John Leslie Lloyd 1898–1986)

In 1920 John married Vivian P. Martin (1902–1984) and they had two daughters, Thelma and Mary.  According to his WWII draft card, Leslie stood 5'11 and weighed 164 pounds. His eyes were blue, his hair brown, his complexion light.

In his twenties Leslie worked as a farmer in Reliance, then in the 1940s for Gearench Manufacturing, living at 317 Hughes St. in Houston, TX.

In 1950 when he wrote to the Chicago Tribune, Leslie had returned to farming. He and Vivian lived on Reliance Rd in Brazos, on the other side of Wickson Creek, next to his mother and youngest sister Janie Belle in one house and his brother Russell's family in another. I took a digital drive along Reliance Rd on Google maps.  Beautiful day but I didn't find structures that might have been the Lloyds' houses. Turns out that Reliance, TX is considered a ghost town today.  It had been renamed from Little Georgia to Reliance around 1873 by John's granduncle, David Lloyd (1831–1920).  By 1910 it had only ten residents.  John was the son of John L. Lloyd sr and Caroline Cloud Lloyd. 

Caroline "Carrie" Cloud Lloyd (1878–1962)

Nicknamed Carrie and Clara, Caroline was the daughter of William Wilson Cloud, a noted Confederate general.  I failed to find a connection between Carrie and governor Toole's wife, Lillie, or any prior meeting.

Lillie Elizabeth Rosecrans Toole (1854–1939)

Lillie Rosecrans and Joseph Toole married in 1890.  Of their three sons, two lived to adulthood.  Lily Toole was born in Ohio, the daughter of Major General William Stark Rosecrans, a decorated Civil War officer who twice refused the opportunity to become governor of Ohio. President Teddy Roosevelt attended his burial service. She and Joseph Toole's firstborn died of diphtheria at age seven. Joseph Toole served as Montana's first governor then two more terms. Among the highlights of his governorship was construction of Montana's State Capital. According to historians, Lilly served as a landscaping consultant for the project, including the planting of many lilac bushes. Those at the capital disappeared over the years but the lilacs at the Toole home on Rodney Street in Helena  survived and provided cuttings for lilacs that remain today as a Helena hallmark.

Robert "Bob" Davidson Cunningham (1884–1964)

Born in Etna, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, Robert was the son of Rebecca Loeffer and John Cunnngham.  He prospered after his move to Illinois.  He owned a Ford dealership in Evanston in the 1920s, and by 1950 was a real estate broker living in seven-thousand-sq-ft mansion at 1812 Asbury in Evanston.  It's still standing and quite impressive.  He also owned interests in several golf courses, including the club in Wilmette and Pickwick club in Glenview.

John's wife, Ethel P. Williams Cunningham (1883–1958), became a noted suffragette, lecturer, writer, international traveler and social activist. She was a delegate at the 1920 National Republican Convention representing the fight for women's suffrage.  They had two children, Robert jr (pictured) and June.

In 1932, with the Depression taking its toll, Cunningham attempted to raise money for his auto dealership first by advertising for a lender then by selling a portion of the dealership to an investor.  By 1935 he worked as a salesman for another dealership (that may have been the purchaser of Cunningham's Ford dealership, I didn't chase) and by 1941 made the move to real estate.

Mabel Mae Cunningham (1880–1966)

My guess that Mabel was not at the Iroquois is based on having read hundreds of stories in period newspapers about people who simply thought about attending the theater that day.  Such was the interest in the Iroquois Theater fire that even a whiff of a connection was deemed worthy of publishing.  Unless Mabel was in a convent, had she been at the Iroquois Theater, her story would almost certainly have appeared in newsprint.  Little was learned about Mabel.  As an adult she owned a home and let rooms to her siblings.  She doesn't seem to have married.

Discrepancies and addendum

1.  There are several problems with Leslie Lloyd's report about his family's experience at the Iroquois.

• Harriet Andrew did not have a sibling named Kame. If a nickname, the only one of Harriet's siblings to whom it might have been attached (for no other reason than that she is the only one whose date of death is not established) was Helen but the idea of any of Harriet's siblings having been an Iroquois victim is improbable because no other family victims were mentioned in Harriet's obituary.  Nor were there other 1903 burials in the Andrew family plot.   Equally elusive was a familial connection between the Lloyd's of Brazos, Texas and the Andrews of  Brooklyn, Wisconsin.
  
