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Thirty-year-old Dora A. Mitchell (b.1870) had grown up in Lockport, Illinois,‡ a town then of around 2,600 residents
about thirty miles southwest of Chicago and five miles north of Joliet, Illinois.
Dora was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in
Lockport, conducted by the Sisters of Providence.
Dora was the oldest child of Irish immigrants, boat caulker* Patrick
Mitchell (1835–1912) and Mary Ann Hyland Mitchell
(1844–1932), who had married in 1868. Patrick came to America in 1836 and Mary in 1855. Prior to relocating to
Chicago in 1901 Dora taught at the South Lockport School, earning twenty-seven dollars per month. She lived with
her parents, sister and grandmother.
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The Mitchell's owned their home, making theirs part of forty five percent of
owner-occupied Illinois households in 1903. Dora and her sister, Mary
(also the name of her mother and grandmother) were
the only two surviving of five children born born to
the Mitchells.
In the years after the fire
Like many of the teachers who died at the Iroquois, Dora
had a $1,000 life insurance policy (roughly $20,000
today).
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Discrepancies and addendum
A sixty-eight-year-old Mary E. Mitchell, wife of John W. Mitchell, died on December 30, 1903 in Chicago
but so far I've found no evidence that she was an Iroquois Theater fire
victim or related to Dora. There were several men named John W. Mitchell living in Chicago then, three or more married to women named Mary.
* St. Denis is still in operation but the
name is now spelled with two nn's.
† Ordained in 1900, Father Casey had been at St. Finbarr's parrish in
Chicago assisting Father Judge until transferred to
Our Lady of the Lake in 1903. In the 1920s he became
pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel where he remained
for the rest of his life. He was related to
Dora's mother on the Hyland side of the family, his
parents being James E. Casey (1841–1929) and
Margaret Hyland (1846–1919)
‡ Located on the Des Plaines River, Lockport, IL boasted of being
home to the controlling works of the Chicago
Drainage Canal with offices there for the Illinois
and Michigan Canal headquartered in Joliet, IL.
The canal was the water link between the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi River. Other channels and
railroads eventually reduced Lockport's importance
as a waterway transportation hub but for most of
Patrick's life there were many employers there
connected with the canal, including boatyards.
In 1904 the community was home to ten churches, one
bank, public and parochial schools, electric car
lines and one weekly newspaper.
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