Thirty-four-year-old Schiller elementary school teacher, Maria T. Meagher (b. 1869),^▼1 and her younger sister, thirty-year-old Ellen F. Meagher (1873–1955), were the daughters of Irish immigrants, John Meagher (1825–1908) and the late Ellen Hurley Meagher (1834–1890).   John was an accountant, working for many years as bookkeeper for a large wholesale drug firm, Bliss & Torrey.

Five of John and Ellen's children, including Maria and Ellen, grew to maturity. Two sons moved to Helena, Montana, where John F. Meagher Jr. became a steamfitter, and Daniel J. Meagher (b. 1866) became a watchmaker and jeweler. The pair also dabbled in mining sapphires on the Missouri River.   A third son, also a steamfitter, Joseph F. Meagher (b. 1876), was killed in a ghastly manufacturing accident in 1901.^▼2

Maria and Ellen lived with their widowed father at 656 Orchard Street in Chicago in 1903. The family had lost their home in the 1871 Chicago fire and built another, then purchased the Orchard St. property in 1893.

Maria was one of the twelve graduates from the 1881 class at North Division High School,^▼3 was obviously incorrect since she was only ten years in 1879.  Several Chicago school records reported she was a teacher at Schiller school as early as 1885 when she was only sixteen years old, which is supported by the 1900 U.S. Census report that she attended school for nine years.  Ellen, however, who worked as a mobile hairdresser, completed all four years of high school.

North Branch Primary, pictured at top, the original school where Maria taught at 700 W. Vedder St. (later renamed W. Scott St.), was one of ten public schools destroyed in the Great Chicago fire in 1871, representing a $32,000 loss to the city.^▼4  When rebuilt, the Vedder street school was renamed the Schiller School after German poet Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, a popular school eponym in the late 1800s and early 1900s.^▼5  There were 26 teachers and 1,050 students at Chicago's Schiller School in 1915; I didn't find a count for 1903.  Among the textbooks Maria may have used with her students was Metcalf's English Grammar and McMaster's Primary History of the United States.

In the years after the fire

Daniel and John Jr. traveled from Montana to Chicago for Maria's funeral.  After her sister's death, Maria Meagher stayed on in Chicago, continuing to live at the Orchard St. house by herself for a few decades.  By 1930, she'd changed occupations, was working as a social worker, and was involved in women's clubs. In 1935 she visited her brother in Montana and in 1950 spent two weeks in Bermuda.

Discrepancies and addendum

1. I found instances of both Marie and Maria and a middle initial of both F. and T. Maria T. was used on probate records.  Her birth year is given as 1869, 1870 and 1872 on various documents.

2.  In December of 1901 Joseph Meagher was part of a team of Chicago workers sent to Harvard, IL to install shafting at a new plant belonging to Hunt, Helm, & Ferris (known for its Starline hay handling and dairy equipment as well as coaster wagons and dozens of other products).  His clothing caught in the revolving shafts and he was whirled around dozens of times, his head hitting the floor with each revolution until his clothing finally tore, releasing his body from the shafts.  Reportedly he died almost immediately.

3.  In 1899 renamed the Waller School and in 1979 renamed as the Lincoln Park High School.

4.   It is remarkable that schools were closed for only two weeks after the Great Fire.

5.   In 1962 a new Schiller school was built, incorporating the turquoise architectural panels shown in picture above that helped make it a familiar structure in the Cabrini-Green area.  Thanks to help from a former Chicago Schiller student, Virginia Ousley, I've learned that the old Schiller school remained in use after construction of the new Schiller School.

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