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Lizzie and Harry Danner lost their daughter, Eva,
when she was thirteen years old in 1883, and their
oldest daughter, Helen, four years later. In 1903
the Danners traveled to Chicago from Burlington,
Iowa, to spend the holidays with their middle
daughter's family. On Wednesday afternoon, December
30, they attended a matinee of Mr.
Bluebeard at the city's newest luxury playhouse, the Iroquois Theater. The performance was
likely selected for the benefit of ten-year-old
granddaughter Helen. When a stage fire spread to the auditorium, killing nearly six hundred, Lizzie
lost a third daughter, as well as her only
granddaughter, and her husband of
thirty-eight years, Harry.
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Fifty-eight-year-old Harry Danner (b. 1845,
Pennsylvania) was a civil war veteran and retired
druggist.* His body was found at Rolston's funeral
home and identified by George Taylor of 2616 West
41st Court (George's relationship to family not yet
known). Harry's wife, Mary Elizabeth Lizzie
Tizzard Danner (1845–1906), survived the fire and
passed away in 1906.
Lizzie was the daughter of William Tizzard,†
postmaster and for eight years the owner of The
Gazette newspaper in Burlington (today's Hawk
Eye).
In a will drawn a year prior to her death, Lizzie
Danner named the husband of her niece, Margaret
Danner Pettibone, John H. Pettibone, as executor of
her estate, to distribute a few thousand dollars and
personal belongings valued at $150, including a
sewing machine, seal skin jacket, large blue
jardiniére a few pieces of jewelry and her pink
bedroom furniture. To her dear son-in-law Harry Wunderlich, Lizzie left her stock in the Crystal
Lake Hunting and Fishing Club and a drum, cap, and
sword from the civil war that had belonged to her
brother, Will Tizzard, and pictures.† Harry Danner's
tools and guns went to Bert Gibbs of Burlington. A
picture of Libbie went to Mrs. Chester Cleveland in
Chicago, not related, who lived a few blocks from
where Libbie and Harry lived in Chicago on Wilson
St. Dispersal also included $12 ($400 today) for Lizzie's
gravestone at the Aspen Grove Cemetery in
Burlington, in the family plot with Harry, Libbie,
and Hellen.
Thirty-three-year-old Libby Perle Danner Wunderlich
(b. 1869) was one of four daughters born to Harry
and Lizzie Danner. Libby was married to Harrison
Harry Wunderlich (1870–1932), a fellow Iowa
native.
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Their daughter, Hellen M. Wunderlich (b. 189_), was
named after her aunt, Hellen Tizzard. The Wunderlich
family lived at 834 Wilson Avenue in Chicago (today,
maybe the site of the Wentworth Intermediate
School). Harry worked for a piano manufacturer.
Harry, Libby, and Hellen were buried in the Aspen
Grove Cemetery in Burlington, Iowa, following
funeral services at the Christ Episcopal Church.
In the years after the fire
Two years after the fire, Harry Wunderlich moved to
Kansas City as a manager of the Brooklyn-based F. G.
Smith piano store, producer, and distributor of
Bradbury Pianos.
In 1907 he married Maude M. Ransom and, in 1915,
purchased the Kansas City F. G. Smith branch, as
well as the Carl Hoffman Music Company. The
Wunderlich Piano retail store was located at 219 E.
10th St. and offered phonographs and radios as well
as pianos. By 1905 he'd moved pianos to the second
floor to make room for more Victrolas and listening
booths. Harry sold the company a few years before
his death in 1932, and the company remained in
business in Kansas City until 2005.
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