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On December 30, 1903, Andy decided to take in a
matinee theater performance at Chicago's newest
luxury playhouse, the Iroquois Theater. For some
reason, his wife of eleven years, Elizabeth, did
not join him.
Andy was forty-five-year-old Andrew J. Sheridan (b.
1858) of 4155 Wentworth Ave. in Chicago. Born and
raised in Quincy, Illinois, a city midway between
Kansas City and Chicago, he was the oldest of three
sons and three daughters born to Irish immigrants,
John and Mary Sheridan. By 1903 John and Mary were
living in Chicago with several of their daughters
and grandchildren, while John worked as a grocer.
Four of their children survived after Andrew's
death.
When he did not come home for dinner, his wife, the
former Elizabeth Smith Glock (1854–1909), telegraphed
the Decatur Wabash railroad offices in hopes that he
might be on the rails. He was not. She realized he
must be among the victims of the Iroquois Theater
fire.
Hours later, his body was found at Postlewait's
funeral home and identified by his stepson, Frank
Glock, and F. J. Herlihy.
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Following in his father's footsteps, Andy Sheridan
became a railroad engineer, signing on with the
Wabash in 1880. In 1903 he was a couple of years
away from his twenty-fifth anniversary. Most of
those years were spent riding trains in and out of
Chicago, including the Wabash #197, Wabash Hero
#187, and finally, the Wabash #824.
Among railroad personnel, it was the telegraph
operators in Wabash Railroad's Decatur, IL hub who
first to suspected that the Andrew Sheridan in
Iroquois Theater victim lists was their coworker. As
Decatur's largest employer, Wabash RR workers were
part of a large but close family. Andrew was a
member of the Brothers of Locomotive Engineers.
Andy and Elizabeth had married in 1992. It has not
yet been determined if she and Andy had children
together but probably not. One newspaper reported
that a son survived Andy but was likely his stepson,
Frank Glock. Frank was Elizabeth's son by a prior
marriage. He lived with Andy and Elizabeth up until
1900 and in 1902 married Clara / Carrie Maybaum.*
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Andy and Elizabeth owned their home on Wentworth; in
fact, he boarded at the house next door when he
first came to Chicago in the mid-1880s.
Andrew's funeral was held at noon on Sunday, January
3, 1904. He was reportedly buried in the Oak Woods
Cemetery. Elizabeth joined him in 1909.
The Wabash Railroad existed
independently until the 1950s, when it became part
of the Pennsylvania Railroad and in the 1960s merged
with Norfolk Southern.
In the years after the fire
Newspapers reported that Andy carried $5,000 in life
insurance from Continental Casualty, the Foresters,
and the Engineers.
Frank Glock and Carrie had three daughters. At his
mother's death in 1909, he inherited her estate.
Frank remained in the Chicago area, working as a
carpenter.
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Discrepancies and addendum
* The 1900 U.S. Census
reported that Elizabeth gave birth to 10 children,
of which 0 were still living, then contradicted that
report by listing a son named Frank Glock, the name
of her first husband. She and Frank Glock, married
in 1870, may have had two sons, William and Frank
Glock Jr., then divorced and each remarried. I
found no evidence that she and Andy had children.
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