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Seventeen-year-old Jessie M.
Dillon (1886-1911), her father, fifty-six-year-old
Frank Dillon, and two brothers, nineteen-year-old
Frederick Dillon (1883-1965) and nine-year-old
Haradon "Harry" Dillon (1894-1931), were sitting in
the second floor balcony in the Iroquois Theater.
Jessie was first in her
party to see the fire and called it to the attention
of her father and brother. They shushed her, saying
it was part of the performance. Many in the audience
made that mistake in the early minutes of the fire.
When the entire curtain was blazing, her father picked her up in his arms,
Frederick picked up Harry, and the foursome headed
for the exit.
Among the last to escape
that balcony, the Dillons did not encounter a
problem until reaching the front lobby, where two of
nine doors were locked.
The crush of the crowd pushed Jessie through one of
the doors into the vestibule.
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The Dillon family owned
their home at 416 West Seventieth Place in the
Englewood area, and the children probably attended
Englewood High School. Francis "Frank" Marion
Dillon (1847-1943), a mail agent, and his wife,
Alice Experience Merrill Dillon (1854-1941) had
married in 1879. All the family members were
Illinois natives. Francis and Alice's eldest son,
twenty-two-year-old Edgar, did not attend the
theater with the family.
In the years after the fire
Fred Dillon married, had two children, and became a lighthouse inspector
in South Carolina. He served in the Coast Guard
during both World War I and World War II and was
buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington.
Jessie married in 1909 and died two years later at
age twenty-three.
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