Ten Englewood High School students lost their lives at the Iroquois Theater. Of them,  seven were in a party hosted by Helen McCaughan. The eighth, Ella Freckelton, went to the theater with her older sister, Edith, and the ninth, Elva Fowler, went to the theater with her cousin and uncle,  Arthur and Henry Richardson. 
The tenth Englewood student was Florence Dow, who attended the theater in a party of five. Two in her party survived — her cousin, Harriet Zerbe Vorwert, and Harry Akin. The other three in the party lost their lives. They were Florence Dow, Catherine Payne, and Emily Matchate (see numerous alternate spellings below) who was housekeeper for Harry Akin's father, John J. Akin.
The party sat in the second-floor balcony in the second row from the back, two aisles from the exit (doorway nos. 32 & 33). Hattie was in the last seat on the aisle and Florence was five seats away.

I like to research by parties who attended the Mr. Bluebeard matinee together because seeing them in relation to their friends and family helps paint a fuller picture of individuals. In this case, however, that benefit is limited because I've failed to find connecting links. A lengthy interview with Vorwerk appeared in Akron newspapers (see above) and provides all that is known of the party. Dow and Vorwerk were cousins. Akin and Matchate were housemates. However, how did Akin or Payne connect to Dow and Vorwerk? Dow and Akin were about the same age. Had they attended school together? A budding romance, maybe? Akin was a pianist. A shared appreciation for music? Harry Akin's father worked as a traffic manager in the railroad industry, as had Florence Dow's late father. 

 Florence B. Dow (b.1886)

In November, 1901 Rebecca Margaret Zerbe Dow (1853-) had lost her husband, George L. Dow (1843-1901). Two years later, she lost her seventeen-year-old daughter. (The photo above provided to the newspaper shows Florence at a much younger age.)

Initially it was thought that Florence's brother, Robert B. Dow (1888-), had attended the theater too and was missing, but it turned out he had been ill and did not attend the theater. (He grew up and became an architect, living with his widowed mother in Denver. Also living in Denver then was his aunt Harriet Zerbe Vorwert see left. Twenty-five years later, newspaper retrospectives described he and his sister as the niece and nephew of Hattie Vorwert, rather than as her cousins, and reported that he'd gone to the Iroquois. An example of 1903/4 errors respawning.)

Prior to 1901, life for the Dows may have seemed pretty good. George Dow worked as chief clerk for the accounting department of the Chicago Railway Transfer Association. He was responsible for auditing and paymaster with an office in the Exchange Building in the Union Stock Yards. The family could afford to own their home at 642 West 60th St. in Chicago. A decade later found his widow living with their son, Robert, in Denver.

Although Harriett Vorwert reported that her husband, Fredrick Vorwert, identified Florence's body at Rolston's Funeral Home, by her hair and skirt, other reports credited Frederick H. Dow, who lived in Chicago with his wife and son. Reportedly Florence's body showed no evidence of trampling and it was assumed she died of asphyxiation.

Catherine Payne (b.1868)

Thirty-five-year-old Catherine's body was found and identified at Jordan's funeral home by her husband, James H. Payne.  They lived at 357 W. Garfield in Chicago.  Nothing else is known about Catherine or her husband.

Emily / Amalie / Amalia / Emla
Machette / Matchette / Mashate / Machate / (born c.1854-1861)

Emily was around forty-nine years old at the time of her death. She lived at 686 (or 636) W. 60th St. in Chicago. Her body was identified by her employer, Harry's father, John J. Akins.
A German immigrant, Emily had come to America in 1891. I suspect she is the woman identified as a single female passenger named Amalie Machate, age thirty-four, who arrived in New York on September 21, 1891 aboard the steamship Normannia. She was buried in Chicago's first Jewish cemetery, Mount Mayriv, within the Zion Gardens Cemetery in Lincoln Park.
In addition to a range of name spellings, in some newspapers she was reported as being twenty-one years old.
Arriving in America after the 1880 U.S. census, since the 1890 census records were destroyed by fire, the only census information that included Emily was in 1900 when she lived with the Akins family. Perhaps a descendant or someone with a world-access subscription on Ancestry will pop in one day and share information about her. I looked for the various name spellings in several years of Chicago city directories in hopes of finding relatives or Emily herself prior to her employment by John Akins, but found nothing.

Harry Akins

Seventeen-year-old Harry lived with his widowed father, John J. Akins, a traffic manager for the J.V. Farwell Company, and their housekeeper, Emily Matchate. His mother, Mary Jane Akins, had died when Harry was nine years old.
Harry stood 5' 6", weighed 150 lbs, had grey hair and a ruddy complexion. So said his WWI draft registration card.
Harry and his father may have become estranged in the years after the fire. Though Harry was by then of age, days before John's death in April 1916 John had a new will drawn up that left $10 to Harry and named John's sister as executor of his estate. In the 1880s John had worked as a bank cashier but by 1916 worked for the railroad fire department and his estate was probably small. Still, Harry was his only child. Looks like he wanted his son to feel the slight. Not hard to imagine scenarios in which a former banker and a piano player had alternate life views.
After a year of college, Harry became a pianist in theaters and moved to Skagit, WA, then settled in Portland, OR where he worked as a theater manager for the next thirty or so years, occasionally functioning as director of semi-amateur orchestras. In 1922 he married a Minnesota girl, Olga A. (1897-1890).

Harriet "Hattie" Zerbe Vorwert (1879-1911)

Age twenty-four in 1903. Just over two months earlier she'd given up her job as a stenographer in an Akron insurance agency, Hall & Harter, to marry Frederick Vorwerk (1881-1917), and had moved to join him in Chicago where he worked as lithographic artist. In so doing she was making a commitment to a man with good prospects but some baggage. See sidebar below.
Hattie was the daughter of Akron resident, Elizabeth Corbett Zerbe, and the late William Zerbe. William was the brother of Margaret Zerbe Dow, Florence Dow's mother, making Hattie and Florence cousins. Harriet had two sisters, Georgette and Vesta, and two brothers, William jr and Howard Zerbe.
In the years after the fire, Harriet bore three children. She and Fred moved west to Denver in hopes of relieving his tuberculosis. Hattie died of a stroke at age thirty-two, and Fred followed six years later.

Other discussions you might find interesting