle (1872-1903)
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Kids stayed home
At home were the Stark
children, twelve-year-old John F. Stark (1891-1973)
and eight-year-old Margaret "Peggy" Stark
(1894-1976). The Stark family lived at 1131 Ninth
Street in Des Moines. The Tuttles lived nearby, with
Edith and Minnie's mother, Margaret, in the home
where Minnie and Edith had grown up, at 905 Eighth.
She helped care for Edith's children, seven-year-old
Dorothy Tuttle (1896-1964) and three-year-old Lynn
J. Tuttle Jr. (1900-1961).
Waiting for another telephone call
Stark and Tuttle called Margaret Given to warn that her daughters had not
returned from the theater. While family in Des
Moines waited anxiously for an update, Nat and Lynn
stood in long lines during one of Chicago's coldest
winters to gain entrance to morgues and hospitals.
After looking at hundreds of deceased, they finally
found Minnie's badly burned body at Perrigo's
funeral home and Edith's slightly burned body at
Jordan's.
Givin girls
Minnie and Edith were the daughters of the late John Givin
(1832-1892), an early Rock Island Railroad
superintendent, and Margaret McDermott Givi n
(1839-1923). Margaret had lost a third daughter in
1900, so began 1904 with only one of her four girls
remaining — Clara, her eldest.
Margaret lived to see
all five of her grandchildren reach adulthood
and to cuddle at least five of her great-grandchildren
(see accompanying picture) .
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A private double funeral was
held three days after the fire on January 2, 1904.
Burial was in Woodland Cemetery in Des Moines.
The N. M. Stark & Company offices
in 1903 were in the Crocker Building
at the corner of 5th and Locust in Des
Moines. Nat had founded the
company in 1894 and Lynn Tuttle joined soon
after . One of the company's projects was
the bridge in Ames, Iowa over Squaw Creek,
connecting the town with the college.
Check out Bridge Hunter's info page about the
company's bridges.
Nearly twenty other Iowans died at the Iroquois
Theater, a half dozen from Des Moines.
In the years after the fire
Nat Stark and Lynn
Tuttle did not remarry. Lynn Tuttle continued an
avid hobby as an excursion bicyclist while Nat
focused on business with time out for boating,
fishing and hunting. Minnie's and Edith's daughters,
Peggy Stark and Dorothy Tuttle, graduated from Smith
College. Peggy married and had children, Dorothy
became an elementary school teacher and in 1928
opened a bookstore on 8th St. in Des Moines. Lynn
Tuttle Jr. went to Iowa State and John Stark became
an engineer and went to work for his fathers. The
Givins, Starks and Tuttles were part of Des Moines
society, their activities followed in Des Moines
newspapers. In 1919 Margaret Givin hosted a family
Christmas dinner attended by all the surviving Stark
and Tuttle family members. Perhaps memories of Edith
and Minnie were shared.
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