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Fanny
Twenty-eight-year-old Frances
"Fanny" M. Lehman▼1 died
at the hospital. She was the daughter of Ohio
natives Amelia S. Abel Lehman and the late George
Lehman (who had died sometime 1900–1903). Fanny
taught at the Henry H. Nash school▼2 and lived at 423
N. Austin with her mother and several grown
siblings. Her body was identified by her brother,
thirty-eight-year-old Milo B. Lehman (1863–1948) The funeral
was held at her mother's home on N. Austin, and the
burial was at the Forest Home Cemetery in Chicago.
Frances had an insurance policy in the amount of
$1,008.77.
Amelia and George Lehman had married in 1851 and had twelve
children, all born in the Dayton, Ohio, area. In
Chicago, George worked on the railroad and the Lehmans owned their home on N. Austin. Their
children worked as tradesmen and laborers.
McClure brothers
Nineteen-year-old George P. McClure (1884–1945) had
moved away from home and in 1903 was living on
Jefferson Avenue.
Lawrence R. McClure's funeral
was held Saturday, January 2, 1904, and he was
buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Chicago. Lawrence
(b.1890) and his older brother George were the sons
of Fanny Lehman's sister, Lida Lehman McClure
(1866–1916), and her husband, postman, and civil war
veteran, Charles R. McClure (1847–1923). George Jr.
identified his brother's body. I have not yet found
a photo of Lawrence, but if he resembled his brother
George, he had a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, light
brown hair, and was of medium build and height.
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Eldridge brothers
Curtis Lamonte "Monte" Eldridge
(b. 1878) and his younger brother, Harry
Orestes Eldridge (b. 1886), bunked at his George McClure's place during their holiday in Chicago.
Monte worked on Pullman cars for Illinois
Central, running between Chicago and New Orleans.
The Eldridge boys were the sons of a civil war vet,
sixty-three-year-old George Eldridge (1839–), and
Mary Hart Eldridge (1852–). The family
hailed from Mattoon, Illinois, a
small town about three hours south of Chicago.
Monte had just turned twenty-five a week before
his death; and Harry had turned nineteen on November 1, 1903.
Monte's body was found at Sheldon's funeral home.
Though badly burned and unrecognizable, papers in
his pocket enabled identification by a fellow named
Harry Messer. Messer was an Eldridge family friend
from Mattoon. He and four others from Mattoon went
to Chicago to help in the search for Harry's body.
For several days while George and Mary grieved over
the death of their oldest boy, they prayed that
Harry, their youngest, would be found at a hospital.
After searching every location where there were
living Iroquois victims, the search was concentrated
on the morgues. One body had Harry's general size
characteristics but was burned and trampled beyond
recognition. Messer phoned Harry's parents and
requested identifying information. Model information
about Harry's recently purchased Ralson-brand health
shoes procured from George Shaw, a Mattoon shoe
store, was sent and matched to a body. Upon further
examination of clothing, they found Harry's pocket
watch.
In the years after the fire
Fanny's and Lawrence's mothers brought $10,000
wrongful death suits against the Iroquois.
George McClure married in 1914. His wife, Irish
immigrant Katherine Lavelle McClure, died eight
months after the death of their only child, George
V. McClure Jr. George and Lawrence's mother, Lida,
died in 1916, and their father remarried a widow
with two grown children.
Con claimed connection to Eldridge boys
A female con artist with many alias' claimed she'd sat across the aisle and had been
speaking to the Eldridge men moments before the fire broke out but their story had been
published in newspapers. She also claimed to have been in Chicago planning to
spend time with a restaurant owner named George W. Ferguson who was a cousin of the
Eldridge boys. The boy's mother, Mary, did have distant relatives named Ferguson
but in a cursory search I found no direct connection between Mary and George W.
Ferguson.
The woman lied so outrageously that newspapers soon caught on and ran
stories exposing her.
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Discrepancies and addendum
Multiple reports were published in the Mattoon,
Illinois newspaper about the Eldridge boys and
George McClure, but I've yet to verify that Fannie
Lehman and Lawrence McClure sat with George and the
Eldridges. Since it was very uncommon for single
women to attend the theater alone and even more
uncommon for a thirteen-year-old boy to attend
the theater alone, it isn't hard to imagine that
Aunt Fannie took nephew Lawrence to see the
Christmas pageant. On the other hand, she may
have attended the theater with school teacher
friends, and Lawrence may have had the treat of
an outing with his older brother and his
grown-up friends from Mattoon.
1. One newspaper injuries list, in addition to Fanny
Lehman, cited a Lehman, Miss M. struck on the head
by a falling beam. This may have been one of
Fanny's sisters, Marietta Lehman (1866–1947).
2. The Henry Nash school at 4837 W. Erie St. was
designed by Board of Education architect W. August
Fiedler, and constructed in 1896, four years after
the death of it's namesake, banker Henry H. Nash, at
a cost of $75,000. It was enlarged in 1921.
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