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Michael Bergin
Michael testified at the
coroner's inquest that he saw Iroquois house fireman
William Sallers serving as a doorman at least
twenty-five times. Nothing is known about
Michael. The description of him in newspaper
reports as a "helper" suggest he was young.
Or very old. In Chicago in 1900 was a Michael Bergin, then age
fifteen, oldest son of a widow with four children,
but I found nothing with which to connect him to the
theater industry, in 1903 or later.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: general
Edwin J. Bevis (1866–1949?)
Born as Edwin but as an adult
went most commonly as Ted after 1900. He brought
his ill boss, Slim Seymour, into work the morning of
the fire. He was not listed among casualties
and was presumably on the stage when the fire broke out but
nothing is known of his personal experience.
A native of Ohio, his parents European immigrants,
Edwin and his wife of fourteen years, Anna Erd
Bevis, had one child, daughter Geraldine.
Edwin worked as a stage carpenter in Cincinnati
before coming to Chicago around 1900. After the
Iroquois Theater he went to work at the Grand Opera House in
Chicago and continued in theaters until at least
1910. His career then leapfrogged when he
became associated with cinema pioneer
William Selig. By 1918 Bevis was living in
California, serving as technical director and set
designer for William Parsons and the National Film
Corporation in its production of Tarzan of the
Apes. By the mid 1920s he was a co-owner
of Sympho-Cinema and Eureka Film companies, selling
stock and acquiring acreage for production studios
in Miami, St. Louis, Albuquerque and Cincinnati,
with an eye on Hawaii. The scheme was simple.
They blew into a targeted city and made big promises
about turning it into a film production capital,
producing diagrams of the planned studio and
acreage. Stock investments as small as $75
were then sold to individuals who could not afford
it. It all came crashing down in 1926 when two
of Ted's partners were indicted for using the U.S.
mail for fraudulent stock sale. Bevis wasn't
implicated, in media reports anyway, and there were
no reports of his partners being sentenced, but by
1929 a Florida bank sought Bevis, his wife, daughter
and her husband for non payment of an unspecified
amount. Ted and Anna returned to Ohio by 1930
and are buried in a Cincinnati cemetery.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpentry
Orlando H. Butler (1885–1940)
This is an "iffy" identification. Could be the fellow but the evidence is
weak. 1904 newspapers identified this stage
clearer only as "O. H. Butler." No 1900-1905
Chicago city directory listings fit, by name or
employment, suggesting O.H. was not head of his
household in 1903. The 1900 U.S. Census offers
a fifteen-year-old minor, Orlando H. Butler, who was
eighteen in December 1903. Orlando lived one
mile from the Iroquois theater. If this is the
right fellow, he went on to marry Selma Michel,
father three children and become a police sergeant.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: property
Claude
Clayton Calhoun (1880–1936)
Claude appeared on lists of
employees to be called as witnesses
in the coroner's inquest but nothing
was reported as to his testimony.
He eventually landed in Winona,
Minnesota as an electrical
contractor but in the early 1900s
moved between Chicago and Winona,
doing a stint in New York at the
Metropolitian Theater as property
master. At the Iroquois he
probably operated a lamp. In
1908 he married Pearl Campbell and
they had five children. He
died after falling off a curb into
the path of an automobile while
walking home from work.
William Benjamin Cameron r (1878–1963)
Twenty-five-year-old William Cameron's name appeared as W. B. Cameron on a list
of prospective witnesses during the coroner's
inquest but nothing was published to verify that he
did testify or, if so, what he said, or even if he
was present on the stage during the fire.
He continued to work as a theater lighting operator
until at least 1911 but by 1918 had changed with the
times and operated a movie house projector. By
1920 he'd left the entertainment world behind to
work as a railroad policeman and in 1930 as a
express bank messenger. In 1910 he married
Alice Lindskog and in 1937 Teresa Moreno.
As a youngster his family had called him Willie.
He was the oldest son of the five children who
survived infancy born to William H. Cameron, born in
Canada, and Kentucky native, Frances "Annie"
Vawter Cameron. William was a veteran of the Spanish-American war, serving
as a private in the Hospital Corps in Cuba.
Over fifty years later Cuba presented an award (see
below). If stationed at the hospital in Siboney, Cuba, William may have met or worked
alongside the legendary nurse, Clara Barton. At the end
of his life William and Maria lived in Nogales,
Arizona. According to his draft card as an
older adult he was of medium height with a stocky
build and brown eyes.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
John Chism (1877–?)
In 1910 John still worked in
theater lighting, loding in Manhattan with a group
of actors and actresses.
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: lighting
Elizabeth Cleland (1866–1935)
Elizabeth Cleland and her husband were both employed
in theaters. She worked for
Will J. Davis at the
Illinois Theater as the dressing room matron and
assumed that position at the Iroquois. After
the fire she returned to the Illinois and was still
employed in theaters in the 1930s. Her
husband, Thomas J. Cleland, was an electrician at
the Garrick Theater in 1903, having started there in
1897 and still there in 1909. Elizabeth
testified that she had never received instructions
about what to do in the case of fire.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: dressing
Thomas F. Delaney (1876–1946)
Thomas Delaney operated an arc lamp from a bridge
on the opposite side of the proscenium opening to that of William McMullen's
lamp that started the fire. Delaney's
testimony begs the question: did Delaney's lamp have
the same configuration as the one that started the
fire?
Q. Did the proscenium arch border come near your
light?
A. It did when I first went to work, but
I lowered my lamp two feet away from it. It
touched the top of it.
Q. What, in your opinion,
caused the fire, then?
