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William Bray of Michigan City, Indiana
hit upon the perfect Christmas gift for his twelve-year-old daughter:
a trip to a musical comedy in a sumptuous new theater in
the big city of Chicago. As a clerk, William's wages
were modest, but as an employee at the Michigan Central
Railroad, he knew how to get the best fare
available. Bringing joy to Harriet had a particular significance that
year. Her mother, his wife of nineteen years, Emma Boeckling Bray
(1860–1904), had suffered from tuberculosis for two
years and was growing weaker. In fact she lost her battle with the disease
three weeks later. Putting a smile on Harriet's
face with the theater excursion meant putting one on Emma's face too, a gift that
couldn't be put beneath the Christmas tree. In the years after his wife's death,
he may have found a bit of solace from having been able to save Harriet from the
Iroquois fire though he'd been unable to save Emma from tuberculosis, and from
having spared Emma the agony of losing a child.
William had purchased seats in the second or fifth row
of the balcony on the second floor. The pair escaped through
door #29 or #30
out onto fire escape steps (
see bottom photo).
The last leg of the iron fire escape steps could not
immediately be loosened for lowering, so her father jumped
twelve feet to the alley floor, and Harriet jumped
into his arms.▼1 Her hair and clothing were singed,
but father and daughter were safe. She crawled beneath the legs of
fire horses as they hurriedly left Couch Place alley
and made their way to Dearborn street. From there,
they probably went to Central Station to find an
east-bound train.
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The Brays lived at 702 Franklin in Michigan City, in
the house where Emma had grown up, with her widowed mother, Hannah Boeckling, and Emma's brother, Frank Boeckling, Harriet likely attended Elston Elementary
on Pine & 4th.▼2
William Bray (1854–1930), worked as a clerk for the Michigan Central Railroad.▼3
In the years after the fire
Harriet B. Bray (1891–1978) would give birth to two children, raise three step children, and
bury two husbands. With Norman Manny (1889–1917) she
had Mary Jane Manny and William Manny. Four years after Norman's death, she married Harry
Crumpacker (1881–1969), a widow with three young children —
Helen, John and Marjorie Crumpacker. A graduate of the University of Michigan
law school, Harry Crumpacker was an appellate court judge in LaPorte county.
A year after Emma's death, William Bray remarried.
He and Francis E. Stalker Bray (1869–1926) bought a
home in Gary, Indiana. He continued working for the
railroad as a timekeeper. At her death, he returned
to Michigan City. When his end came, Harriet planned his funeral.
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Whipsaw
One moment she'd been happy to be
sharing time with her father, amazed at Chicago's
large buildings and busy streets, awed by the large
theater and thousands of prettily dressed people,
the music, costumes, and dancers flying through the
air. In minutes sudden terror replaced her joy as she became
surrounded by screaming women and children, the
horrific sounds and sight of people jumping and
falling to the alley floor, crashing onto a layer of
mangled bodies. Later she'd have eagerly told her mother of their experience and perhaps read
newspaper stories about the fire in the days after. Then within a few weeks her mother
faded away, at last safe from her suffering, and there was her funeral, seeing William's grief,
feeling her own. A lot of life packed into a month to be sorted out by a twelve year old.
As an eighty-two-year-old, Harriet said that despite
clear recollections of that day in 1903, she still
enjoyed the theater. She admitted, however, that
while there she often found herself checking the
top of the curtain on the left side of the stage.
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Discrepancies and addendum
Lutz family not at Iroquois.
On the first day after the fire, it was mistakenly
reported that Gertrude Lutz and her parents, John
and Harriet Beyea Lutz, also escaped from the
theater. The
Lutz family was also from Michigan City, Harriet was the same age as Gertrude Lutz, and the families lived around
the corner from one another. Gertrude and Harriet may have been neighborhood playmates and schoolmates. A few years ago, LaPorte
County historian,
Fern Schultz, reported that the Lutz family made
the trip to Chicago intending to attend the
Mr. Bluebeard matinee but for some reason did not make it to the theater. I cannot verify that with online sources but as the historical
archivist there, Schultz has access to local newspapers not yet online and I appreciate her research.
1. In a 1973 interview, Harriet recalled their seating as the second row rather than the fifth and that her father and a stranger
forced open an exit door rather than a window. From inside the auditorium, the inner door, of muntined glass and wood,
covered with velvet drapery, looked like a window. The last section of fire escape stairs was designed to be raised
so as to permit passage of wide wagons through narrow Couch Place. Because of the extreme cold temperatures on December 30,
1903 the iron temporarily froze. Fire fighters and others in the alley wrestled it loose so it could extend down to the
ground. Iroquois survivors who described jumping because the last section of stairs was missing were among the early evacuees
from the balconies.
2. Harriet continued to live with her grandmother Hannah Schmidt Boeckling in Michigan City until marrying.
3. Inaccurate character recognition for William in the 1900 U.S. Census interprets "number taker" as "under taker."
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