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The Garns and Wolffs were the daughters and
grandsons of a wealthy and prominent Chicago
industrialist, Ludwig Wolff, founder of plumbing
fixture manufacturer, L. Wolff Manufacturing Co.
(See photo montage below.) Lucy was the
product of Ludwig's first wife, Elizabeth Geils
(1839–1874), and Harriet of his third wife,
Augusta Wodrich (1851–1907).
Lucy's husband, Frank Warren Garn (1864–1947), a
native of Toledo, Ohio, was corporate secretary in
one of her father's companies, the Eclipse Pulley
Covering Company. The Garns lived at 321 W. Monroe
St. Before becoming involved in his father-in-law's
industrial ventures, Frank Garn described himself as
a concert singer. Lucille may have been pregnant
with Frank jr. at the time of her wedding. There
were no announcements of an engagement and the
modest Tuesday afternoon ceremony took place almost
nine months to the day prior to his birth.
Body identification and funerals
The Wolfe family searched morgues and hospitals
for the bodies of Lucy and the boys until the
city closed the morgues around midnight.
Police and morgue workers needed time to shift
bodies, and organize victim lists. The
bodies of Lucy, Frank jr., Willie and Harriet were found
the next day.
The funeral for Harriet, Lucy, and her boys was held on Sunday,
January 3, 1904, at her father's home at 1319
Washington Blvd. The family was buried in the
Metzgar Cemetery in Helena, Ohio, near Sandusky.
In the years after the fire
Frank Garn remarried in 1909, to Jeanette Adams.
They had three children, including a daughter
given a middle name of Lucille.
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Bertha Burke
Though some early newspaper reports referred to her
as a thirty-seven-year-old named Mary Burk,
subsequent reports and her death certificate cited
Bertha Burke, aged forty-five. Her address was given
once as 831 W. Monroe but more commonly as 911 W.
Monroe. The 831 W. Monroe address
was that of Margaret Fry Garn, Frank Garn's
mother, who had died four months before the Iroquois
Theater fire.
Bertha was a guest of the Garn's at the theater
at the suggestion of Harriet Wolfe, Lucy's
Garn's sister.
Bertha's funeral was held at Reeseville, Wisconsin,
on Jan 4, 1904. Reeseville had been the Burke
family's most recent hometown. The sister cited in
the newspaper clipping above was Ella Burke Ames,
who in 1898 had married Watertown, Wisconsin
undertaker and furniture dealer, William H. Ames.
Bertha and Ella were the daughters of Richard Burke.
Bertha was one of three Iroquois victims who were
natives of Dodge County, Wisconsin, the other two
being
Anna and Orleana Moak of Watertown.
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Known as the "Enamelware King,"
Ludwig Wolff's impressive 1893–1904
catalogs included color plates
and copious quantities of illustrations rendered with precision.
Some illustrators and engravers carried
copies in their portfolio for decades, to be
sure. The man who paid to produce them
took pride in his products and respected his
customers. In a former life yours
truly helped produce many product catalogs.
Assembling 300 pages of images and
specifications was not a project for sissies
in the days without computers. Doing
so comprehensively and with a committment to
visual appeal is the hope of many an
artist/copywriter/project supervisor but
actually achieving that goal requires that
the person paying the tab shares the view.
In 1910 Ludwig Wolff employed seven
domestic servants at his home at 1319
Washington Blvd (renumbered in 1909 to
3040), including a cook, maid, coachmen,
blacksmith, chauffeur, secretary and nurse.
In total, Including Ludwig, there were
eighteen occupants of the home.
His $1,250,00 estate in 1911 would today be
$39,000,000.
Lengthy Ludwig Wolff obituaries omitted mention of his daughters and grandchildren lost at the Iroquois Theater
eight years before.
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