|
The Nortons of Ewen
Edith H. Norton (b. 1890) was twelve years old and her sister, Martha "Mattie" S. Norton (b.1886), was eighteen. Their small hometown, Ewen, Michigan, was located in Ontonagan County on Lake Superior.
Ewen's days as a romping , stomping logging town
were on the decline by 1903, but for parents with
means, a better education in a more refined
atmosphere for their youngsters offered
understandable appeal.
Mattie was enrolled in the
Academy of the Visitation Catholic boarding school
in Evanston,* a Chicago suburb, looking forward to being part of the school's third graduating class.
Edith and Mattie were the daughters of Irish immigrant Dennis J. Norton (1859–1935) and Pennsylvania native Martha Sirplus (1864–1843), married in 1884. They had three other siblings: Julia Hebert Norton Wilcox (1884–1945), whose husband Thomas was involved in copper mining in Silver City, Michigan, Daniel Learned Norton (1892–1949), who would serve in France during WWI and John Norton (1894–___). All the Norton children were born in Michigan.
Dennis Norton had emigrated to America from Ireland
in 1872 as a teenager. After graduating from the University of Michigan as a pharmacist he went to work in his brother's Negaunee drugstore then founded his own store in L'Anse, Michigan. In 1887 he relocated to Ewen and turned to farming and logging, becoming prosperous in
the White Pine logging era. As president of the Ontonagon Lumber &
Cedar company, he contracted for millions of feet of
pine in the days before conservationist techniques
were used. Another of his companies was the Norton
Lumber Co. He was prominent in the Calumet / Iron
Mountain area and served as Ewen's mayor in the late
1890s.
Searching for the girl's bodies.
Edith Norton's body was found at Thompson's Diner next to the Iroquois Theater soon after the fire, and identified by J. H. Burke Jr. Another group searched for Mattie's body. They included Rev. J. L. Hollinger of Ontonagon, as well as nuns and priests from the school.
|
 |
Sister M. Boniface would eventually identify Mattie's body. The sister who accompanied the girls to the theater and survived was not named but may have been Sister Boniface.
The funerals
The girls were buried in a
double grave at Holy Family Catholic Cemetery on
Rockland Road in Ontonagon, Michigan, following a
funeral at the Holy Family church with services
conducted by three ministers: Rev. A. Hasenberg of
Michigamme, deacon Rev. P. Manderfield of Rockland,
and sub deacon Rev. William Stahl of Dollar Bay. A
local newspaper reported that over a thousand people
paid their respects, coming from surrounding towns,
including Calumet, on a special train. Businesses
and schools in Ontonagon were closed.
Their matching white
caskets were carried by sleigh to the cemetery
(befitting a logging community in the winter) in a
funeral procession of fifty carriages.
Pallbearers included Henry Bush, Del Woodbury, Harry
Vincent, Leo Prouix, C. F. Corgan, Dr. F. W. McHugh,
James Burke, Joseph Follett Jr., Walter O'Brien,
Aaron Dolan, Don Loranger, Charles Mooney, Charles
Dirr, and Lee Garvin.
In the years after the fire
Julia and Daniel
married and had families. They remained in Ontonagon
until the 1930s, when Daniel relocated to New York.
After Dennis's death, Martha moved in with Julia's
family. All of the family except John are buried in
the family plot in Ontonagon County.
Eight years after the Iroquois Theater fire the Norton Lumber Mill burned.
|
