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Nothing was reported in major newspapers about
Joseph D. Norris Jr surviving the Iroquois Theater
fire, but LaPorte, Indiana historian, Fern Schultz,
cited his name in a 2011 news story. As chief history archivist for the community,
Fern has access to stories about the disaster that appeared in
local newspapers and have not been scanned for
online distribution.
Forty-year-old Joseph D. Norris Jr. (1863-1918)
lived in LaPorte County, Indiana in 1903, his
hometown since childhood. All that is known about
his trip to the Iroquois is that he sat on the
ground floor.
He was one of four children born to Joseph D. Norris and
Catherine Mills Norris. Most of his life he
described himself as a surveyor. He did work in that
capacity in 1907, compiling and publishing an atlas of
La Porte County, but the occupation that turns up most
often in the scanty amount of information found about
him is that he was a steeple jack, doing repair and painting on
industrial smokestacks, water tanks, flag poles and
steeples. A steeple jack with a drinking problem.
Joseph's timeline
1884 worked as a teacher. Played a $5
practical joke on a friend, a joke that looked too
much like blackmail. Was sentenced to a year in the
Michigan City penitentiary. Granted an appeal,
results not reported.
1888 patented a cutter bar for reapers and
mowers.
1890 married Margaret Laughlin, a fellow
Indiana native. They did not have children.
1900 worked as a milk dealer
1902 living in Michigan City, north of
LaPorte
1904 injured while repairing a smokestack at
Republic Iron and Steel in East Chicago. Blown into
the air, reportedly 100 feet. Injuries described as
serious but survived. Maybe fell on his head.
Maybe the estimate of 100 feet was hooey. Keep
reading.
1906 accused of home burglary, stealing
$2,000 worth of jewelry in Hammond, Indiana, near
Gary. Confessed he'd sold the jewelry to a Chicago
saloon keeper for $29. Newspapers reported he was
from Liverpool and a sailor. Maybe living in
Liverpool, Indiana at the time. Suspect seaman angle
was interjected when he talked about using a bosun's
chair in his work.
1907 claiming to be 65 years old, appealed to
a Chicago police station to give him night's
lodging. Also claimed to have climbed the Eiffel
tower and worked the world over as a steeple jack
after leaving his Iowa home forty-five years earlier, and to
have wasted a $100,000 fortune in earnings to
alcohol. If police recognized him as the fellow who
burgled jewelry a year earlier, it wasn't reported
but has to have been Joseph. How may steeple jacks
can there have been in Chicago-NW Indiana named
Joseph D. Norris?
1916 filed for bankruptcy.
c1917 moved to Gary.
1918 while supervising a construction crew at
the Aetna Powder Company, a Gary, Indiana munitions and dynamite
manufacturer, he leaned against an
electric switch or wire (both reported by various
newspapers) and was electrocuted. Didn't say whether
he was hanging on the side of a smokestack at the
time.
Fourteen LaPorte County Indiana Iroquois Theater fire victims and survivors
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
