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Anna Pauline Hopfensack Neumann*
(b.1868) turned thirty-five on December
29, 1903, so perhaps the theater
excursion was a birthday celebration.
She took her son, ten-year-old Arthur
Neumann (b.1893), and a neighbor girl
(who was indirectly related through her
sister's husband), ten-year-old Elsa H.
Meyer (b.1893), to see the extravaganza
Christmas pageant, Mr.
Bluebeard, at Chicago's newest luxury playhouse,
the Iroquois Theater.
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Elsa Meyer
Elsa was one of six children
born to Jacob B. Meyer (1865–1939) and Amelia A.
Ackerman Meyer (1866–1948), married in 1892. Four of
the six survived to adulthood.
Neumann Family
The Neumanns lived on Deyo Avenue in
West Grossdale, part of a cluster of three
housing developments founded by
Samuel Gross about fourteen miles southwest of
downtown Chicago. Around 1905 West Grossdale was
renamed Congress Park, and today all three
developments are part of Brookfield, Illinois, home
of the famous and wonderful
Brookfield Zoo.
In 1900 the population of the
communities was under 1,200, so if they shared a
train, the Neumanns might have exchanged
pleasantries with
Alvina, Emma, and Arthur Bartlett, another West
Grossdale Deyo Avenue family who lost their lives at
the Iroquois. The Bartlett children were likely
schoolmates with Arthur Neumann and Elsa Meyer.
Published lists of 1904 reported that August J.
Neumann identified the bodies of his wife and son,
Ann, by her rings. A descendent of the family shares
that identification was actually made by Julius
Ackerman, Anna's brother-in-law, Elsa Meyer's uncle,
and another Deyo Avenue West Grossdale Avenue
resident. Arthur was identified by a Sunday School
pamphlet in his pocket.
The Neumanns are buried at
Bronswood Cemetery in Oak Brook, DuPage County,
Illinois, as are Elsa Meyer and the Bartlett
victims.
August and Ann had married in Manhattan in 1887.
Besides Arthur, they had two daughters, Helen and
Polly. Helen was six years old when her mother and
brother died, Polly fifteen. August died three years
after the fire. Helen and Polly married and, between
them, had six children. Helen moved to Colorado and
Polly to Missouri. Polly's way of dealing with the
loss of her mother and little brother was to refrain
from speaking of the tragedy.
August J. Neumann was a bookbinder with offices in
Chicago in room #22 at 35 S. Clark, making him among
the new commuters for which the Grossdale
developments were designed. A year prior,
August had lost his business partner. Emil
Prosch and August were partners for a decade in the
Chicago Job Book Bindery (also going by Prosch &
Neumann).
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