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Married around 1879, but childless, Eva M. Wilcox and her
husband, Charles H. Wilcox (1854–1909), owned their
home at 109 South Leavitt Street in Chicago (near
the intersection with W. Monroe). They lived in one
of three flats and rented the other two.
Eva's body was located at Buffum's funeral home and
identified by her husband. Her funeral was held at
Rogerson's funeral chapel at 485 W. Madison in
Chicago mid-afternoon the Monday after the fire. She
was buried in Graceland Cemetery in the Wilcox
family plot with her mother- and father-in-law.
Except for the last few years of Eva's life, Charles
and Eva had shared their home with Charles's parents,
Horatio N. Wilcox (1804–1893) and Mary Ware Wilcox
(1815–1891). The pair lived long enough to see their
sons' names smeared in the newspaper as
pornographers and business scammers.
Charles worked off and on as a druggist and oculist,
possibly even as a dentist at the end of his life. I
found no evidence of training in any of these
fields; it was his commercial photography ventures
that got him into trouble.
In 1872 Charles and his older brother, Harry T.
Wilcox, went into the crayon photography business in
Chicago as the Wilcox Bros. Over the next thirty
years, the pair operated at least three companies,
sometimes simultaneously and occupying multiple
offices.
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Their known companies: Wilcox Bros., C. H. Burt
Company and the Great Western Art Company. The
ventures might have gone unremarked had they not
captured the attention of an enterprising Chicago
Tribune reporter named Nora Marks
— see below.
In the years after the fire
Nine months after the fire, a $10,000 wrongful death
suit was brought on behalf of Eva against Will J.
Davis and the Iroquois Theater. Presumably, it got
no further than the many other such suits.
Charles relocated to Peoria, Illinois for a time
and, around six months prior to his death, to St.
Joseph, Michigan, where he married a woman from
Canton, Illinois, Josephine Bleekman. At death, he
was buried alongside Eva. The death record filed for
him in Cook County contains so many details that are
inconsistent with information contained in other
records in his life that if the date of death did
not correspond with the date on his and Eva's grave
marker, I'd suspect it was for an altogether
different person. Perhaps there was much his bride
did not know about her husband.
This is the second time a crayon portrait studio has
come up in investigating Iroquois people. A few
years after the fire, Iroquois usher Archie Guerin
would be working for his brother Webster
Guerin's crayon studio and
become the primary witness against his accused killer.
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Girl reporter, Mary Eleanor "Nellie" StackhouseAtkinson
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The shoddy business practices of Eva
Wilcox's husband were exposed in two
investigative feature stories
in the Chicago Tribune newspaper around
1888.
One was about their soft porn business, the
other about their bogus
free-crayon-portrait offer. It should be
noted that Wilcox Bros was not unique in
selling overpriced picture frames via a
free-portrait offer. There were several
such firms, the others concentrated in
NYC. For Wilcox Bros, the effort to
franchise the concept ran into trouble
when a customer sued. The
stories were the work of a bold Chicago Tribune
reporter, Nora Marks (real name:
Eleanor "Nellie" Stackhouse
(1863–1942). A author and publisher of children's books, Nora
wasn't afraid to go the extra mile for a
story and sometimes went under cover.
To learn about the Wilcox Brothers she posed as a young woman responding to a
newspaper advertisement for photographic
models. (See below left.)
Nora's most successful book was Greyfriars
Bobby in 1912, about a Skye
terrier devoted to its master.
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Charles sold photographs of semi-nude models
Imagine you're a young woman struggling to make ends
meet, looking through newspaper classified ads for a job...
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Charles and his brother offered "free" crayon portraits — provided you purchased an over-priced frame
Imagine you're looking through your mail and find a letter...
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The many questions
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What was Eva M Wilcox's surname?
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Where, reportedly in 1879, were Eva and Charles
H. Wilcox married?
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Was Charles H. Wilcox born in New York as stated
in 1880 and 1900 US Census, or in Canada as
stated on his death certificate?
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What did the H stand for in Charles' middle name?
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Was Charles' mother born in New York as stated
in the 1800 Census, in Vermont as stated in the
1900 Census or, in Ireland as stated on Charles'
death certificate?
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Why can't Charles be found in US Census 1860 or
1870 living with his parents?
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Was Charles working as a dentist at the time of
his death, as stated on his death certificate?
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When, after 1895, did Henry T. Wilcox die? Was
he married? Was his middle initial T., F., or
C.? Each appear in various records.
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Did Charles and Henry's father, Horatio Wilcox,
work in his son's photography studio as reported
in 1887 Chicago city directory?
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Was Charles' father the Horatio N. Wilcox, who
lived in Utica, NY in 1860s?
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