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Mary Donahue
was a member of the sixty-member choir at St.
Charles Barromeo, and her friend Edna had previously
been the organist. Donahue was in Chicago for the
Christmas holiday and after New Year's expected to
return to Dubuque, Iowa, where she taught school.
Some newspapers incorrectly reported that Mary was
the wife of a police sergeant, but she was actually
the daughter of one. Thomas L. Donahue identified
his daughter's body at Perrigo's funeral home. It is
thought that five years before the Iroquois fire, he
was a patrol sergeant at the twenty-seventh precinct
on Desplaines and Waldo. The Donahue family worked,
lived, attended church and school in a twenty-block
area known today as Little Italy. Mary probably took
a streetcar to the Iroquois.
Bishop Muldoon was the pastor at St. Charles, but it
is not known if he said Mary's funeral mass.
According to a
Silver Jubilee book published about the church,
its choir was exceptionally active and sponsored
various social events.
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Mary was the oldest of four
children born to Thomas L. and Margaret Heelan
Donahue. Like her parents and siblings, she was born
in Illinois. Both sets of grandparents were born in
Ireland. The Donahue's owned their home at 1042 W.
Taylor in Chicago — a structure that today is across
the street from Little Joe's Italian restaurant.
Mary was probably buried in
the Huntley Cemetery in Huntley, Illinois, northwest
of Chicago, but she may instead be buried across
Dean street in the St. Mary's Cemetery with her
parents and some of her siblings. On Find-A-Grave,
she is listed in both cemeteries. Margaret Heelan's
widowed mother, Bridget, lived in Huntley.
Mary's mother died four
years after the Iroquois fire, and her father then
married his late wife's younger sister, Raleigh
Heelan.
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