A. The flames from the top carbon — the
soft carbon. [soft-cored rod]
Q. Then the flame could come out through the top of this lamp?
A. Yes, sir; that is the way I surmised.
Not reported was whether there follow up
testimony revealed whether Delaney's lamp fixture
was, like the one that started the fire, a
combination arc lamp and spot light. The
spotlight
McMullen's lamp prevented the top
lamp head from being lowered sufficiently to evade
contact with the curtain. If the two lamps were
not configured similarly, what Delaney did with his
lamp is only relevant insofar as what it reveals
about the offending lamp. (One of many situations in
which I'd like to choke the interrogators and/or
reporters.) Delaney also testified that the
strip lamp on the north side of the stage was
used and in the open position during the scene prior
to the Pale Moonlight performance.
Six months after the fire
Delaney married Minnie Gaffga and they later had one
child. Thomas continued working in the theater
industry until at least the 1930s.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Emil Doll
He testified before fire
investigator Fulkerson's inquest the first week of
January, 1904 relative to the wire used to suspend
aerial dancers above the heads of the audience in
the auditorium. Nothing is known of the
details of his testimony or of his biography.
A few months later a boy named Emil Doll was
pleasing billiards fans in NYC and possibly went on
to become a noted golfer but I found nothing to
connect that boy to theaters.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging?
William P. Dunn (1871–?)
As chief electrician for the Mr.
Bluebeard company, Dunn was responsible for
616 incandescent and 25 arc lamps on the stage.
Three years earlier he may have had a different career in
mind, however; in the 1900 U.S. Census Dunn's
occupation was reported as "actor."
It should be noted that he lived in a boarding house on West
36th St. in Manhattan with two dozen other people,
of which seven were actors. The person who
provided information to the census enumerator may
have had an inaccurate understanding of what Dunn
did at the theater. So too another of the
lodgers,
Frank Polin, who was also a member of the Mr. Bluebeard
company stage crew.
William McMullen, employee of the Iroquois
Theater and operator of the lamp that started the
fire, testified that Dunn directed him to operate
that specific lamp, provided by the Mr.
Bluebeard company, from that specific bridge.
McMullen said that though he warned Dunn the curtain
fabric was too close to the arc lamp, he was not
directed to change the lamp position and the curtain
was not removed or contained. It was not
reported when this conversation took place but
McMullen testified that Dunn was a "hard man to talk to."
If McMullen elaborated, it was not reported and the
remark could have many meanings. Was Dunn poor
at listening? An interrupter? Bad
tempered?
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: lighting
Frederick Harry Dutton (1865—1947)
Iroquois Theater lamp operator Frederick H. Dutton lived at 25 N. Irving in 1903.
He and his wife, Francis A. Walton Dutton, were born
in England, Francis arriving in America in the mid
1880s and Fred in 1872. Married in 1886, by 1903
they had two sons, thirteen-year-old Edward and
ten-year-old Earl. A month after the Iroquois
fire Francis gave birth to their third son, Warren,
and in later years they would add Wesley and
Dorothy. Fred worked as a printer as a young
man but went to work in theaters around 1897 and
continued to work on the stage until retirement.
Their 50th wedding anniversary newspaper notice included a
reference to Fred's having helped in the Iroquois
rescue efforts. It is likely he was one of the
men in the chain gang who led chorus girls through
the dense smoke and flaming scenery from the
elevator to the stage door.
(The others included
J. R. O'Malley,
Arthur Hart,
Fred Dutton,
Archie Bernard, Edward Farley
and William Price.)
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Richard Emelanz
Reported as badly burned and living
in a boarding house at 288 Indiana St. So far I've
found no one by that name or by Melanz, Milanz, Amelanz, etc.
Though he was cited as an employee of the Iroquois
Theater, with the possibility that he was actually a
member of the Mr. Bluebeard company, I also looked for him in New York.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Edward Engle
Engle was among those Mr. Bluebeard company men arrested
the day after the fire, held on $5,000 bond, primarily
to ensure he could be questioned by coroner. It
was reported that Engle was the one who opened the large
double barn doors at the back of the stage. Some
prosecutors and newspaper reporters wanted to make
much of opened stage doors.
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: unknown
Edward Farley (1885–1915)
Called Eddie by his family, eighteen year old Edward Farley was one of six
children born to Delia Costello Farley (1854–1928)
and Terrence J. Farley (1846–1910), of which three
survived in 1903, Edward and two sisters. He left school before
his sixteenth birthday and worked as a messenger boy
before going to work for the Iroquois Theater. His
mother, an 1870 immigrant from Ireland, is described
by one descendant as an independent and feisty
woman who ejected his heavy-drinking
father from the household. I found a
Temperance advocate by the same name, protesting in
a nearby city. Might have been a different
Delia but my guess is it was Edward's mother. Reportedly Delia
was less impressed by Edward helping to save
showgirls from the Iroquois Theater fire (ten
stagehands formed a chain line and when dancers came
off the stage elevator in the heavy smoke, grabbed
them and passed them from one to the other until
they reached the door to safety)* than by his having
left his new coat behind to burn up. (The
others included J. R. O'Malley,
Arthur Hart,
Archie Bernard, Fred Dutton
and William Price.)
In the years after the fire Eddie married a Kentucky girl, Alma M. Talbott
(1997–1972), in May 1915, and gave up his bartending job to go to
work for the Thearle-Pain Fireworks Company.
(Edward was likely one of the new hires for a Therle
plant set up that spring in Roby, Indiana, fourteen
miles from the Chicago Loop. This replaced its
previous facility on Chicago's south side that had
blown up in September, 1914, killing five employees,
including Harry Therle. The firm's patriotic
battle scene themes were especially popular at state fairs in
the Midwest during the first world war and the company was still in
operation in the late 1940s with offices and plants
in multiple major cities.) Eddie and Alma
had been married just four months when his employer sent
him to Detroit to produce a fireworks display for the
66th Michigan State Fair. (Farley family lore pins
his death to Grant Park in Chicago but newspapers
document that his fatal accident took place in Detroit.)
