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On December 30, 1903, a
large party from Winnetka, Illinois, attended an afternoon
matinee of Mr. Bluebeard at Chicago's newest luxury playhouse,
the Iroquois Theater. When a stage fire spread to the
auditorium, nearly six hundred people died in America's worst
theater disaster. Among them was a twenty-four-year-old
servant named Eleanor Frandsen.
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Eleanor "Elna" Frandsen (b. 1880) worked as a domestic servant for the Charles
G. Bolte family in Winnetka, IL, about
sixteen miles north of Chicago.
She attended the theater with
her employer's thirteen-year-old daughter,
Linda Bolte, who also perished. The pair
may have been members of a large party from
Winnetka, including the
Fox family. (Or not. There were
discrepancies in newspaper reports about the Winnetka party,
with stories citing seven, eight and nine party
members, and five and eight
fatalities.
Elna's body was discovered at Postlewait's
Undertaking and identified by George
Rasmussen (1872-1936).
I believe it was the same George Rasmussen who
co-founded the National Tea Company in 1899.†
Elna was buried in Elk Horn,
Iowa in the Atlantic Cemetery. Several
fraternal organizations and other groups raised
money to assist families with burial expenses.
The Illinois Club covered transportation of Elna's
body to Iowa and raised $250* to help with burial
expenses. Her employer donated $20 and George
Rasmussen donated $10.
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Elna was born in Denmark and
emigrated to America in 1895. Her mother, Christina Frandsen (1851-1931), lived in Atlantic, Iowa with Elna's sister Henrietta's large family.
Five months earlier, Henrietta had named her
daughter Ella.
In 1900 Elna had worked for
the Joseph Eisendrath family‡ in New Trier. James
Frandsen, perhaps a brother, worked for the Boltes
as a gardener and may have helped Elna find the new
position at the Boltes in Winnetka. (I was not able
to find James after 1903, though he may have
relocated to Utah.)
Elna's new position at the
Bolte's was markedly different. At the Eisendrath's she was one of four servants, and there
were four children, all under age six. At the
Bolte, Elna was the only live-in servant, and the youngest
child was a teenager. The ten-year age
difference may have made Elna more like an older
sister to Linda than a servant.
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Discrepancies and addendum
* $7,300 today
† His grocery chain grew into
America's sixth-largest supermarket chain by the end
of WWII, with 880 stores. In 1903 George and
Elna were both single, around the same age and
natives of Denmark who immigrated in the 1890s.
‡
Henrietta and Natalie Eisendrath were among the
Iroquois Theater victims but I've not found evidence
they were related to Elna's former employer.
Note to self: This story and
the Bolte story should be combined.
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