Enlarge letter from Emma's widow to his nephew, Rex Rees

The Barnes Undertaking company of Chicago performed preliminary burial services, and family members escorted the two bodies back to Lena, Illinois. Their funerals were held on Oak Street in Lena at the home of Helene's mother and Emma's brother-in-law, Jarius Steinmetz, conducted by reverend J. C. Kauffman of Monroe, Wisconsin, and reverend Baker of the Amity Lutheran Church in Lena. Emma's body was too badly injured, but a mortician in Lena, R. E. Leamon, did enough work on Helene's body to permit an open casket.

The women were buried in the Steinmetz family plot in the Lena Burial Park.

Emma Garner Steinmetz (b. 1852)

Emma had married sign painter Oliver T. P. Steinmetz (1844–1907), brother of Helene's grandfather, Jarius Steinmetz, in 1873. At the time of her death, she and Oliver lived at 2541 Halsted in Chicago. Contrary to some conflicting genealogy collections (see bottom of page), they had no children. It was Oliver who would identify Emma's body and close her estate.
In Emma, the city of Lena lost the offspring of two of its founders. The youngest child of William G. Garner (1812–1859) and Elizabeth Richards Garner (1810–1883), Emma was the granddaughter of John Garner (1781–1871), one of Lena's early settlers. The city was platted in 1854 by her uncle, Samuel Finley Dodds (1806–1863). Some histories report that Lena, originally called Alida, was founded on Dodd's Buckhorn Inn.

Helene Cooper (b. 1880)

Helene Cooper was born in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of William C. Cooper (1852– ), a Wisconsin native, and Elma Steinmetz Cooper (1860–1953).

At the time of her death, Helene worked as a court clerk in Lena, Illinois, probably at the Stephenson County courthouse.

In 1900, Helene and her parents, William and Elma Cooper, had lived with her grandparents, Elma's parents, Jarius and Sarah Steinmetz, in Lena. (Jarius was brother-in-law to Emma Steinmetz.) William and Elma Steinmetz Cooper, married in 1879, divorced, and in 1904 William remarried and was living in South Dakota. He traveled to Illinois for his daughter's funeral.

Excepting a short stint in 1905 as a Chicago resident, Emma's mother Elma continued living with her parents in Lena, most of those years working as a milliner. In the 1900s, she was an employee of the A. P. Reber's store in Kent, IL, a tiny burg near Lena. (The Reber and Steinmetz families were related through the Garner line.) She remained in Lena for the rest of her life, living to an advanced age.

A few years after the fire, the Freeport, IL newspaper included a snippet that Elma had gone traveling with little Ellen White Ellen was Elma's niece, the daughter of Elma's brother, Rueben M. White (1865–1942), who went with Elma to Chicago to bring home the bodies of Helene and Emma. Rueben (sometimes spelled Ruben) was a dry goods salesman who lived with his wife and two children on Oak Street in Lena, two doors down from Helene, her mother, and grandparents. His wife, Susanne, was Elma Steinmetz's sister. He was the son of Miles White, co-owner of the White Sausman store in Lena. (Simplified Cooper Steinmetz White Garner genealogy)

Special thanks to Gary Price of the Lena Area Historical Society for helping me with this story, including the picture of Helene. Emma's relationship with Lena's founding families is another example of the wide-ranging impact of the Iroquois Theater fire. The village of Lena and the city of Freeport were located in the northwest corner of Illinois, Lena with around 2,000 residents and Freeport with 35,000.

Discrepancies and Addendum

Multiple Olivers

Though some genealogy collections report that Emma and Oliver had a daughter named Sarah, she did not. There were two Oliver Steinmetz in that time period that are confused in some genealogy collections. One was Oliver D.Steinmetz, who lived in Pennsylvania, son of Sarah and Joseph, had a daughter named Sarah and a wife named Ellen B. Beisel. The other was the Oliver T.P. Steinmetz of this story, who was born in Pennsylvania but lived most of his life in Illinois, was married to E Garner, and had no children.

Multiple Coopers

In addition to Helene and the Cooper brothers in the underwear business in Kenosha, WI (who may have been related to Helene and Emma), two other people named Cooper appeared in newspaper victim lists immediately after the fire. They were Ralph Cooper and C.L. Cooper. Ralph was later listed as an injured survivor, but I've not found information about C. L. Cooper. The name did not appear in later newspaper lists or in the coroner's inquest list, but I'll retain the name as a possible victim until I have information to more confidently rule it out.

A few contemporary genealogies inaccurately report that Helene Cooper married Henry H. Sayer on May 13, 1901, in Chicago. A woman named Helen Cooper did marry a Henry H. Sayer on that date, but it was a different Helen Cooper, not the Helen Cooper who died at the Iroquois Theater. The Helen F. Cooper who married Henry H. Sayer, was born in 1883 to Flora B. Cooper and was very much alive seventeen years after the Iroquois Theater fire. The confusion probably comes from Helene's name having been misspelled as Helen in some of the 1903/1904 newspaper lists. 1.) The marital records for the Sayer-Cooper union report Helene's name as Helen, not Helene. Alone, that is a small discrepancy. 2.) The marital records for the Sayer-Cooper union report her birth date as 1883 rather than 1880. Alone, that too is a small discrepancy. 3.) The Chicago coroner's Iroquois victims inquest list spelled her name as Helene, not Helen. Alone, another small discrepancy. 4.) The name Cooper, not Sayer, appears on Helene's gravestone in Lena, IL. That is not a small discrepancy. Helene's mother, Elma Steinmetz Cooper, was still living at the time of her daughter's death and certainly knew her daughter's name. 5.) I found no period newspapers that linked Henry Sayer to the Iroquois Theater fire in any capacity.

Gravestone discrepancies

As of 9/6/2015, there are a few errors to be aware of on Find-A-Grave and Ancestry.com. In the Steinmetz genealogy on F.A.G., 1.) Oliver Steinmetz is shown as his own sibling, 2.) Gravestones for Emma and Elma are swapped, and 3.) There are two entries for Emma Garner Steinmetz. On Ancestry.com, some genealogies inaccurately report that Jarius and Oliver's parents were Joseph and Sarah Steinmetz, but the correct parents were Peter and Susanna Steinmetz. The 1850 census shows Peter, Susanna, Jarius (spelled Jerius), and Oliver living in Northhampton County, Pennsylvania. It has to be them; too unlikely there were two families in that time period with sons with the uncommon names Jarius and Oliver. Oliver's middle initial looks like an F, but when highly magnified is a T. Just to make things fun, a decade or two after this, Oliver and Emma Steinmetz, another Oliver and Emma Steinmetz appeared, though not in Chicago. An unlikely coincidence for an uncommon name.

Missing connection

One period newspaper suggested that Helene Cooper was related to the Kenosha-based Cooper brothers, who were also Iroquois victims, but I've failed to find a genealogical connection.

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