Moore and La Rose family

The children were the daughters of Joseph W. La Rose (1867–1909) and Elvena Moore La Rose (1873–), and Mathilda Moore was Elvena's mother who lived with the LaRose family at at 833 N. Clark St. in Chicago.  The corner of Clark and Armitage, near Lincoln Park,  was shared with the Relic House.*

Joseph LaRose was a native of Canada who worked as a leather cutter in the shoe industry.

Josephine's and Matilda's bodies were located at Rolston's funeral home and Laura's at Horan's. One newspaper reported that the girl's mother Elvina also attended the theater, but lengthier stories did not include her.

Police compiled brief descriptions of victim belongings for newspaper publication on January 1, 1904.  When the list was compiled one hundred eighty bodies had yet to be identified and police hoped family members would recognize the belonging and contact police to learn which morgue to go to for body identification.

Emma Domann

Emma worked for the La Rose family as a domestic servant, possibly as caretaker of the three La Rose daughters.  Emma's father and Joseph La Rose were both in the leather business.  Her stated address in 1903 newspapers was that of the La Rose family — 833 N. Clark — suggesting she resided with the family.

Emma's younger sister, Bertha Domann (1884–1980), saw to locating Emma's body.  She searched for four days to winnow down unidentified female victims of the right size and weight to two corpses at Jordan's Undertaking.  Identification of Emma's naked body was finally verified by her dental fillings and a hip deformation.  Emma Domann was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago without a headstone. (Odd since her mother had been buried at the Waldheim/Forest Home Cemetery  five years earlier, but it may have been a financial decision.)  In October 1904, a $10,000 wrongful death suit was brought on Emma's behalf.

Emma Domann was one of seven children born to German immigrant Karl Franz Domann, Americanized to Charles Frank Domann (1852–1928), and the late Anna Stab Domann (1860–1898).  In the six years before the Iroquois Theater fire, Charles Domann had lost his leather jewelry case manufacturing business, Domann & Berns, to fire.  He lost his oldest child in 1902.  He was sued by the  the department store, John V. Farwell Co., for $20,000 (inflation adjusted).  And he had remarried after losing his wife and mother of his children.  Some genealogy compilations identify Charles F. Domann as Carl Franz Domann.

In the years after the fire

Joseph served on the organizing committee for the victim memorial service a year after the fire. After Joseph's 1909 death Elvena worked as a nurse.

Discrepancies and addendum

* The building that housed the La Rose's flat was later renumbered 1914 N. Clark.

Relic House figured prominently in La Rose family's neighborhood
The year after the 1871 Great Chicago Fire a man named Rettig salvaged all manner of materials from the ashes.  Most people saw his accumulation as trash but Rettig knew what all collectors know about treasure.  He incorporated the lot into a small cottage that over the next fifty-seven years became a Chicago landmark, first as a curiosity, later as a popular tourist stop, saloon, cafe and boarding house.  Rettig's first name is a mystery but others besides me have speculated that he was Albert Rettig (1834-1913).

Relic House was first erected at the corner of North Park Avenue and Center Street (known today as Armitage Avenue) but in 1880 was moved to North Park and Clark, opposite Lincoln Park, and ownership reportedly transferred to Philip Vinter.  It's various owners continued collecting remnants from Old Chicago, adding to the decor and grounds.  One such treasure was a painting by an unknown artist of people fleeing the fire as they crossed from north to south on the Rush Street bridge, carrying children, steering horses and wagons filled with belongings .
Relic House later became the property of William Lindemann who added a refreshment parlor. 
In 1890 Lindemann boasted that for enough money he'd relocated it to the 1893 Columbian Exposition grounds.  (It was mentioned in an exposition guide but remained on the Clark/Park point.)  In 1896 Lindemann announced the cottage would be rebuilt as a $50,000 ($1.8 million today) six-story boarding house with seventy rooms with bowling alleys, restaurant, roof garden and elevators, decorated with its collection of 1871 fire artifacts. Theodore Lewandowski.  The project did not happen, possibly due to financial difficulties; six months later, in June 1897, the building went on the market.  Lindemann still owned it in 1903, however, when he put it up as collateral against a five-year five-percent loan for $10,000 ($340,000 today).
By 1908 the Relic House was described as being at the north gateway of an area that had become a focal point for various kinds of retail attractions.
It was then leased by Dr. Ben Reitman for a couple years who operated it as a wannabe Dill Pickle Club. The next owner was Henry Schoellkopf who purchased Relic House in 1920 from P. Max Kuehnrich's estate for an estimated $25,000 ($374,000 today). Schoellkopf likely had little interested in the melted debree and artifacts of the Relic House decor. It was the last property he needed to complete his ownership of a triangular section of land on Clark, Lincoln Park West and Garfield Avenue that had taken from 1848 to 1915 to acquire.  In 1928 M. P. Morrissey of the Morrissey Oil Burner Company bought the block for an undisclosed sum from the $1.6 million ($28 million today) Schoellkopf estate.  For a photo-liscious recap of Relic House see drloihjournal's blog.

The year before the Great Chicago Fire German immigrant Albert Rettig (1835–, a carpenter, later a printer, boarded at 148 Larrabee in Chicago (today's 1109 Larrabee), an area destroyed by the fire.  He lived then one and a half miles from the location that would become home to the first Relic House.

In March, 1897 Albert married Wilhelmina "Minna" Koehler.  At age sixty-five in 1900 he was a saloon keeper and owned his home 33 Noble Ave, renting two units to boarders.  Ten years later he lived at 2327 Barney Ave, owned his home free and clear, again renting to two boarders.

Albert was the son of Adoph and Mary Rettig of Prussia.  His father was a stone mason — the perfect occupation to teach a son how to create a stone cottage embedded with bits of melted glass and metal parts from pre-1871 Chicago.

Enlarge 1895 map to see locations.

Story 2973