At the fairgrounds, before a grandstand crowd
estimated at twenty thousand, he fired off two
aerial showers and was leaning over to shoot off a
third when it exploded, slamming him to the ground
with crushing strength. He died before
reaching Grace Hospital. His wife remarried
two years later. (Note: Unconfirmed Farley
lore connects
catholic cardinal John Murphy Farley as a cousin
of Edward's father.)
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: property
Walter Golden (1885–1946)
Walter was an electrical
engineering student at Lewis Institute in Chicago (sometimes
credited as the country's first junior college,
merging with Armour Institute of Technology to
evolve into today's Illinois Institute of
Technology). The oldest son of Frank and Mary
(Shulz) Golden, in pursuing a career in engineering
Walter was following in his father's footsteps.
A decade later he married Anna Graceson Knott.
The Goldens were from St. Louis, moving to Chicago
sometime before 1900. For some young men an
experience like the Iroquois fire might drive them
far, far away from theaters but Walter must have
liked it because three decades later he worked as an
electrician in a theater. Could afford live-in
domestic help so had probably advanced beyond lamp
operation. By 1942 he'd gone to work for the
Chicago Board of Underwriters. His WWII draft
card reveals him at age fifty six as 5'7" and
weighing 212. Light brown hair, blue eyes.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Edward Grunich (1851–1908)
Fifty-two-year-old Edward
Grunich described his occupation as "machinist."
He and
his wife, Catherine De Beer Grunich, were both
German immigrants. The pair had three grown
children, Emma, Minna and Frederick.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
James J. Hamilton
At the coroners trial in mid January 1904, James Hamilton,
described as a trunk manager and property boy,
surprised everyone when he described pulling the wire that opened and closed
the vent above the stage about fifteen minutes into the
first act. Prior to his testimony it was
thought, based on testimony from other stagehands,
that the vent remained closed throughout the
performance. Hamilton did not know if someone
else closed the vent after he'd opened it and
nothing was reported as to how far open he'd left
it. Hamilton also gave his opinion that the
fire could have been easily extinguished if there
had been a fire hose on the stage. Perhaps, but
since Hamilton was in the basement break room when
the fire broke out, his opinion on that score was
useless.
That did not prevent newspapers from presenting his
testimony as an "aha!" moment.
He offered an alternate
explanation for what some people on the street
thought was an explosion. By some accounts the
thunderous sound came when the last of the structure
that held the loft suspended above the stage gave way and
thousands of pounds crashed to the stage floor.
Hamilton, however, attributed it to an big set piece.
"Five minutes after the fire started the big set
piece in the shape of a fan, used as a finale in the
second act, fell forty feet to the stage. The piece
was studded with 150 incandescent lamps and weighed
several hundred pounds. The noise of Its fall and
the breaking lamps gave forth the sound of an
explosion." Again, however, Hamilton was
speaking from theory, not observation.
"When I first came up the orchestra was playing and the double octet was singing, with sparks falling all around them. Not a musician nor player moved until it was a matter of life or death.
"The ventilators were
opened, I believe, at every performance. Many times
the draft from them was so strong that it was
uncomfortably cool on the stage." Then
why, I wonder, they opened on a day when it was near zero degrees outside.
Hamilton said he stepped onto
the stage and urged the audience to keep quiet.
As did Will McMullen and one other stagehand.
Plus
Eddie Foy. Explaining why so many
audience members testified they saw someone on the
stage saying something.
When his clothes started to
smoke, Hamilton left the building.
A next-day newspaper story
credited Hamilton with leading supernumeraries from
the basement dressing rooms out through the coal
chute and up to the street. I suspect this was
one of those next-day reporting errors and the
correct name of the man who led performers out a
coal chute was
Robert Murry, the stationary engineer who gave
his account to author
Marshall Everett. Hamilton's testimony in
court made no mention of a trip back down to the
basement and saving youngsters.
Hamilton's address was reported as 195 N. Clark but I found no one at that
address in Chicago city directories 1902–1904 by the
name of Hamilton.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: property
Frank C. Harrison (1874–?)
Harrison's testimony at the
coroner's inquest duplicated that of
Thomas Delaney that the
strip lamp on the north side of the stage was
used and in the open position during the scene prior
to the Pale Moonlight performance. Harrison was still
working Chicago theaters in 1920, boarding with
dozens of other theater stage workers and performers
at the National Hotel on East Van Buren.
Harrison was a native of New York; nothing else is
known of him.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Arthur Hart
Arthur Hart worked with stage property, moving items on and off the stage as
needed. He testified at the fire attorney
Fulkerson's inquest on January 6, 1904. He was
one of the men who formed a chain line to herd
performers through the thick smoke and flames from
the elevator to the stage exit. (The others included
J. R. O'Malley,
Edward Farley,
Fred Dutton,
Archie Bernard, and William Price.) Arthur
lived at 272 42nd St.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: property
Addison Jasper Hawes (1864–1935)
Addison Hawes saw the fire
curtain descend and stop with the north side eight
feet higher than the south side. The curtain seemed
to him to belly outwards but the smoke was too dense
to see what caused the problem. He saw several
coworkers prodding at the curtain on the north side
with poles in an effort to free it from the
obstruction. Hawes reportedly testified that
he saw no fire hose, hooks, poles or water buckets
or fire alarms on the stage and had never seen
anyone operate the skylight vent above the stage. A
wire hung from the roof to within ten feet of the
stage floor and was reached by a ladder. Addison and
his wife, Josephine Hayes Hawes, were from Wisconsin
and had five or six children.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Robert Mathew Hawes (1859–1941)
Brother of another Iroquois stage worker, Addison,
Robert Hawes was married to
Margaret Miller Hawes and had two daughters.
