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On December 30, 1903, the day
before New Year's eve, two sisters, Barbara and
Emma, set out with their three children for a
theater matinee at Chicago's luxurious new theater,
the Iroquois. Playing was Mr. Bluebeard, a
Klaw & Erlanger extravaganza with hundreds of
performers, including exotic costumes and aerial
acts. It should have been perfect in terms of a
pleasant holiday outing for children.
Instead, a horrific fire took the lives of
nearly six hundred people,
including Barbara and her daughter Emma, with Joseph
and Emma Kienzle suffering burns.
Upon entering the auditorium, Barbara remarked that
it looked like a deathtrap, a comment that became
the theme for Nat Brandt's 2003 book,
Chicago Death
Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire. The Reynolds and Kienzle party of five was seated in the fifth row of
the second-floor balcony.
Barbara Stang* Reynolds (b.1875), twenty-eight, fatality
Emma Josephine Reynolds (b.1896), seven-year, fatality
Emma Strang Kienzle (1868–1918),
thirty-five, injured survivor
George Kienzle (1894-1969), nine, survivor
Joseph Kienzle (1891–1977) a twelve, injured survivor
In 1903 Barbara and William Reynolds had been married for
eight years. Emma was their oldest. A second daughter, Lois Barbara
(1902–1986), an infant at the time of the fire,
remained at home. At the Ravenswood school† and for
most of her life, Emma went by her middle name,
Josephine. William worked in the railway industry,
and Barbara was a homemaker. The family lived in
now-gone rented housing on Ravenswood Park.
William's parents were from England. He and Barbara,
like Emma, were born in Illinois.
Named after her mother, Barbara was the youngest of
nine children born to German immigrants, Barbara
Popp Stang (1836–1918) and Joseph Stang (1834–1916),
a saloon keeper and realtor. She was the eighth
child they would see die before their deaths. (In
January 1916, at age eighty-one, with his wife
Barbara an invalid, Joseph Stang succeeded in his
third suicide attempt, diving out a hospital window.
Read the alarming newspaper account below. His wife
lived two more years.)
Emma Reynolds was named after
Barbara's older sister, Emma Kienzle, wife of
William F. Kienzle (1855–1932), a hardware dealer
from Michigan. The Kienzles had two boys — George
and Joseph — and lived on N. Paulina St. in Chicago,
near the Ravenswood School, as did Barbara and
Emma's parents, Joseph and Barbara Stang.
Funeral
Barbara's body was
located early on at Ryan's funeral home and
identified by her husband. William Reynold's search
through hospitals and morgues for Emma's body went
on for three long days.
Funeral services were held the Monday morning after
the fire at the Reynold's home. The cemetery was not
named, but they may have been buried in the Stang
plot at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.
Emma Josephine Reynolds was one of three Iroquois Theater victims who attended the Ravenswood School
on N. Paulina. The others were
Willis Peck and
Helen Wunderlich.
† Ravenswood School, built on N. Paulina St. in
1873, is one of the oldest schools in Chicago. It
has been expanded and remodeled many times over the
years. The Ravenswood suburb was annexed to Chicago
in 1889.
Stagehands at 1903
Iroquois Theater
Chicago aldermen on fire
3 from Taunton, Mass
survived Iroquois fire
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 2736
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
