In the "Odd coincidences" department, this family's story involves a woman named Byrd and one nicknamed Birdie.

On December 30, 1903, a Chicago mother, twenty-nine-year-old Birdie Dryden, hosted an afternoon theater party for her twelve-year-old son, Taylor, and a teenaged visitor from St. Louis, Robert Caldwell.  A few hours later, Birdie's husband, John Dryden, identified the body of his wife and son, while an uncle traveled to Chicago from St. Louis to identify Robert Caldwell's body.  The Caldwell boy was identified by a custom engraving on a watch that had been a Christmas gift.

Susan Girrard Taylor Dryden (b. 1869) , nicknamed Birdie, was one of four children born to Judge William Roley Taylor (1823–1903) and Susan Garrard Peers Taylor (1834–1925).

In 1890 Birdie married John Dryden Jr. (1865–1932) and a year later gave birth to their only child, Taylor Dryden (b.1891). The Dryden family moved to Chicago from Farmington, MO in 1902 or 1903. In Chicago, twelve-year-old Taylor Dryden attended the Ray elementary school on 57th and Monroe (today's Kenwood) in Hyde Park.  ( See sidebar.)

At the time of Birdie and John's marriage, John (also known as Jack) was in business with Birdie's father, Judge William Taylor. The judge had previously owned a 1,250-acre mine known as the Taylor Mine that he sold to the Doe Run Lead Company. He then purchased 1,295 acres in Flat River near Farmington, MO area, and hired John Dryden to drill a 200-ft shaft. Following the discovery of ore, they formed the Flat River Lead Mining Company, capitalized with $350,000 ($9 million adjusted for inflation). Though Taylor was the majority shareholder, Dryden had a small piece and was an officer in the new company, as well as the general manager. They hired one hundred men, built processing facilities, housing, and two company towns, Leadville and Taylor Place. In 1898, when water in the mine became a costly problem, Judge Taylor sold the property to St. Louis Smelting and Refining (sometimes called "the National"). SLS&R sank a new, deeper shaft. Sometime after that, John Dryden and his family moved to Chicago where he worked as a salesman for Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co. hardware.

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Four years after losing his wife, child and business partner, John Dryden married eighteen-year-old Marjorie Pitts.  The pair had a daughter and he spent his final years in New York City, NY.

Other Iroquois victims from the William H. Ray school included two teachers, Florence White and Daisy Livingston, and another student, Bessie Boice.  In 1914 the Ray school students and staff were moved a block away to the Ray school's present structure on South Kimbark Avenue (the former Hyde Park High School structure).  In the 1940s Bixler Park replaced the original Ray school structure on 57th and Monroe.

As revealed in the January 1, 1904 clipping at left, Taylor Dryden's body was found at Jordan's Funeral Home.   He carried a notebook his father must have brought home from his job at Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett (HSB).  It may have been a slim version of the 236-pg Want Book from 1901 shown above with intermittent lined pages for note taking.

HSB catalog marketing in the early twentieth century reminds me a bit of Sears Catalogs as I remember them from the 1970s in that a main catalog was flanked by a wide variety of specialty catalogs.  If you appreciate mechanical illustrations you'll enjoy Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett's 1891 catalog.  In addition to many delightlfully precise illustrations, the company tried on color printing.   The catalog includes a selection of 110 birdcages (!), reflective of the popularity of bird pets in the Victorian era.  A bit of reading tells me that they didn't just collect parakeets, canaries and parrots; song birds, doves and ravens were also popular.  So popular, in fact, that in 1895, to protect various species, London regulated the months in which birds could be caught.

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