Three years before the fire Robert and his family
were living in Denver where he worked as a gold
miner. By 1910 they would return to Denver
where they remained for the rest of their lives
though Robert may not have lived with his family
1910-1920. Chasing gold, perhaps.
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: scenery shifter
John J. Hickey (1855–?)
Iroquois carpenter John HIckey and his wife, Christina, moved to
Philadelphia, Christina's home state, for a time
after the fire but spent most of their lives in
Chicago. They had two daughters, Mamie and
Elizabeth. John
testified at the coroner's inquest. By 1920 he'd
advanced to stage manager at an unknown theater.
Poor fellow. Just in time for talkies to turn
his world upside down.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpentry
H. Hill (Havenhill)
Mr. Hill was interviewed by
the Chicago Tribune. He operated the lamp
designated as #1 on the stage floor, directly below
the bridge on which William McMullen manned the arc
lamp that started the fire. To the Trib Hill
gave his negative opinion of Mr. Bluebeard
stage manager
William Carleton's lax handling of the
strip lights and described the actions of
Carleton's assistant,
William Plunkett.
Employer: Iroquois Theate
Department: lighting
George Hensley
All that is known of George is that he lived at 208
W. Monroe in Chicago. He testified in the earliest
investigation, that of fire department attorney
James Fulkerson.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Robert "Dock" Houston
Robert reportedly lived at 1189 Flournoy St. in Chicago and may have been a
carpenter. He testified in fire attorney
Fulkerson's investigation during the first week
after the fire but nothing was reported about his
testimony. Three years earlier an electrician,
T. L. Houston, and his wife, an actress, lived in a
Chicago boarding house.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Jacob S. Hovland (1866–1949)
Jacob seems to have worked
part time at the Iroquois while building his real
estate career. He was
called to testify in fire attorney
Fulkerson's investigation during the first week after the fire
but nothing was reported about his testimony.
He lived with his widowed mother, Norway immigrant
Carolina Hjorth Hovland (1830–1913) and one of his
married sisters at 556 Hoyne Ave. His parents
were immigrants from Norway. His father, Ivors,
also a native of Norway, had passed eighteen years
prior. Of the eight children she bore, four of
Carolina's children survived in 1903, of which 6'
tall blue-eyed Jacob was the only son. After
the Iroquois Theater fire Jacob worked as a
wholesale produce merchant but by 1913 had made real
estate his full time job. He married milliner
Della Burgess in 1914 and that same year opened his
Hovland housing subdivision in Evanston, Illinois
north of Chicago. The development featured
low-priced lots without costly building
restrictions. Jacob's business ventures were
prosperous enough that he and Della were able to
travel to Europe and visit relatives in Sweden in
1922, and at the end of his life he was able to
summer in Minnesota's Arrowhead country and retire
to Florida. As a ninety-three year old, by
then widowed, his hobbies were fishing for wall-eyed
pike and raising delphinium, peonies, petunia and
roses. A newspaper notice about his 93rd
birthday party included fun biographical information
about his life, including that he could recall the
Great Chicago fire, but there was no mention that
he'd survived the Iroquois Theater fire.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Philip Howard (1862–1949)
Philip was listed as a
prospective witness in the coroner's inquisition but
there were no reports about his testifying so he may
not have been called. He lived with his
mother, Hannah, and one of his brothers at 346 W.
Madison in Chicago in 1903. Hannah bore eight
children. Three years before the Iroquois
Theater fire he had ambitions to become an actor but
seems to have found a niche in stage property
because by 1903 he listed "property man" as his
occupation in city directories and excepting a short
time around 1915 when he stated his occupation as
"stage manager," remained in property for the next
three decades. During most of those years he
lived with his married sister, Josephine. His
obituary mentioned that he was a member of the
Chicago Theatrical Protective Union local No. 2
I.A.T.S.E. No evidence of marriage, children
or his experience at the Iroquois.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: property
Edward Ingram
Edward testified in the first
Iroquois Theater inquest, run by fire attorney
Fulkerson. Nothing was reported about his
testimony, however, and his experience at the fire
is a mystery, as is his residence. Reportedly
Ingram was staying at 126 Dearborn but that was an
office building.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
James J. Jasper (1866–1918)
James Jasper's name appeared
in a newspaper list as being an Iroquois Theater
employee. Nothing was reported to indicate
whether he testified or was even at the theater the
afternoon of the fire.
James lived with his family at 84 Stave St. in 1903.
He and his wife, the former Emma Stevensen, were
both immigrants from Norway. They married in
1888 and had four children. In 1912 he ran for
county commissioner. The summer of 1918 he
drowned at
Clarendon Beach in Chicago. His oldest
son, Maxwell, became an electrical engineer.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Alexander Johnson (1868– ? )
Alexander had worked on theater stages for fourteen years prior to the
Iroquois, including a stint at McVickers. His
testimony at the coroner's trial, including an
erroneous theory about a short circuited lamp,
was latched upon by the Inter Ocean newspaper and
lingers on the web today.
Upon his escape from the
Iroquois he found rigger
John Dougherty lying in the alley with broken
legs from his leap to the alley floor from twenty
feet above. Johnston helped Dougherty reach
shelter.
Iroquois newspaper reports
spelled Alex's name Johnston but he reported the
spelling to U.S. Census enumerator and for city
directories as Johnson. Alexander and his
wife, Carry (thought to have been Christine
Anderson), had immigrated to America in 1883 and
1884, then married in 1889. They lived at 23 Park St.
in 1903 but I failed to find them after that.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: scenery painter
Wilson S. Kerr (1871–1909)
Thirty-two-year-old Wilson Kerr usually assisted with
the fire curtain but wasn't at his post when the
fire broke out. He had taken his ill
supervisor, Fred Seymour, home, in a wagon
or carriage. It was bitterly cold so even a
short wagon ride would have been unpleasant.
