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Unlike nearly six hundred other Iroquois Theater
attendees in Chicago on December 30,
1903, Lulu Parker and her two daughters,
Lotta and Cecelia, lived to return to
their home at 2191 Gladys.* A majority of
the tragedy's fatalities were sitting in
the balconies so their escape was lucky
indeed.
With inflation the $20 and $7 carriage
rides would today be $685 and $240.
Luella "Lulu" McMurry (1865–1940)† and John
Fletcher Parker (1858–1935)
had married in 1885. They lost two children before
or between Charlotte's birth in 1889 and Cecelia's in
1894. John worked most of his life in the
kitchen range industry, as a manager, clerk or traveling
salesman (in 1903 known as a "commercial traveler)." Cribben-Sexton and the Eclipse Gas Stove Company in
Rockford, IL were his only employers I was able to pin
down.
In the years after the fire
The Parker family moved to the Rockford, Illinois area
around 1909. Lulu became active in Christian
Science in the 1930s when the practice was at its height
in popularity. Cecelia married twice and Charlotte
once, each of them producing one child. In 1940
Charlotte gave a musical performance before her Aaron
Miner DAR chapter and her mother Lulu may have sung
soprano in amateur performances.
Discrepancies and addendum
*
In 1909 the city renumbered the two-story
brick as 4310 Gladys but the Parker family
had moved to Rockford, IL by then. In
1903 the four-bedroom home held Lulu, John,
Charlotte, Cecelia and
two roomers — John's brother, Harry D.
Parker (1861–1908), and Joe H. Walker,
husband of one of Lulu or John's sisters.
A year after the fire Harry married
Louise Rickert who was also nicknamed Lulu.
† There is a possibility that
Lulu's maiden name was
Manwaring or Mainwaring rather than McMurry.
Pauline Mueller Jacobson
Rimes family of 5
Locusts to fire
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 2975
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