Just before New Years eve in December 1903 a party of three traveled to Chicago from their home in Mazon, Illinois, roughly two hours away. It was not reported whether it was a day excursion or they stayed in a hotel.  With Zula's aunt as chaperone, proprieties were covered either way. Harry and Zula wouldn't be married for another six months and avoiding gossip would have been a consideration; in a town the size of Mazon, population then less than five hundred, rumors could spread at warp speed.

The trio was comprised of twenty-one-year-old school teacher, Zula L. Randall (1882–1958), her aunt, forty-nine-year-old Ada M. Clapp Davis (1854–1918), and twenty-seven-year-old pharmacist,^▼1 Harry L. Hough (1876–1964) — a recently widowed neighbor and father of a five-year-old boy.

Harry's wife, Maude Campbell Hough, had been gone for over two years but Harry wasn't just courting a prospective mother for his son Gordon Hough (1898–1972). As a talented pianist with a nice contralto voice, Zula Randall sometimes accompanied Harry's bass in amateur performances and he admired her skills.  Their shared interest in music and a strong recommendation from Mazon physician, Dr. Oda Prescott Bennett,^▼2 made the Mr. Bluebeard extravaganza an easy entertainment choice.

On Wednesday December 30, 1903 the trio went to the Iroquois Theater on Randolph St., arriving at the ticket office shortly before the play was to start. Zula was interested in balcony seats but there were only three unsold tickets available, just returned to the ticket office by the original purchaser, and they were on the first floor.

Called an "extravaganza" for good reason, Bluebeard offered comedy, dance and music with hundreds of exotic costumes and sets, even flying ballerinas. In addition to that performance being one of the last matinees before school resumed, attendance was driven by an announcement from producers Klaw & Erlanger that Mr. Bluebeard would be gone within two weeks, replaced by Ben Hur.

The three seats were on the first floor, including seats P4 and P5. Ada lost her ticket stub at the fire and it was not reported whether she sat in P6 or P3.

Once in a lifetime

Of the nearly six hundred lives lost in America's worst theater disaster, ninety-nine percent were people seated in the balconies. As occupants of the first floor, the Davis-Hough-Randall party was in little danger; the floor was emptied before the backdraft and fireball that killed so many on the upper floors. People on the first floor couldn't know that, however; for them  it was terrifying. Harry and Zula saved their ticket stubs for the rest of their lives and consented to multiple interviews with their hometown newspapers.^▼3

The trio exited the theater through a fire escape leading out to the Couch Place alley. It was chaotic in the alley with balcony occupants jumping and being pushed from fire escapes above. Harry was separated from the women for a time until he spotted a pom-pom on Zula's hat. The crown of his own hat was squashed on top and rested on his ears.

Though Zula referred to Ada as her aunt, — and a surrogate parent relationship is suggested by Ada and her husband having reported Zula and her sister Bessie as daughters in the 1900 U.S. Census (though their father Frank lived in the house too) — Ada and Zula were cousins, once removed. The women were related through two daughters of William Belding and Lorana Sanford: Amanda Belding Randall (1823–1893) and Aurelia Belding Clapp (1830-1896). Amanda was Zula's paternal grandmother and Aurelia was Ada's mother.

Zula's mother, Jessie F. Cohoon, had died in 1885 and her father had not remarried. The 1900 U.S. Census shows Frank N. Randall, then working as a house painter and living with his daughters, Zula Randall, a school teacher, and Bessie Randall, a high school student, on the same road or property with four of their Clapp and Davis relatives:
— Oscar, a carpenter/contractor, his wife Ada Clapp Davis, and their son, high school student Frank Davis
— Ada's widowed father, a retired farmer named Orin Clapp

In the years after the fire

Harry continued working as a pharmacist for a few years but by 1905 gave it up to return to farming. He embraced scientific methods that made some of his farming neighbors scoff until they saw his crops out-performing their own.^▼4 He also became a well regarded breeder of Belgian draft horses and Duroc Jersey hogs. By the 1920s Harry was a district organization manager for the Illinois Agricultural Association. He was also an avid historian and collector, including mementos from the Iroquois Theater fire. He continued to sing in quartets until at least the early 1930s.

He and Zula had one child, son Gerald Leonard Hough (1912–1998)

Harry and Zula were together for fifty-four years before her death.   Son Gordon remained in Mazon and Gerald settled in Arizona.

In 1915 Ada Davis underwent cancer surgery at the hospital in Morris, IL and spent her last years with paralysis. After her death her husband of forty-two years, Oscar E. Davis, lived another fourteen years, moving in with their son Frank and his family and making the move with them to Delavan, Wisconsin. Oscar died while visiting Zula and Harry in Mazon. He and Ada were buried in a mausoleum at the Brookside Cemetery in Mazon that had to be torn down in 2004. They were reburied with a common stone.

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