According to his later testimony he'd returned to
the theater just before the fire broke out.
The day
after the fire Kerr dropped by the police station to
learn the status of some of his coworkers who had
been arrested. When police lieutenant Patrick D. McWeeney
(1864–1941) asked Kerr what he did when the
fire broke out, Kerr reportedly laughed and said, "I'd
seen something of theater fires before. I made
a run for the fresh air." When he refused to answer
more questions, saying, "I don't know why I should
talk to you," McWeeney locked him up for further
questioning by police chief O'Neill. Kerr was
reported to have told O'Neill, "I had taken slim
Seymour home. He was sick. When I came back to the
theater I had to do his work. I could not do
everything."
According to one newspaper report Kerr was absent
when the fire broke out but another reported he'd
just returned to the theater. Both stories may have
been correct. He may have been absent from his work
station on the bridge but present on the stage.
Kerr was among those arrested and held on $5,000
bond, primarily to ensure he could be questioned by
coroner.
Kerr lived in his mother's
home at 104 Miller St. with she and two of his grown
siblings. His parents were Scottish
immigrants. Wilson D. Kerr Sr., dead in 1881,
had retired from captaining a ship on Lake Michigan
and worked as a custodian at the time of his death.
Mary McDonald Kerr birthed six children.
Wilson jr. had also been living with his mother and
siblings in 1894 when he survived small pox.
Kerr lived for six years after the Iroquois Theater
fire but working as a clerk, not in a theater.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
Leroy Payne Langford (1885–1945)
Eighteen year old Leroy was working at the Iroquois the day of the fire.
Nothing is known of his experience except that he
escaped. He was the son of Ira W. Langford and
Shiloh Payne Langford, Indiana natives who were
living in Chicago in 1903. In 1910 he was
working as a lamp operator for a theater in St.
Joseph, MO and reported to the US Census enumerator
that he and Clara Hanson had been married for three
years - but they then married again or for real
three years later, by which time he was pursuing a
career as a traveling salesman for Wisconsin Theater
Supply in Milwaukee, WI.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
John M. Leverton (1862–1929)
In city directories and the
U.S. Census John reported his occupation as teamster
but he was listed in a 1904 newspaper list of
Iroquois Theater employees as a property clearer.
Perhaps he worked part time at the Iroquois as did
another teamster, Charles Sweeney.
Nothing was reported about John's Iroquois fire
experiences, not even whether he was present at the
theater that day. He was a Wisconsin native
married in 1884 to a woman named Euphemia Willett,
and the pair had five children — some born in their
prior location, Abilene, KS, and some in Chicago.
In the odd coincidence department: John died on the
twenty-sixth anniversary of the Iroquois Theater
fire, December 30, 1929, in South Haven, Michigan.
He became a watchman in the years immediately after
the Iroquois fire while still in Chicago then went
to work in a factory after the move to South Haven.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: property
Frank Bedell Lewis (1867–1927)
Frank Lewis was in the
theater business for the long haul, working as a
property man in 1891 and remaining for two decades
after the Iroquois Theater fire. His name was
listed in the newspaper as an employee of the
Iroquois but nothing was reported as to his
experiences during the fire, or even if he was
present that day. He was married to Marie
Antoinette "Nettie" Anderson Lewis.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpenter
Arthur Harry Marshall (1880–1862)
Couldn't make this stuff up. In
the 1940s there were two stagehands in Chicago named
Arthur Marshall, both born in Wisconsin in the
1880s, both working their entire lives in the
theater and both working in 1942 at the
Erlanger Theater on Randolph and Clark
(today's Cadillac Palace).
Arthur R. Marshall
(1886–1948), married to Eva, with two daughters. Was a theater
mechanic in the 1930s, nearly 6-ft tall and
slender with brown hair and seriously diabetic
at the end of his life.
Arthur H. Marshall
(1880–1962), was born in Bariboo, married Ella Jeffries, three
years after the fire, had three daughters, and
later married Marie Louise Thibault. Was 5'5"
tall, round and had grey hair. Arthur H.
was a member of Chicago Theatrical Protective
Union local No. 2.
Arthur #2 is probably the one
who was employed at the Iroquois Theater in 1903
because he was older; Arthur R would have been only
seventeen. Nothing was reported about Arthur
Marshall's experience at the Iroquois Theater so
whichever Arthur worked at the Iroquois, he may not
have been working the afternoon of December 30,
1903.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Franklin John Massoney (1858–1926)
In 1903 John lived at 977 Milwaukee Ave in Chicago. His testimony was
given at fire attorney Fulkerson's somewhat
unauthorized inquest. Massoney was positioned
on the south side of the stage when the fire
started, the same side as the lamp that ignited the
curtain, but testified that though he saw it seconds
later, he did not see it ignite. Massoney had
worked in various theaters prior to the Iroquois,
and would continue to do so until his death.
He never married.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpentry and scene shifting
Maximillian
"Max" Mazzanovich (1870–1950)
Max worked as a stage carpenter for the Mr. Bluebeard company.*
In testimony before the Grand Jury, he blamed the
fire on lamp operator, William McMullen. According
to Max, McMullen must have done something improper
or the curtain would not have caught fire. State
prosecutor Albert C. Barnes was dismissive of
Mazzanovich's analysis of the fire's start because Mazzanovich was outside smoking at the time and did
not see the fire until it was well underway.
Max was among those arrested and held on $5,000
bond, primarily to ensure he could be questioned by
coroner. He was represented at
arraignment by
Thomas S. Hogan.
Max's joined the group who
struggled to un-snag the fire curtain from the
proscenium
light strip. His testimony at fire
attorney Fulkerson's inquest on Jan 1, 1904 revealed
newly published information. He said when he
and others began wrestling with the fire curtain the
fire was at the "arch curtain," just four curtains
behind the fire curtain.
