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Twenty-seven-year-old Eleanor "Ella"* Sullivan (b. 1876)
was the principal and teacher at the
Flagler School in Knoxville, Iowa, a small community in central
Iowa with a population in 1903 of around 3,100. Des Moines,
Iowa's capital, is less than an hour away, so Knoxville folks,
then and now, had the benefits of small-town life with easy
access to a larger venue for shopping and entertainment.
Ella and Lizzie's sisters, Nora and Anna, also taught at the
Flagler school; in fact, the school would later be renamed after
Nora Sullivan, who retired from it in 1955 after fifty years as
a teacher there. In 1903 the school had fewer than two hundred
students K-8, and the principal position included teaching two
grades.
Over the Christmas holiday in 1903, Ella took a train into Chicago, about
a ten-hour ride, to visit her oldest sister, Lizzie. Named after their mother, Mary
Elizabeth Sullivan Stewart (1871–1968) was married to a
traveling salesman, Charles L. Stewart (1862–1920), and had two
children, one five years old and one six months old.
The afternoon of December 30, the pair attended a matinee
performance of Klaw & Erlanger's
Mr. Bluebeard pantomime at Chicago's newest luxury
playhouse, the Iroquois Theater. It might have been Ella's first
trip to a Chicago-style theater extravaganza, and for Lizzie, it
might have represented a welcome respite from the
responsibilities of an infant. When a fire broke out on stage
shortly after the beginning of the second act, it became
America's worst theater fire when it spread to the auditorium,
killing over 600 people.
Lizzie Stewart was hospitalized after escaping from the
theater with serious burns. Their older brother,
William Sullivan, who lived in Chicago and worked as
a jeweler, began searching for Ella's body at
sixteen morgues and hospitals.
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Ella and Lizzie were two of eight children born to
Mary Hayes Sullivan (1852–1952) and the late Daniel
H. Sullivan (1845–c1887).
Mary Sullivan had
received a letter from Ella telling of their plans to attend
a Wednesday matinee so when a "Miss Stewart"
appeared on newspaper death lists, Mary and her
other daughters feared the worst. Their frantic
telegrams to Chicago went unanswered initially, probably
because William Sullivan was busy going to hospitals,
searching for Ella's body, and Lizzie's husband
Charles, a traveling salesman, may not have been in
Chicago at the time of the fire.
Ella's body
was found the next day at Perrigo's Funeral Home,
where it was identified by L. C. Flurnit. Am
pretty sure that was a typo as I found no one in 1900
with that last name.† One newspaper reported
that Ella died from shock after escaping from the
theater, which probably means she was not badly
burned. Nothing was reported about where the sisters
were seated in the theater, but it is almost certain
it was in the second- or third-floor balcony.
For weeks after the fire, newspapers were still
published that reported both Lizzie and Ella had
been lost.
I failed to find Ella's funeral. Her brother Michael M. Sullivan escorted the body to Iowa and she was buried in the
Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, where three of her
siblings and their mother would later join her.
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In the years after the fire
In December 1904, a wrongful death suit for $10,000
was filed on Ella's behalf. Like the dozens of other Iroquois
suits, it was dismissed when Iroquois manager
Will J. Davis was acquitted. The Sullivans were
not among the thirty-five victims' families who
received a $750 settlement from Fuller Construction
paid in 1909 ($21,000 today).
Lizzie and Charles had two more children, the four of them
eventually producing six grandchildren. Like her mother,
Lizzie was widowed for many decades. Charles died in
1920 when she was forty-nine, and she lived on
without him for forty-eight years.
At Mary's 100th birthday, the Des Moines Tribune
ran a nice story. Ella was not mentioned, nor were
Mary's other lost children.
When she became a widow at age thirty-five, she'd had
seven children, and finances were difficult.
Nonetheless, most of her children went to college,
and five of her daughters became school teachers.
Mary became disabled from a broken hip twelve years
before her death, but it didn't weaken her
self-discipline. She continued to rise at 5:30 am
and to eat her meals at the table. She was an avid
radio fan and follower of politics, voting by
absentee ballot after her hip accident. She counted
fourteen grandchildren, fourteen
great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
Four of her daughters, Lizzie, Nora, Margaret, and
Anna, were still teaching in 1952. If not for the
Iroquois, Ella would probably have been doing the
same. Like their mother, Mary's girls were
extraordinarily long-lived.
Michael Sullivan made the
largest contribution to Mary's grandchildren pool by
having nine children. Like his father, he supported
his large family by working as a traveling salesman.
He named his firstborn daughter after Ella.
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