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The English family
John English (1838–1927) was an insurance and
real estate salesman in Atkinson, Illinois.
He married Sarah Harper (1839–1903) in 1861.
They had five children, all of whom were still
living in 1900. Two of their boys were
doctors and the third was an attorney.
Their oldest daughter, Ellen English Hart (
b.1869), nicknamed "Nellie," was married to a
traveling salesman, Emerson C. Hart (1860–1952). By
the end of 1903, John was widowed and three of
his children had died. The death spiral
started in 1901 when John and
Sarah lost their youngest boy, John Jr. In
mid February 1903 John and Sarah joined their
daughters Nellie and Blanche, and Nellie's
husband, Emerson, on a tour of New Mexico expected to last several
months. It was reported that Sarah had
health problems. Two weeks later, in Santa
Rosa, NM, Sarah died of "throat trouble."
At the end of that month, Blanche, the youngest
child, died as well. (Cause and circumstance
unknown but I suspect both Sarah and Blanche had
tuberculosis .)
1903 was not yet done with the
family. In December Nellie died at the Iroquois Theater, along
her cousin, Maude and Maude's teenaged daughter,
Maurine. John had a couple years
reprieve from grief, outliving his two remaining
children.
Nellie's husband, Emerson, sold products for a
drug company, possibly Hartz & Bahnsen that
was headquartered in Rock Island,
Illinois, where they lived. Rock Island is about a
half-hour east of Atkinson, Illinois, where Nellie
grew up, and her father still lived.
Emerson had been a widower with a seven-year-old
child when he and Nellie married in 1891.
As a teen, the boy in 1900, Walter E. Hart
(1884-?) lived with an aunt and uncle rather
than with his father and stepmother.
The Ganong family
Kate Harper Ganong (1834–1921) was Sarah Harper
English's sister. In 1903 Kate had been
widowed for twenty-two years. She and her late
husband, Jerome Ganong, had had only two
children, both daughters. Her namesake,
Kate Ganong, had married Dr. Ralph DeWitt, and her
youngest, Maude Stella Ganong (b. 1868) , was married to Frederick E.
Smith (1865–1951),* a school teacher and
superintendent of schools in Barrington, Illinois.
Kate lived with Maude, Fred, and their only
child, Maurine Winnifred Smith (b. 1890).
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1903 holidays
In December 1903, Emerson and Nellie had
traveled to Whitley, Indiana, near Fort Wayne,
Indiana, to spend the Christmas holiday with
Emerson's parents, David and Lucy Hart. After
Christmas, Emerson went back to work in Rock
Island, and Nellie traveled north to visit with her cousin Maude
and her aunt Kate.
Besides the familial connection and similar age,
Nellie and Maude had other things in common. Maude
had been married for fifteen years, Nellie for
twelve. They each had just one child.
Maude had Maurine and Nellie had
only stepson, Walter.
At the Iroquois Theater
It is not known where the
Hart-Smith party was seated in the theater, or if
there were others in their party.
Emerson, John Engllish, a friend from Rock Island, Illinois,
Henry B. Hubbard, and Emerson's son, Walter Hart,
searched morgues and hospitals for two days before
finding Nellie's body at the "Home Hospital" ( possibly
aka Beulah Homes Maternity Hospital). She was
was identified by her father who joined Emerson in
escorting her body back to Atkinson for burial.
Fred Smith identified the bodies of his wife and
daughter.
Nothing is known of any of the three funerals. Maude
and Maurine were buried in the Bluff City Cemetery
in Elgin, IL, and Nellie in Grand View Cemetery in
Atkinson, IL.
In the years after the fire
John English remarried, as did Emerson. Emerson Hart
had gotten a law degree as a young man
but didn't use it until later in life when he became a municipal judge in Washburn, Wisconsin.
If I found the fight fellow, Walter English went to North
Dakota to work as a photographer in the real estate
industry around 1910, married a Rock Island girl
named Cora Van Galder, had a couple of sons, and
spent the rest of his life working in the cement
industry.
Maude's mother, Kate Harper Gonong, moved to
California with her oldest daughter and lived to age
eighty-seven.
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