Max had a bad history with
arc lamps. On April 17, 1886 was injured in an arc
lamp explosion on the stage of "The Three Guardsmen"in Janesville, Wisconsin where the Alexander Salvini
company was performing at the Meyers Opera house and
Max had a small role.
It appears that Mazzanovich
may have first tried to make it as an actor and
turned to stage carpentry later. In addition
to the Three Guardsman, his name turns up in
1902 as a performer in Hearts Aflame.
It closed after eight performances. According
to his obituary he went to work for George M Cohan
soon after the Iroquois Theater fire and over the
next thirty-five years designed the scenery for most
of Cohan's productions. Perhaps but I found
him credited with just two: Friendship in
1931, closing after one month, and in 1923 the
Rise of Rosie O'Reilly, running for three
months.
An Oakland, California
native, he was the son of an Austrian immigrant,
Lorenzo Mazzanovich, his mother thought to have been
named Margaret, and was himself married to a woman
named Orme, with whom he had a daughter named
Maxine. Artistic expression seems to have been
a family trait. His brother, Lawrence
Mazzanovich, who happened to live in Chicago at the
time of the Iroquois Theater fire, was a landscape
artist of some note and another brother, Anton
authored a book about his adventures in the wild
west, Trailing Geronimo. One newspaper
reference to Max relative to the Iroquois Theater
identified him not as Max but as John C. Mazzanovich,
a theatrical scene painter, leading me to wonder if
Maximillian was a stage name or if there was a
second man named Mazzanovich in the Iroquois stage
crew. I suspect Max had a brother named John
but he died in 1886. Sometimes his last name
was miss spelled Mazzonovich (mazzo rather than
mazza) and sometimes Mazzanowich (wich rather than
vich).
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: carpentry
Gilbert or Willard McLean
McLean testified at the
coroner's inquest in early January, 1904. (See
accompanying clipping). Since his view of the
fire curtain was obstructed by scenery, his opinion
about it's operation during the fire was of limited
usefulness. His description of fireman
Sallers' attempt to extinguish the blaze with
Kilfyre tubes corroborated that of other witnesses.
At point of origin the blaze was almost beyond the
reach of the tube chemicals and the edge of the
flames that were reached did not appear to be
diminished by the dry chemicals. Gilbert had
gone to work at the Iroquois Theater when it was
first opened, five weeks before the fire. One
Chicago newspaper reported his first name as
Gilbert, Another as Williard. I failed to find
a man by either name that was definitely the
stagehand at the Iroquois.
Employer: Probably Iroquois Theater
Department: scene shifting
John S. McCloskey (1866–1940)
When the fire broke out,
thirty-seven-year-old McCloskey (sometimes miss spelled as McCluskey) ran
to the nearest fire house, Engine House 13 on
Dearborn, to report the fire, then
ran back and helped women jump off fire escapes in
Couch Place alley. Brooklyn-born McCloskey had
worked at theaters around the country for twenty
years and as assistant stage carpenter at the
Iroquois since it opened. He wired the fire
curtain at the Iroquois with four 3/8"-thick wires, joined at the
north end of the stage to a 2" manila rope. He
testified that the curtain was lowered before every
performance and that it always worked properly.
One newspaper reported that McCloskey denied the
presence of strip lights while another reported his
more likely testimony, in keeping with other stage
workers, that he did not know what caused the
curtain to hang up and belly on its descent, that it
might have been the strip lights. That same
newspaper reported his observation that the Iroquois
was below average in its fire protection equipment.
John was married to Ida Morrell McCloskey and lived
at 154 S. Wood.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpentry
Thomas H. McQueen
McQueen was among the Mr.
Bluebeard company from New York who was arrested and held on $5,000 bond,
primarily to ensure he could be questioned by coroner.
He was represented at arraignment by
Thomas S. Hogan. He testified at the coroner's
inquest in mid January, 1904, during which it was
reported that he'd broken two ribs escaping from
theater but the report did not describe how that
happened. Probably jumping into Couch Place
alley.
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: mechanic
Frank Miller
Frank's name appeared on a newspaper list of Iroquois Theater stagehands with
nothing to indicate whether he was at the theater
the day of the fire. Many dozens of men named
Frank Miller in 1903 Chicago, many in possible
occupations (electrician, carpentry, painter,
general labor, etc.). No serious expectation
of learning more about Frank the stagehand.
Safe to say that he didn't testify at any of the
various inquests and trials.
>
Employer: probably Iroquois
Theater
Department: unknown
Jacob "Jake" Motz (1865–1916)
Jake Motz immigrated to America
with his parents from Germany as an infant. His
first wife, Kate, passed around 1900, leaving him with
three children, age ten, seven and three. He married Lillian
that same year, a second
marriage for both.
He testified in fire
attorney's inquest and at the coroner's trial that
there were only Kilfyre tubes on the stage and that
there had been no instructions about how to respond
in the event of fire.
By 1910 he and Lillian moved out of Chicago altogether,
back to St. Louis, where he'd lived with his first
wife. He continued working in the theater for
the rest of his life.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
br>
Department: rigging
Frederick Fred Nolan (alias Fred Pigeon) (1869– ?)
(See passport photo in montage at
top of page)
1903–4 newspapers reported
that Pigeon was Fred's real name and Nolan his alias
but I think it was the opposite. He was born
Fred Nolan to William and Rose Nolan. He was
among the Mr. Bluebeard stagehands arrested
and held on $5,000 bond, primarily to prevent them
from leaving Chicago, to ensure they could be
questioned by the coroner. Nothing was
reported about Fred's testimony. He was
represented at his arraignment by
Thomas S. Hogan.
