Bibo daughter from Paris IL survived theater fire married Chicago paper family

Website with 696+ pages devoted to 1903 Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago

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Not every eighteen-year-old girl in 1903 from a town as small as Paris, Illinois would have hopped on a train headed for the big city of Chicago. Helen Sholem Bibo (1885–1958), however, had experience traveling by rail to and from her prep school near Terre Haute, Indiana: St. Mary of the Woods (today's St. Mary of the Woods College) where she was a senior. That trip was only about thirty-five miles from home, just across the Illinois-Indiana line, but perhaps taken alone a few times, inspiring a sense of mastery. Then too, Helen may have been a plucky young woman. She was a middle child, sandwiched between two older and two younger brothers who may have see-sawed between protecting and teasing her.

In Chicago I suspect Helen was met by two friends who lived there, fellow classmates at St. Mary of the Woods, Eloise E. Swayze and Hazel Browne, and that Helen was probably going to visit with the family of one of the girls over the New Year's eve holiday. All that is known for sure is that on December 30, 1903 all three girls were at the Mr. Bluebeard matinee at the Iroquois Theater and only Helen survived. Nothing was reported about others in Helen's theater party and there is no record of her ever speaking publicly about her experience at the fire. Based on researching other survivors I've learned such silence is not uncommon when some in the group did not survive. Harold Browne, thought to have been Hazel's cousin, also survived. Did he help Helen escape? Was the party forced to split up, two taking seats on the first floor and the other two in the first balcony? One newspaper report said Helen was seated on the ground floor where there were fewer than a dozen victims.

Helen was one of three children born to Phillip and Elizabeth Sholem Bibo. Phillip had emigrated from Germany to America in 1870. He initially operated a boot and shoe shop, eventually becoming a mortgage broker and banker. Marrying the oldest daughter of one of the richest merchants in town, dry goods man Jacob Sholem, probably contributed to that cobbler-to-banker progression. In 1903 the family lived at 323 N. Central in Paris, a city in eastern Illinois, southeast of Champaign, IL.

In the years after the fire

In June Helen was one of nineteen graduates in the 1904 class of St Mary of the Woods finishing school in Vigo County, Indiana. Four years later the Catholic debutant's marriage may have raised some eyebrows amongst the 6,300 residents of Paris, IL. Her husband, Sol Kirchheimer (1878–1948), was from a prosperous Jewish family in Chicago, his brother having founded the Kirchheimer Bros company in Chicago, producer and wholesaler of paper bags, wrapping paper and related supplies for shop keepers. The company had been founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana by Sol's oldest brother, Joseph Kirchheimer, and relocated to Chicago in 1898.

This story came together more quickly than some thanks to genealogists on Ancestry.com who have done extensive work on the Bibo and Kirchheimer families.

With a large proportion of the nation's meat moving through Chicago's stock yards it is no surprise that the Kirchheimers focused on butcher shops and meat markets.

Helen and Sol raised their four sons in Chicago and in their later years lived at the Drake Hotel in Chicago. Sol died a decade before Helen but all of their boys survived to old age. At least two of Helen's boys joined the Kirchheimer Brothers Paper Company; one of those, Robert, served as a military captain in Europe during World War II.

Helen graduated in 1904 from St Mary of the Woods in Terre Haute

Jacob Sholem's home in Paris, Illinois

Helen Bibo's maternal grandparents, Jacob Sholem (1815–1907) and Jeanette Sylvester Sholem (1829–1924), emigrated from Germany, initially settling in Terre Haute, Indiana, soon relocating a bit further west, in Paris, Illinois. There Jacob built a fortune in dry goods. His brother, David Sholem (1818–1854), made the trip from Germany but died soon after arrival and became the first in the Sholem family to be buried in the family plot in Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute. The plot would eventually accommodate Jacob, Jeanette, seven other Sholems and seven Bibo's. I don't know what all else bonded the Sholem family to Terre Haute, other than it being the location of the final resting place of its senior members, but the relevant connection to this story is that in attending St. Mary of the Woods Academy in Terre Haute Helen followed in the footsteps of her aunt Emma, Jacob and Jeanette's youngest daughter.

Discrepancies and addendum

* Helen and Sol may have met in 1906 when Leo Straus (1857–1926), a Chicago wholesale liquor distributor, hosted a dance for Helen and his daughter, Minna / Minnie (1886–1974). Though Sol was seven years older than Helen and Minnie, all three came from prosperous families. He he and Minnie shared business interests in the food and beverage industry, and Leo Straus, like Joseph Kirchheimer, had started his company in Fort Wayne, IN and relocated to Chicago.

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