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Gertrude Rosetta Falkenstein (b.1874)
Miss Falkenstein graduated from South Division High
School in Chicago then headed on to the University
of Chicago for training to become a teacher. In 1898
she was assigned to the Harrison elementary school.
Carter H. Harrison School
The 175 x 125 lot on Chicago's south side on 23rd Place, at the corner of
Wentworth Avenue, was purchased for $10,900. In Chicago school district #4,
Harrison was completed in 1889 at a cost of $52,000, replacing the old Wentworth Avenue school.
One year later, a $71,000 eighteen-room addition was under discussion. The principal of Harrison's
1,400 students was Orris J. Milliken.
Reportedly Gertrude's body was identified by Hugo O. Deuss (1856-), a forty-seven-year-old watchmaker who
emigrated from Germany to America in 1879. The
relationship between Deuss and Falkenstein is not
known.
Gertrude lived with her sister Margaret's family off
and on 1898-1903, at 6948 Princeton and 7218
Lafayette. Might be that the Dan Ryan now runs
through where their living room used to be. Gertrude
and Margaret were the daughters of Henry Falkenstein,
who immigrated to America in 1867.
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Lillian Rothe (b. 1893)
Ten-year-old Lillian Rothe was the only child of Otto and Margaret Rothe. She attended the Yale Practice
school at 70th street and Yale avenue, one of four schools that trained Chicago's future teachers.
Norman Corbin, another Iroquois victim, was a classmate of Lillian's, and his older brother,
Vernon Corbin, was also a student at the school.
Lillian's body was found at Rolston's mortuary and identified by either Edmund Druse or her father.
Reports were conflicting.
Otto Rothe (1858-1928) and Margaret Falkenstein Rothe (1869-) had married in Chicago in 1891. A
German immigrant, Otto was a bookkeeper working at Heissler & Junge Wholesale Baking Company, where
over 150,000 loaves of bread were baked daily. Margaret was born in Illinois, as was Lillian. In
1906, three years after the fire, Margaret gave birth to a son, Karl O. Rothe.
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