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Since the death of her husband two years earlier,
thirty-year-old Mamie Schreiner had been
raising their two young daughters alone.
At the time of Ed's death, Arlene had
just turned five, and Irma May was not
yet three. Too young to have many
lasting memories. Mamie probably hoped
in the years ahead to help them know
their father through photographs and
stories.
In the winter of 1903, Arlene was in
school, and Irma would start next fall.
Mamie was likely thankful for help from
Ed's family. She and the girls had been
able to continue living in their flat on
West Monroe street. Built the year Mamie
and Ed married, by Ed's father, John W.
Schreiner, the three-unit apartment
house provided shelter, an income, and
continuity for the children. As a young
bank clerk, Ed's wages wouldn't have
afforded paying off the mortgage in so
few years, and John Schreiner may have held the mortgage.
Ed's brother and his wife, Harry and Caroline Schreiner,
and sister, Emma Schreiner, were part of Mamie
and the girl's extended family.
On January 2, 1904, the bodies of Mamie,
Arlene, and Irma Schreiner were laid to
rest alongside Ed at the Rosehill
Cemetery in Chicago. They were among the
nearly six hundred victims of the worst theater fire
in America's history at the Iroquois Theater.
Mamie's body was found on the foyer stairs and carried out by a policeman
named
Albert F. Simsrott.*
She and her daughters' corpses were identified by
her in-laws, Harry (Henry) B. Schreiner (1873–) and
Erma Schreiner. Twenty-eight years old, Harry worked
as a bank clerk, as had Edward. Emma Schreiner was a
school teacher at the Marquette school. She had
lived with Edward, Mamie, and their girls in 1900
but by 1903 was living with her parents. Irma's body
was found at St. Lukes Hospital, Arlene's at the
Cook County Morgue, and Mamie's at Sheldon's Funeral
Home.
Newspapers reported that the two horse-drawn
carriages conveyed the caskets to Rosehill Cemetery
in Chicago, where a funeral was held in the chapel
at 2:00 on Saturday after the fire. Since Rosehill
was also cited as the resting place of Edward
Schreiner in 1902, it is almost certainly where
Mamie and the girls were interred, though not yet
verified with pictures of the grave markers.
Mamie (b. 1873), Arlene (b. 1897), and Irma (b.
1899) were the wife and daughters of the late Edward
A. Schreiner, a clerk at the Metropolitan Bank, who
had died in February 1902. The family lived in a
flat on W. Monroe in Chicago (see address
information below).
One newspaper reported that Mamie's surname was
Ludlow. I found a Mamie Ludlow of the right age —
the oldest daughter of eight children born to Edgar
and Sarah Kelly Ludlow of Chicago — but failed to
find marital records to substantiate that Edgar and
Sarah's daughter was Mrs. Mamie Schreiner.
Curiously, records of Arlene's and Irma's births
were also elusive. Edgar was a printing press
foreman, and his children were mostly trade workers
in plumbing, coal, clerking, and dressmaking. Mamie
seems to have been the only one of the five Ludlow
girls who married.
Arlene Schreiner was a student at Charles Sumner
elementary school, and Irma had not yet started
school. Several other students from the Sumner school were
also Iroquois victims, including the
three Holst children, Alan, Amy and Gertrude, and
Edith Mahler.
In the years after the fire
The flats on West Monroe remained in the Schreiner
family for a few years. Harry and his wife,
Caroline, at one time a Medill school teacher, lived
there 1905–1920, joined by Emma.
Discrepancies and addendum
In the 1900 U.S. Census Mamie's name was
reported as Mamie, and in some 1903/4 Iroquois
fire reports as Minnie. Her maiden name was
probably Ludlow, but in the 1880 U.S. Census,
the family's surname was spelled Ludlaw
1904 newspapers reported the girls as five and
six years old, at variance with birth
information reported in the 1900 U.S. Census.
Arlene's name was spelled as Arline on her death
certificate. Information about the ages of Irma
and Arlene Schreiner comes from the 1900 U.S.
Census report and death records. According to
Chicago city directories, the family lived on W.
Monroe from 1896 to 1903, so both girls were
probably born in Chicago.
The house number for the Schreiner's home was
changed in 1908 from 2183 to 4302 West Monroe.
Today it is an empty lot.
* One of the few bodies recognized by the first responders.
Okawville Hotel
In 1894 a John W.
Schreiner, together with William A.
Schreiner, Emma Schreiner, and Lillian E.
Schreiner, invested $60,000 to incorporate
the Original Okawville Springs Company.
The incorporation documents were filed in
Illinois for a hotel located in Okawville, Illinois.
Okawville was the site of a popular mineral
spring health spa for St. Louis resort
goers.
There could have been
two different men named John W. Schreiner — one a grocer in Chicago with children named
William and Emma, and the other in St. Paul
with siblings named William and Emma, as has
been reported elsewhere online, but my
gut tells me it's the same fellow and he
lived in Chicago on Campbell street.
St Marys and Notre Dame
students Iroquois Theater victims
Fire victim Jeanette
Quetsch was from France
Forbush and Dowst laundry
and Tootsietoys
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 2817
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
