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Kathleen Middleton
Kathleen was one of five children born to John Alexander Middleton (1856-1945), a
Canadian native, and Jean Buchanan Murray Middleton (1861-1955). John was a general
freight agent for the "Frisco" system (
St. Louis San Francisco Railway) who had worked his way up from his job in
1883 as a ticket clerk. In addition to her parents, Kathleen was mourned by
two brothers and two sisters.†
Kathleen attended the Mary Institute in St. Louis (a
private secular school founded by Unitarian clergyman, William Elliot, named
to memorialize his daughter, who died at age seventeen).
The Wabash
Railroad train on which Kathleen rode to Chicago collided with another
train on route, killing the engineer and one passenger. She chose to travel
on to Chicago.
Kathleen's body was identified by a Frank C. Reilly,
relationship unknown. Her funeral was held at the Bofinger Chapel at Christ
Episcopal Church Cathedral, and she was buried at the new Wesleyan cemetery
in Bel-Nor, St. Louis. It was reported that her badly injured remains were
never viewed by her family.
One period source reported that the Middleton and Foltz families were
related, but I've not yet been able to verify that or learn the
relationship.
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Foltz family
Mary Reedy Foltz (b.1862) was the daughter of Patrick
and Ann Kilkenny Reedy. As a young woman, Mary worked for her uncle, James
W. Reedy, at his elevator manufacturing company in Chicago. She met her
future husband, Wisconsin native Charles Oliver "Ollie" Foltz (1863-1941),
when he came in to buy an elevator for his dry goods store in Antioch,
Illinois. They married in 1887. Four years later, Ollie's store was lost in
the burning of Antioch's Rogers block.
In 1900 Mary and Ollie operated a cafe in Chicago's
historic
Brewster Apartment building on Park and Diversey (today's North Pine
Grove) and lived in one of the apartments. By 1903 Ollie had headed west
with a case of mining fever while Mary remained behind to manage the
restaurant at the Brewsters.
Of Mary and Ollie's four children, three survived in
1903: fifteen-year-old Alice Foltz (b.1888) and thirteen-year-old Helen
(b.1890), both of whom died with their mother at the Iroquois, and the
youngest, Katherine Caroll Foltz (1893-1982). Katherine Foltz did not attend
the theater and went on to live a full life (see right).
The bodies of Mary, Helen
and Alice Foltz were identified by Mary's cousin,
thirty-three-year-old John T. Reedy (1870-). John
was an art supplies salesman and lived with his
well-to-do aunt, Ellen Reedy.
The Foltz family was buried at the Calvary Cemetery
in Evanston, IL following services at Mt. Carmel
church the Monday following the Iroquois tragedy.
Mary's husband and surviving daughter in the years after the fire
By 1910 Ollie Foltz moved to Santa Cruz, AZ and
daughter Katherine lived with his parents in
Burlington, Wisconsin. As a young woman Katherine
Foltz returned to Chicago and became a nurse. While
working at Cook County hospital in 1918, she met her
future husband, army surgeon, Dr. Ralph Willy. They
had six children and lived for many years in South
Dakota, eventually returning to Chicago while Ralph
furthered his medical education. Mary would probably
have been happy with the way Katherine's life turned
out.
By 1920 Ollie lived in Los
Angeles, owned a grocery store and had remarried.
His second wife, an Irish immigrant, was a school
teacher named Honora "Nora" Dunne, with whom he had
two children, Charlie Foltz Jr. and a daughter
identified as Mary Jane in the 1920 census and in
later sources as Nancy Jane. Two additional children
did not survive infancy. The marriage ended with an
annulment in 1921. Nora would remarry; Ollie would
continue having a problem with alcohol that seems to
have reoccurred several times in his life, both
before and after the Iroquois Theater fire.
By 1930 he lived in
Montana Camp (renamed Ruby and today a ghost town)
near Santa Cruz, AZ, where he was one of around 300
men prospecting lead and zinc. His son, Charlie,
lived with him there and worked in a mill. Charlie
Jr. left Ruby in 1938 and joined the U.S. Marines,
fighting at Iwa Jima during World War II. After the
war Charlie Jr. married, had two children, built a
sheet metal contracting business and wrote poetry,
all of which is far removed from the Iroquois
Theater fire but Ollie and Charlie Foltz were
interesting fellows:
Charlie J. Foltz Jr. in Ruby, AZ.
Info needed about
Middleton and Foltz members
How was Kathleen Middleton related to the Foltz
family? There were Middletons in Mary Reedy Foltz's
family in the 1600s. The Reedy girls' names did not
appear in lists of student victims, possibly
indicating they attended the same private school as
Kathleen Middleton in St. Louis. Mary's uncle,
elevator manufacturer James W. Reedy, could have
provided private school educations for his nieces.
What was the relationship between Kathleen Middleton
and the man who identified her body, Frank C.
Reilly?
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Twelve-year-old Donald Covert Wells (b.1891) was not
related to the Foltz or Middleton families. His connection to the others in
the party was that he also lived in Brewster Apartments. He was the only
child of Solomon P. Wells Jr (1861-1941) and Nellie Covert Wells
(1867-1928). Also living with the Wells family was his aunt, Nellie's
younger sister, Mary B. Covert.
Little was published about Donald's death. One reason for this may have been
early reports that the theater fire was caused by an exploding boiler.
Though that turned out to have been erroneous, Solomon Wells was a manager
in the Chicago office, and his brother was president of one of the world's
largest manufacturers of boilers, Babcock and Wilcox. The heat plant at the
Iroquois Theater was installed by the L. H. Prentice Company in Chicago and
may not have incorporated Babcock boilers at all but the possibility of the
fire being caused by a boiler problem might have been sufficient to keep
family members from granting interviews. In general; however, the Wells
seemed to have been a private family, their names rarely appearing in
society news, so discretion in the Iroquois tragedy may have been in keeping
with the family's habits.
Solomon Wells was from a Rhode Island family and
Nellie from a Pennsylvania family, both settling in the Parkersburg area of
Wood County in West Virginia. Solomon graduated from West Virginia
University in 1883 and they married in 1890. Donald was born the following
year. Possibly nicknamed Samuel, Solomon Wells managed the Chicago branch
office of Babcock and Wilcox, a manufacturer of water tube boilers located
in the Marquette building in Chicago. (The
company is still in operation). Solomon's brother, Edward Hubbard Wells,
was president of B&W. |
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Donald was one of 1,300 students at the Alcott School on Wrightwood and Orchard. Another Iroquois victim in the
Alcott student body was Hewitt
Persinger.
The Wells family had a summer home near Janesville, WI on Delavan Lake where power
boating and sailing were favorite pastimes.
The Well's sailboat was named Kitten.
Donald's body was found at Gavin's funeral home and identified by his father
with help of a monogram on the boy's handkerchief. Donald was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.
Nellie and Solomon were laid by his side in 1928 and 1941.
Four years after the Iroquois
Theater fire, on December 8, 1907, Nellie, Solomon and Mary came home from
an automobile ride to find their flat in smoldering ruins. They lived on the
seventh floor of the Lessing Annex at the corner of Evanston and Surf. The
fire was attributed to faulty wiring. First noticed by a passing street car
conductor, the fire was contained to two rooms. Most furniture and paintings
were destroyed but the Wells canary was rescued.
The Wells prospered financially but
did not have more children.
In 1942 nieces of Solomon Wells
tried to break his will, objecting to his bequest to Nellie's sister, Mary,
charging undue influence while he was in his dotage. At death his estate was
estimated at $400,000, of which Mary received over $200,000, the rest
divided between his sisters and their children.
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