In 1890 at age twenty-four, Carrie Mahr
(1866–) married the widowed father of four
children, aged three to nine, harness maker
Andrew Hartmann (1855–1893). Two years
later, in 1892, Carrie bore a daughter,
her namesake. Andrew died the following
year, and Carrie took up raising five
children on her own, certainly grateful for
the building Andrew left them at 5705 S.
Halstead where he had operated his harness
business, with space in the back for the
family to live
On December 30, 1903, Carrie and at least
one of the children, twenty-two-year-old
John Steve Hartmann (b. 1881), attended a
Mr.
Bluebeard pageant
at Chicago's newest playhouse, the Iroquois
Theater. It seems likely others of Carrie's
children and John's siblings were also at
the theater, particularly eleven-year-old
little Carrie and sixteen-year-old Andy
Hartmann (1887–1978).
All in the Hartmann theater party except John
escaped the inferno.
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