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The injured parents were Henry Schmalz Van Ingen Sr.
(1847 – 1924) and Emma Comstock Lawton Van Ingen
(1852-1932). They had been married for twenty-six
years. They lived at 378 Park Avenue in Kenosha and,
for most of their lives, were able to afford a
household servant. In 1901 one of those, Miss
Belcher thought quickly and tore down a flaming
bedroom curtain to contain an accidental fire at the
Van Ingen home. The frenzied crowd prevented Henry
and Emma from returning to the stairwell to find
their children or back inside the theater. They went
to the Sherman House Hotel and were taken to the
Presbyterian hospital from there for treatment of
their burns.
The Van Ingens had two other children, one who died
in childhood and Henry Schuyler Van Ingen Jr.
(1878 – 1962). Henry Jr., who worked at Marshall
Fields Department store in Chicago, was to join his
family for dinner at the
Wellington Hotel
after the matinee. He went by his middle name.
Henry Van Ingen Sr. was retired from a career in
civil engineering as a manager in the coal industry.
In an odd coincidence, his offices had at one time
been located in a building on the Iroquois Theater
site. He was an avid golfer and Whist player and
enjoyed scrapping in the courts over his properties.
He was active in the local Republican party and the
Sons of the American Revolution.
Emma Van Ingen was a native of Rhode Island, the
daughter of Edward W. Lawton, sister of Charles E.
Lawton. She was interested in colonial homes and a
member of the Kenosha Women's Club. Not much else is
known about her. She appears to have been as
reclusive as other Van Ingen family members were
extroverted.
The funeral for Grace, John, Ned, Margaret, and
Elizabeth was held at St. Matthews Church in Kenosha
on the afternoon of January 2, 1904. Reverend C. L.
Mallory officiated. The Kenosha News miss reported
that the burials were in Kenosha, but today the
family's burial plot is in the Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery in Yonkers.
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Perhaps the bodies were relocated. The Van Ingen family was buried in the
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in the family's hometown,
Westchester, NY, alongside Charles Van Ingen, a son
who had died in 1891. Henry, the Van Ingen's only
surviving child, joined his family at Sleepy Hollow
in 1962.
In the years after the fire
A year after the fire, on
the last date at which liability suits could be
filed, the Van Ingen's joined forty-nine others in
bringing suit against various entities who
contributed to the Iroquois Theater disaster. The
Van Ingen suit was different than the other suits,
most of which only brought suits for the deaths of
loved ones. The Van Ingen's also brought suit for
injuries to Henry and Emma, for a total of seven
suits of $10,000 each. The Van Ingen's made a point
of casting a wider net than most, too, suing both
local and distant Iroquois Theater owners, as well
as Fuller Construction. Years later, the Van Ingen
family received two of the thirty-five $750
settlements distributed by Fuller Construction. By
then, the Van Ingens were far away from the Midwest,
living in New York. They sold the contents of their
large home at auction on October 29, 1904, and the
Mrs. Gibbons Boarding House moved in.*
It was reported that it was too painful for the Van
Ingens to return to their home in Kenosha, site of
so many memories. Those memories weren't limited to
their house on Park Avenue. If a family can be
"extra," the Van Ingens were such a family. Family
members' names appeared in Kenosha newspapers
several times a week for years. They were engaged in
sports, commerce, religion, politics, and society.
If it happened in Kenosha, at least one Van Ingen
was apt to be involved. For Emma and Henry,
returning to the city would have been like being in
a pinball machine, batted about by memories every
time they moved. I merely scanned the newspaper
stories and, when done, felt the Van Ingen's grief
would swallow the town.
In 1914 Schuyler married Louise Van Natta. The Van Ingen
dock property, two hundred feet on Main St. in
Kenosha, was sold in 1921, soon followed by other
family property, including the Van Ingen Farm, Van
Ingen Woods, and Van Ingen Beach.
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