Retired grocer Benjamin Moore and his wife Kittie hosted a family reunion during the December 1903 holidays. Relatives came from the Chicago area as well as from Hart, Michigan, and West Superior, Wisconsin.

On the afternoon of Dec 30, Benjamin treated eight of his family members to a theater matinee, a colorful music pageant based on the Mr. Bluebeard fairy tale. In the party were representatives from three generations: Benjamin, his wife, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, three great-granddaughters, and his great grandson.  The family purchased seats in the last row of the third-floor balcony on the north side of the Iroquois Theater.

When a fire broke out on stage and spread to the auditorium, a back draft hurled a fire ball into the balconies.  The Moore family's seats were among the most dangerous seats in the house.

In their party of nine, only one survived, one of Benjamin Moore's daughters — Lena (Aleana) H. Moore Hanson (1873–1948) of Hart, Michigan. A second party of family members was planned for the evening performance.  Presumably that would have included  Lena's children, fourteen and nineteen-year-old Winfield and Fremont Hanson. 

1. Seventy-one year old husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, Benjamin Moore (b. 1832)

2. Forty-eight year old wife and stepmother, Catherine Ella "Kittie" Sayles Moore (b. 1855)

Benjamin Moore and his wife Kittie were Chicago residents in 1903. Kittie was Benjamin's second wife, married in 1882. She and Benjamin had only one child; Benjamin had six children with his ex wife, Hannah Henion Moore. Kittie Moore was the daughter of Henry S. and Phebe H. Kinney Sayles of Elbridge in Oceana County, Michigan. Benjamin was born in Canada and as the owner of a hotel and sawmill, became a prominent citizen in the tiny towns of Hart and Mears Michigan.  Moore moved to Chicago after marrying Kitty around 1900.  Benjamin's body was found at Rolston's Mortuary and Kittie's at Jordan's.  Kittie's badly charred body was the last in the family to be found.

3. Thirty eight year old husband and son in law, Joseph J. Bezenek (b.1865)

4. Forty-one-year-old daughter and grandmother, Nellie Moore Shufelt Best Bezenek (b. 1862)

Nellie was one of Benjamin Moore's daughters by his first wife. Joseph Bezenek was Nellie's third husband they'd been married just over a year. With her first husband, Stephen Shufelt, Nellie had a daughter, Estelle Shufelt, named after one of Nellie's sisters, who married George MacKay and bore a son, Rolland MacKay, who also died at the Iroquois (see below).

While in Chicago, the Bezeneks lodged with their daughter, Estelle MacKay, who remained at home with a last-minute illness, while they took their grandson, Roland, to see Mr. Bluebeard.

Prior to their marriage Joseph, a machinist, operated a bicycle shop in Chicago with August Blum.  He also participated in Chicago bicycle races in the late 1890s.

5. Six-year-old Roland S. MacKay (b. 1898)

Roland MacKay was Benjamin Moore's great grandson, the son of Estelle (1878–1911) and George R. MacKay (b. 1871).   His mother, Estelle Moore MacKay, was expected to be among the theater party but at the last minute felt poorly and remained home.

George, a native of Iowa, was a picture frame manufacturer. Estelle and George lived in Chicago. They did not attend Mr. Bluebeard. At the Iroquois, Roland was in the care of his grandparents, Nellie and Joseph Bezenek (see above). Two years after Roland's death at the Iroquois, Estelle and George had a daughter.

Estelle died of tuberculosis.

6. Thirty-three-year-old mother and daughter-in-law, Mary E. "Mate" Farmer Moore (b. 1869)

7. Thirteen-year-old granddaughter and daughter, Sibyl L. Moore (b. 1890)

Mother and daughter went with Sibyl's grandfather Benjamin to the Iroquois. Mary was married in 1886 to Benjamin's son, Perry Moore (1870–1920), who was in Nome, Alaska when his wife and daughter died. Mary's parents were James Anson Farmer (1842–1914) and Hannah E. Randal (–1914). Perry remarried after Mary and Sibyl's deaths. He and his second wife lived in Alaska for a time, then in Arizona, where they died in 1920 of tuberculosis, the second and third TB victims in the family.  Mate's body was recovered at Sheldon's Funeral Home.

8. Ten-year-old granddaughter, Lucile Bond (b. 1893)

From Hart, Michigan. Lucile was Benjamin Moore's granddaughter, child of Benjamin's daughter Lily Moore Bond (1864–1911), and Lily's second husband, wire dealer George H. Bond (1860–). Lily and George did not attend the theater.

9. Thirty-year-old Lena (Aleana) H. Moore Hanson (1873–1948)

Sole survivor.  She lived in Hart, Michigan. She later described her escape.  Lena was married to an attorney/insurance agent, Winfield S. Hanson (1867–1952). After his death, she lived for several decades with a widowed sister, Estella Moore Bates (1860-1940), before marrying Henry Phelps Boice at age seventy-one.

" We had seats together in the last row of the top balcony. The tier of seats was beyond the third aisle as we entered the balcony, and I believe we were in the tier of seats farthest from the entrance. I was sitting in the center of the nine who formed our party, with four children on either side of me. When I saw flames shooting from the scenery and saw a woman faint on the stage, I arose and started out. I do not live in Chicago and became frightened at the sight of the fire. 'Don't go out, everything will be all right,' said those who were with me [her father, stepmother, sister and sister-in-law], 'You may be caught in a crowd and crushed.' I was too frightened to stop and walked past the others to the aisle and started for an exit, but could find none open. I walked down the stairs to the feet of the balcony and out of a small exit — the only one along the wall I found open. It was one with a swinging door attached, half in wooden panels and half in glass, and swung on hinges. As I passed out I glanced back into the theater. Until then most of the people in the second balcony had kept their seats. I walked down the stairway to the first balcony and did not realize that there was a stampede until I reached it. I seized hold of a railing leading down the stairs from the first balcony and, by clinging to it all the way down the stairs, kept the maddened crowd from trampling on me.

In the entrance on the first floor I could see the people swarming and vainly trying to make their way from the theater. Every second the crowd became thicker. At the foot of the stairway I clung more tightly to the railing, and had hard work in preventing the crowd from forcing me away from it. The man ahead of me said, 'Follow me.' He started along the side wall of the entrance and I followed him. Near the ticket office he kicked out the glass in on of the doors. 'Jump through there,' he said, pointing to the hole he had made in the door. I obeyed and crawled through it, a mass of broken glass falling about me as I made my way through the hole."

Other discussions you might find interesting