Am pretty sure he was a vaudeville / burlesque
comedian specializing in Irish characters who worked as a stagehand between
performance gigs. It appears he picked
up with Mr. Bluebeard road company in
Pittsburgh when his performances at the Southern
Amusement Park came to an end. Bluebeard
opened in Pittsburg on 9/21/1903 and Nolan's last
performance at Southern was on 9/30/1903. He
seems to have continued working as a stagehand until
November 23, 1905 when he returned to the footlights
and mostly remained there until 1924, abandoning the
Pigeon alias altogether, when he retired from
performing and went to work as a property
man for Sliding Billy Watson's show until at least
August, 1924. In January, 1919 he went to France
with America's Over There Theatre League. No
evidence of a marriage or children, probably died
1924–1930. When not on the road he lived with
his widowed mother until her death, then with a
sibling and his family, always in Bayonne, NJ.
An overview of his schedule is below.|
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: carpentry
Peter O'Day (1849/57 —1927)
Peter testified at the
coroner's inquest the morning of January 12, 1904
and again a month later at the grand jury trial, at
which a portion of his testimony was reported:
"My duty was to
pull out these proscenium lights after the
curtain went up on every act. When they were out
the curtain could not drop, and so I had to push
them back again before the close of the act. I
had pulled the light at the north end of the
stage, and when the fire started I was at
another point of the stage. I could not get to
the light to push it back again, so it caught
the curtain."
He also testified about panic
on the stage, the opening of the stage doors and
that the asbestos curtain was fastened to wood
battens but that portion of his testimony was not
reported. In 1903 newspapers his name was
spelled sometimes as O'Day and sometimes as O'Dea.
Both a Peter O'Dea and a Peter "O'Day were listed in
the 1903 Chicago city directory but the Peter who
worked at the Iroquois lived on Mather St.,
residence of O'Day, and in the 1900 and 1910 U.S.
Census it was O'Day who had a career in the theater.
When the second grand jury
met, O'Day was one of many witnesses the prosecution
could not locate. The family was still in
Chicago, had just moved.
Prior to working at the
Iroquois Peter worked as a carpenter and a bill
poster.
(This fun 1920 book describes the trade of bill
posters and advance men.) Seven years after the fire he
described his occupation to the census enumerator as
"actor." He had immigrated to America from
England in 1864 with his parents as a child, grew up
in Flint, Michigan, married Bridget Kerne in 1889 and by 1910
had seven children, age three to twenty-four, only
one son in the lot. A Peter O'Day of the right
age set out in 1920 for a 300-mile ride through
Michigan on an Evans powercycle.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
C. O'Dell
Breadcrumb note for later
reference. This individual, presumably male,
was listed as an employee but not as a testifying
witness thus it isn't known whether he was even at
the Iroquois the day of the fire. While he
probably lived in Chicago, it's also possible he was
in Bluebeard crew and a NYC resident.
Looked for males named Odell or O'Dell with related
occupations in Chicago and Manhattan/Brooklyn in the
1900 and 1910 US Census, and in 1903 & 1904 city
directories. In Chicago was a William O'Dell who was
a "tabulator" in a theater in 1900 and a circus
performer in 1910, and a Charles Odell who worked as
a painter (not necessarily in a theater) in 1903.
In 1910 there was a Charles W. Odell, age
twenty-seven, who worked as an electrician for the
telephone company but seven years earlier could have
been an intern manning a stage light.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
Arthur O'Leary ( 1876– 1904)
Arthur's name did not appear in newspaper lists of Iroquois Theater employees.
A year after the fire, a notice appeared in the
January 8, 1905 Decatur, Illinois newspaper of his
death a week earlier. The nine lines of text
reported that he had been operating the
calcium lamp during the Iroquois Theater fire and
died as a result of smoke inhalation while trying to
save others. He was not operating the lamp
that started the fire but his family and/or the
Decatur newspaper may not have known better.
Further investigation turns up that he died in
Chicago on December 14, 1904, age twenty-seven. A
Michigan native, he was one of sixteen children born
to Irish immigrants, John D. O'Leary and Ellen Hart
O'Leary. His mother averaged a pregnancy every
17.5 months for over twenty years with a two-fer on
the twins, Romeo and Juliet. John
supported his brood on the wages of a railway
passenger agent selling luxury pkgs.
Prior to going to work at the
Iroquois Arthur worked as a clerk in a dry goods
store. I've failed to find any other published
reference to his employment at the Iroquois, or any
other theater. Curiously, nor did Chicago
newspapers reference the Iroquois fire in his
obituary, though they jumped on other stories
involving delayed Iroquois deaths. I failed to
find a connection between his family and Decatur, IL
that might explain why that newspaper ran a story
connecting O'Leary to the fire. All
considered, it seems fair to assume his name was not
added to the victim list. To medical
practitioners of 1904 the symptoms of influenza, consumption and inhalation injury
might have been similar. Without more information about his
condition between the fire and his death, about all
that can be said is that any damage caused by the
fire may have been exacerbated by influenza or
consumption.
Julia Berger was another such case.
Arthur's funeral was held at St. Mary's church and
he was buried in Mount Olivet cemetery on Friday,
December 16, 1904. Assuming there was a family
resemblance between he and his brothers, Arthur was
tall with a medium build, brown hair and grey eyes.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting
J. R. O'Malley
O'malley was among the stagehands who formed a chain line to direct chorus
girls emerging from the elevator through the smoke
filled stage and out the door. (The others
included Arthur Hart,
Edward Farley,
Fred Dutton,
Archie Bernard and William Price.)