  
• According to multiple newspaper stories, if Lillie Toole went to the Iroquois with the Lloyds, it was kept secret and is unlikely. According to one Chicago newspaper story that appeared soon after the fire, she had promised to take their two sons, Edwin Warren and Joseph, to Mr. Bluebeard if she returned home in time from shopping.  The corrected story appeared in the Montana Record Herald in January, 1904 which reported that Lillie took her youngest son, Joseph, with her on a shopping trip.  His older brother, Warren Toole, was left at home because he'd recently suffered a serious dog bite to the face. A nursemaid promised Warren that she would take he and Joseph to see Mr. Bluebeard if their mother and Joseph came home early enough from their shopping excursion.  Reportedly Warren was grateful after learning of the fire to have not been in attendance at the Iroquois.  Had the Tooles in 1904 wanted to conceal Lillie's and Joseph's presence at the Iroquois, perhaps to spare Warren's feelings, Leslie Lloyd in 1950, though Warren Toole was still living, was not thus constrained and spoke freely of Lillie's presence - but, significantly, failed to mention the presence of her seven-year-old son, Joseph.  Nope, too improbable.  Neither Lillie nor Joseph was at the Iroquois Theater.
  
  
• According to the birth year inscribed on Leslie Lloyd's tombstone, he was five years old at the time of the Iroquois fire, not four.  It is an insignificant discrepancy but together with these others may suggest a memory problem with Lloyd and/or Carrie.  He was sixty-six in 1950, and would live another twelve years so though dementia is not impossible, his seventy-two-year-old mother is the more more likely prospect for age-related memory problems.  Or not.  Facts are sometimes askew in family legends.

2.  There are towns named Pontiac in Michigan, Illinois and Ontario, Canada but the only one that would involve passing through Chicago when coming from Pittsburgh is Pontiac, Illinois. Cunningham said he was on a visit to "distant relatives" which could mean relatives who lived a distance from Pittsburgh or relatives who where distantly related. There were several Cunningham families living in Pontiac, IL in the early 1900s.

3.  Some of the glass-paned interior doors were fastened to prevent street thieves from entering the building when ticket-takers were not on duty.  Such was the problem with petty thieves in that area of Randolph St. then that police had to run off pick pockets who were going through the pockets of corpses both inside and outside the theater.  Less than one percent of fatalities were seated on the first floor, demonstrating that their danger was substantially less than in the balconies.  Nonetheless, reports of their Iroquois experience were prominent, chiefly because more of them survived to tell a tale, but also because they were apt to be more affluent.  In their escape they ran past neighborhood drugstores, saloons and diners to reach haunts more familiar to them.  At the Sherman House and Marshal Fields they found clothing, safety from the cold, telephones and first aid.  Encampments of reporters were there too, eager for every morsel of information.

4.  Robert Cunningham's recollection of the date of the canoe accident was mistaken.  It happened in April of 1906, not 1904.  Though it has little to do with the Iroquois, here tis:
William Ellis Crane (18771906) had been a whirlwind of activity during his six-months at the Sharpsburg-Etna, Pennsylvania YMCA.  He founded a canoe club and participated in gymnastics, boxing, and fencing.  His promotion to the Secretary office was assured.  On April 12, 1906 he and two canoe club members, including Robert Cunningham, purchased a canoe at a sporting goods store in Pittsburgh, intending to paddle it home to Sharpsburg.  Good swimmers all, they happily dismissed the clerk's suggestion that they purchase life jackets.  Considering what happened, I wonder if the clerk's suggestion was more than upselling; maybe he knew things about the Allegheny's current that the canoe party did not.
They boarded the canoe in a pool of the Allegheny River at the Sixth Street bridge (an early version of today's Roberto Clemente bridge) and were almost immediately caught up in the current and carried down stream.  It was reported that crowds gathered to watch their struggle to control the craft.  That seems odd to me, makes me wonder if canoes were an uncommon sight at that juncture of the river.  Just as it appeared they seemed to have the canoe under control, Crane leaned far to one side and capsized the canoe.  The three men began swimming to shore but the current drove them toward barges lining the shore.  The third man, E.B. Ripine, was grabbed and pulled out of the water as he was about to be swept beneath barge.  Cunningham was hauled in with a rope.  Crane kept swimming, calling out instructions to rescuers about helping his companions, until he was suddenly caught in the current and swept beneath the barges.  He emerged on the other side and rescuers threw a rope but as the coil hit the water, he threw up his hands and sank.
Observers speculated that Crane had been stricken with a cramp but his death certificate reported that his death was "probably" accidental. That suggests the coroner learned something that made Crane's death a bit peculiar.  Perhaps he tipped the canoe intentionally, to create a teaching moment, settle an argument, etc. Murder-suicide seems highly unlikely.  Whatever the coroner learned, it was not reported in newspapers and is probably forever lost to history.  The river was unsuccessfully dragged with grappling irons, a memorial service was well intended and his body appeared two weeks later.  Moral of the story: even strong swimmers should wear life jackets when unfamiliar with the water.

Story 3013