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Details become iffier after that. Previous to 1903 George
lived in Iowa but his residence in 1903 is unknown, to me at least. A remark in the 1904 Marion Pilot newspaper about them being former Marion
residents led me to assume they'd moved to Chicago but I didn't find them in Chicago city
directories.
A single man named George M.
Oakley (1871–1951) lived in Marion, Iowa, in 1900
with his older sister, Ada Oakley Gill, and her
husband, Charles E. Gill. In March of 1903, in
Cedar Rapids, he married Minnie Grieshober
(1883–1953). The pair went on to have a half dozen
children, but in December of 1903, possibly his bride
Minnie was lithe enough, and George young enough,
for him to carry her through the mayhem at the
Iroquois Theater as described.
Curiously, at only
twenty-six years of age, doing "odd jobs" and
carpentry for a living, George owned their home in
Marion on 12th street. Homeownership was not
common in the early 1900s, and it is unlikely
he had time enough to save enough to buy property.
An inheritance, perhaps. I hope to revisit George Oakley some day.
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