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Thirty-two-year-old Mary Neumann (b. 1871)*
Mary worked as a housekeeper at the rectory
for Father Joseph C. Ocenasek (1867–1905) of Our
Lady of Lourdes Bohemian Church at the corner of
15th and 42nd St. (today's S. Keeler), the rectory
at 1355 40th St. Our Lady of Lourdes Bohemian Church
was founded in 1892; Father Ocenasek, a Czech
Republic immigrant, joined four years later and
remained until his death. Ocenasek was described as
a self-made man who put himself through his seminary
education after arriving alone in America from
Bohemia as a teenager.
Mary's family had emigrated from the Czech Republic
as well. They came from the village of Novy Jachimov
in 1872. She was a toddler then, one of five Neumann
daughters. Joseph and Barbara Neuman settled their
family in Baltimore. Mary grew up to work in the
Ault & Co. bookbindery on South Calvert Street. She
was actively involved in the Catholic church and, in
1896, at age twenty-four, accepted an opportunity to
travel west to Chicago to help Father Ocenasek in
Chicago. (One newspaper reported that Ocenasek and
Mary relocated from Baltimore to Chicago together,
an almost certain inaccuracy. On his 1901 passport
application, Joseph reported he had lived in Chicago
since his arrival in America in 1882.) Mary's last
visit back to her parent's home in Baltimore was
fifteen months before her death.
Father Ocenasek located Mary's body at Horan's
Undertaking after a two-day search. A Baltimore
newspaper reported that the only evidence of violent
death was a reddened face. No bruises or singed
hair. If so, it is puzzling that it took two days to
find the body, but the priest's health was poor,
perhaps slowing his search. 'Might be too that he
took time to offer comfort to the hundreds of
Iroquois victim family members he would have
encountered during the search.
The following Monday, Oceanasek set out to escort
Mary's body to her parents in Baltimore. At the
Baltimore-Ohio train station in Pittsburgh, he
fainted and was taken to Mercy hospital. He remained
there for a few days while Mary's body went on to
Baltimore. Reportedly, he suffered from a heart
problem and was weakened by exhaustion. After the
lengthy search for Mary, before boarding a train for
Baltimore, the clergyman had delivered multiple
masses over the weekend. He would pass away a year
later at age thirty-eight, bequeathing $300 to the
Bohemian Redemptorists Fathers for masses for the
repose of Mary's soul and $200 to her parents to
erect a monument to Mary.
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In Baltimore, undertaker Frank Cvach took charge of
Mary's body, preparing it for viewing in her
parents' living room on North Castle Street. Three
of Mary's siblings and her parents survived.
An elaborate funeral was held at St. Wenceslaus
Catholic Church on Central Avenue in Baltimore.
Rector Reverend Edward Hornung said high mass.
Descendants report that Mary was dressed as a bride
for burial at Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in
Baltimore, MD.
Thirty-three-year-old Anna
Cerny Hrody (b. 1869)*
Anna was the mother of five children under age seven
(Mildred, Clara, Edward, Joseph Jr., and Thomas),
and since 1891 the wife of Joseph T. Hrody
(1870–1940). They had lost an infant daughter in
1896.
Joseph was a sign and show card painter in business
with twenty-nine-year-old Cornelius H. Babbe
(b.1874) in Babbe & Hrody. In 1903 the company
operated at 189 Clark.‡ The sign business was
successful enough that by 1900 the family-owned
their home at 1353 S. 40th St. in Chicago. No small
feat in 1900.
Nothing was reported about who attended the theater
with Anna, where she was seated, or her injuries or
funeral. Her body was found at Horan's morgue and
identified by Joseph F. Halik.† She was buried in
Saint Adalbert Catholic Cemetery in Niles, Illinois.
Anna is thought to have been one of nine children
born to German immigrants, Albert (1850–1896) and
Kate Cerny (1844–1943).
In the years after the fire
Joseph remarried in 1905 to one of Annie's sisters, Mary Cerny
(1851–1961), the widow of John Hubalek. To Joseph's
five children, Mary added her two girls, Mae and
Minnie Hubalek.
It wasn't until 1930 that Joseph and his wife lived
without their children in the household. Joseph was
still in the sign business at the time of his death.
In 1929 a fire destroyed his shop at 111–113 S.
Wells. Firefighters on the scene were led by
Michael J. Corrigan, an early responder at the
Iroquois Theater.
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Discrepancies and addendum
Newspapers did not report that Mary
Neumann and Anna Hrody attended the
theater together, but I am fairly sure
that they did. My
reasoning:
1. The same man, Joseph F. Halik,
identified both bodies.†
2. They were neighbors in the 28th ward
of Little Bohemia and about the same
age.
3. Anna Hrody's father was an executor
of the estate of Father Ocenasek, who
had been Mary Hrody's employer.
4. Information about their seating
location in the theater, and theater
companions, was equally non-existent.
Today Catholic Charities
operates Our Lady of Lourdes Child Development
Center in a portion of the original church property
on 15th and Keeler in Chicago. In December of 1904,
the church planned a two-story, $20,000 addition to
the church.
In 1907 Joseph and Cornelius patented a
method of producing shadowed lettering on signs.
In 1895 Joseph had partnered with his brother-in-law,
Frank Uhrer (1867–1900), husband of Annie's sister,
Kate, and Alois Petrik, to form the Merchants Parlor
Furniture Company. Annie had married Joseph, and
Kate had married Frank on the same day in 1891.
* Alternate spellings of Mary's last name included
Newman, Newmann, and Neuman. Anna was sometimes
referred to as Annie. The last name was spelled "Hrody"
in Iroquois stories in 1903, but the coroner spelled
it as "Hrodij" on the inquest list and in city
directories, and other documents spellings included
"Hrodej," "Hrodei" and "Hrodje.
† Joseph F. Halik may have been a bicycle maker who
lived near the church and was also an Austrian
immigrant.
‡ A four-story structure leased by a group of
merchants, including Babbe and Hrody, for $5,000 per
year.
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