Keyword search
(Iroquois-specific results
will appear at bottom of
search list):
Note: If this tab has been open in your browser for hours
or days, a new search may bring an access error or unproductive results. When that happens, position the cursor in the
"Enhanced by Google" search box above, then refresh your screen
(F5 on PC, Cmd-R on Apple, 3-button symbol at top right of screen on Android or iphone) and
re-enter your search words.
There were good reasons for Clinnin not to blow his own horn about his heroism
at the Iroquois Theater: he knew his performance had not been exceptional.
1.) Many dozens of people took far greater risks in their efforts to save
victims, and received no medals or awards, 2.) the people Clinnin helped were the least endangered of the audience;
the brief blockage at the doors between the foyer and lobby was experienced
almost exclusively by people who were seated on the first floor, who contributed
less than one percent to the nearly six hundred fatalities, and 3.) Clinnin was not
alone in the foyer; at least a half dozen people testified about helping free
people from the foyer blockage.
Henry E. Weaver (1854–1905), a coal dealer/philanthropist,
was being talked about as a mayoral candidate about the same time he became
interested in philanthropy. In addition to the hero medal program, he
served as a trustee for a boys club and spearheaded a beach for men and boys. He
died unexpectedly or history might have recorded his run for political office. The
hero medal program, begun in 1901 (contrary to start date 1900 reported in 1905 newspaper
story) ended
with Weaver's death in 1905.
Arthur Edward Hervieut Egan (1884–???), the star medal awardee
of Weaver's hero program was a volunteer lifeguard who so far out shown other honorees that
the whole program should have been named after him. Arthur Egan saved his first life
at age twelve and by age eighteen had saved twenty-six people, most at a Lake Michigan beach
at the east end of Barry Avenue. He was
decorated by the Royal Humane Society of England, qualifying because of his Toronto birth.
He was the son of Francis and Mary Egan and had five younger siblings. His last
successful rescue came in 1909. As captain of the Florence II, the Chicago
Tribune's ship in
President Taft's Waterways Flotilla, Egan saw a man floundering in the Illinois River
and jumped in. In 1927 he had less success when a friend, baseball player and democrat
party regular Pepper Hayes fell off the Pricilla during a yacht party, reportedly after
fainting because it was during Prohibition and of course there wasn't alcohol on board and
of course he didn't pass out and fall overboard. They got him out, but not alive.
Efforts have been unsuccessful to learn the identity of Clinnin's sister-in-law, who he
reports having taken from the Iroquois lobby to
the Schiller building. His wife's maiden name was
Dubois / Du Bois, and though there was an Iroquois fatality, Ella Dubois, she had only one
living sister, and it was not Clinnin's wife. Another failed alternative is Anna
Gibson, wife of
his brother James Clinnin. There was an Iroquois survivor named Eva Gibson but
she wasn't James Clinnin's
wife. (Eva Gibson's theater companion, Emma Schweitzer, described a conflict in the lobby in
which men refused to go back inside to retrieve her friend Eva Gibson, so in frustration she
ran to Eva's husband's office. A bit similar to Clinnin's story, but I haven't found
anything that points to Eva Gibson being Anna Gibson, wife of James Clinnin. Rather too
many Gibsons for coincidence, will maybe chase at a later time.) The Clinnins were
also related to Fraziers and there were Frazier casualties at the Iroquois Theater.
Stella Follis and
her children
Eunice Smith plank girl
hero
Made-up
scenes and people?
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 3008
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.
