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There was nothing in 1903-4
newspapers to suggest that Emma and Olive, aunt and
niece, attended the theater together but nothing to
indicate who else was in either of their theater
parties so it is a fair assumption they were
together. It is possible that Kitty Mann Squire,
Olive's mother, and/or Emma's sister, were also in the
party but escaped.
Victims:
Iroquois Theater fatality Olive E. Squire (1889–1903)
Fourteen-year-old Olive was a student at the James
Blaine school. One of her fellow students at Blaine,
who also lost his life at the Iroquois Theater, was
Leroy Greenawald. Olive was Emma Mann's
niece, daughter of her sister, Kitty Mann Squire.
The family lived at 942 Cuyler Avenue in Chicago.
Iroquois Theater fatality Emma D. Mann
(1864–1903)
Thirty-nine-year-old music teacher Emma D. Mann was
one of
forty-one Chicago public school teachers who died at
the Iroquois Theater. Emma had been
teaching for ten years. In 1903 she served as a
special study's teacher at an annual salary of
$1,400. She was one of four city-wide music
supervisors (see accompanying box describing her
role at one Chicago holiday gathering). She also
served as a drawing instructor. In April of 1902,
there had been talk of dismissing seventeen "special
teachers" in Chicago's system, but Emma was one of
eight retained, possibly because she could teach
both music and drawing.
Unmarried, Emma boarded at 1388 Washington Blvd.
Emma was Olive's aunt, sister of her mother, Kitty
Mann Squire.
Emma's parents
Emma Mann and Kitty Mann
Squire were the Alabama-born daughters of German
immigrant Lewis Mann and Vermont native Elizabeth
Jones Mann, married in 1852 in Chambers, Alabama.
The Mann's had six children, of which four were
still living in 1870. Lewis did not live with the
family after 1860, so I spent some fruitless time
trying to find him in Civil War records. Elizabeth
and her children settled in Chicago by 1870.
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Olive's family
Olive's father was forty-six-year-old bookkeeper Oscar W. Squire
(1857–1905) and her mother, Emma's sister, was
forty-four-year-old Wilhelmina Katherine "Kitty" Mann Squire (1859–1922). Oscar
and Kitty had married in 1882. In addition to
Olive they had two other children who lived to
adulthood, Robert and Bruce. In the
years prior to the fire they lost a three-month-old
infant and a two-year-old toddler.
The family lived in a flat in a two-story brick
structure at 942 Cuyler Avenue in Chicago.
As a widow, Kitty moved to California and in 1921 lived in Los
Angeles.
Identifications
Both Olive's and Emma's bodies were found at Rolston's funeral home.
Emma and Kitty's brother, hat salesman Louis T. Mann
(1858–1922), identified Emma's body, while Olive's
brother Oscar identified Olive's. Another report
stated that Emma's body was identified by a fellow
teacher, Miriam I. Shoyer of the William H. Byford
School on Iowa Street. Multiple identifiers were
common, sometimes because many people searched for
their loved ones in groups and officials noted
multiple party members, other times because there
were multiple groups of searchers for a given
victim.
Funerals and burial
Olive's funeral was held on January 3, 1904, at the Centenary Methodist
Episcopal church on West Monroe St. (razed in 1934).
Morton Hartzell was the pastor then, but it hasn't
been verified that he conducted Olive's service.
Burial was at Rosehill Cemetery In Chicago.
Presumably, there was a double funeral for Emma and
Olive, but that is not confirmed. Also living in
Chicago who would have attended the funerals was
Emma and Kitty's other sister and her family, Dr.
Charles and Mary E. Mann Pruyn, possibly brothers of
Oscar — William, Charles, Harry, Earl, John and
Louis, and sisters Grace and Dawn.
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Chicago's July 4, 1902 statue unveiling and patriotic celebration
In 1902 Emma Mann had led a group of seven hundred school
children in patriotic song in conjunction
with the unveiling of a new city fountain at
Independence Square at the corner of Douglas
Park and Garfield Blvd in Chicago. Illinois
Governor Richard Yates addressed the crowd
and uncovered the ten-foot-high granite and
bronze sculpture by Charles Mulligan
featuring four children with a flag, drum,
bugle, and noisemakers atop the Liberty
Bell. In addition to the governor, the
ceremony included orations, bands, the DAR
and SAR, and a forty-five-gun salute (one
shot for each of forty-five states).
Sculptor Mulligan was on hand, along with
artist Loredo Taft who a decade later
sculpted a
memorial to Iroquois Theater victims.
It is likely that several of the children he
heard sing at the 1902 celebration, probably
including Olive Squire, along with their
conductor, Emma Mann, were among those
honored by his 1912 sculpture.
Emma led the children in
Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, a
popular patriotic tune during the Civil War
and until the Star-Spangled Banner became
designated in 1931 as the national anthem.
Wikipedia offers the lyrics and information
about the tune's history.
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