Nothing was reported as to his address. I
looked at every John, Jacob, Joseph, James, etc. in
1900–1910 Chicago and found none with an occupation
I could tie to the theater with any certainty.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: scenery
John William Pickles (1857–1913)
At an inquest conducted by fire department Fulkerson a week after the fire,
Pickles testified that there had been an explosion
and fire in the basement at the Iroquois on opening
night, November 23, 1903, five weeks before the
disaster. He heard "a loud report" and saw
flames come over the top of the 8-ft high partition where was
located but it was put out quickly and by the time
he went to investigate, a crowd gathered at the
doorway into the area where it occurred prevented
him from seeing into the area. He was told it
involved a gas tank. His name was misspelled
in that newspaper story as Bickles and in an
out-of-state newspaper his name was given as John
Nickles and identified as a construction contractor
working at the Iroquois.
John and his wife, the former
Amy Lunt, and their six children, lived at
6711 Rhodes. A seventh child
was born four months after the Iroquois Theater
fire, named after her mother, but the little girl
died two years later. John and Amy had married
in England in 1883 and came to America a couple
years later. All but their oldest child was
born in the United States. John worked as a
stage carpenter until the end of his life.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: carpentry
William Price
William was one of the men who formed a twenty-foot chain line to herd
performers from the elevator car to the exit as they
came down to the stage floor from the dressing rooms
above. (Others in that group:
J. R. O'Malley,
Archie Bernard, Arthur Hart,
Edward Farley and
Fred Dutton.) There were
thirty-three heads of households named William Price
in Chicago in 1903, including a superintendent of a
sheep house, but none with an occupation that can be
definitely tied to the stage. The Everette
Marshall disaster book reported that William's
clothing was on fire by the time he left the
building.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: possibly property
John Schmidt (1877–1932 maybe)
Reported as being
John Dougherty's rigging assistant, at least for
the afternoon of December 30, 1903 while Slim
Seymour was out sick, twenty-six-year-old John
Schmidt wasn't scared away from the theater by the
Iroquois fire and his subsequent arrest. He
remained in the business for at least the next
twenty-seven years.
He was arrested for manslaughter and held on $5,000
bond. In advance of his testimony newspapers
reported that prosecutors hoped he would be able to
shed light on the
strip lights and the failure to lower the fire
curtain. There were no follow up reports after
his testimony but it likely mimicked testimony from
others because the coroner's jury didn't see fit to
hold him over to the grand jury.
In 1903 John lived at 75 Sangamon in Chicago, having
moved out of his widowed mother's home. She is
thought to have been Christina Schmidt. (There
were over fifty John Schmidt's in Chicago and I
don't feel certain that the John Schmidt who was at
the Iroquois is the same John Schmidt who worked in
Chicago as a stagehand from 1920–1930, married in
1911 to Eva Lively, or that the same John Schmidt
who was the son of German immigrants Ernst and
Christina Schmidt. Hoping to some day hear
from a descendent of one of his siblings.) He
was tall, slender and had dark brown hair.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
Fred "Slim" Seymour
Slim Seymour was head of the riggers at the Iroquois Theater, and 180
scenery and curtain drops.
Suffering from pneumonia† Seymour was brought to
work by one of his crew members, Ted Bevis, but
taken back home shortly before the fire started by
rigger Wilson S. Kerr, a rather
bad-tempered fellow.
John Dougherty stepped in to substitute, reportedly described by
Seymour as the most experienced man in the crew.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
Edward Sherman (1880–1977)
Edward's story
Employer: Mr. Bluebeard Company
Department: properties
Frederick Shott (c.1875–1911)
Commonly spelled Schott and sometimes misspelled as
Shotts and Schotz, but in city directories and the
US Census enumerator Fred went by Shott.
At the coroner's inquest in
mid January 1904 Shott testified that he ran to join
four other stagehands try to lower the fire curtain
by removing the hitch pin from the
strip lamp
hinge. When the lamp
still could not be closed (possibly because the
weight of the curtain pressing down from the top was
causing misalignment of the leaf curls in the hinge
knuckle, or failure of the hardware brackets), he
escaped via a fire escape door.
Twenty-eight-year-old Frederick Shott reported his
occupation as "candy maker," a full time job in 1900
and still his occupation a decade later. The
stage was a part time job, possibly only on December
30, 1903.
Four years after the Iroquois Theater fire Fred
married a German Hungarian native, Elizabeth Susie
Anderjak, and the pair had two sons. The
second boy, Fred's namesake, was born six months
after Fred's early death in his mid thirties.
Susie became a janitress and raised her boys alone.
Didn't find notice of her death. Hope she
remarried.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
Frank Sickinger
Frank Sickinger testified at the coroner's inquest in mid January 1904 that he
had joined the men trying to lower the fire curtain
that caught up on a
strip lamp. He did not know if the fire
curtain was made of asbestos and was unaware of any
effort to open the roof vent over the stage.
Frank lived at 210 E. Ohio St. in Chicago.
Nothing more is known about him.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: department unknown
Henry Siegel
At fire inspector Fulkerson's inquest Henry testified that he operated a portion
of the wires used to suspend the aerial dancers in
the air above the auditorium. He reported that the
wire that would have been attached to Nellie Reed
did not and could not have interfered with operation
of the fire curtain. "When the wire was not in use
its lower end was fastened to an upright wire
running up the proscenium arch, six inches or more
outside the curtain when lowered. When the act was
to be performed the wire was loosened and fastened
to the harness of the young woman. The curtain could
have been lowered without touching the wire, whether
in use or not."
Note: In a separate news
story mention was made to a Mr. Bluebeard cast
member named Henry Seeger. The similarity of
the names causes me to wonder if it is the same man.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: Rigging
Charles F. "Smithy" Smith
Smithy was operating a lamp
on a bridge on the south side of the stage when the
fire broke out, with Charles Sweeny. They
grabbed tarps and tried to smother the fire but it
was quickly beyond their reach. Nothing more
is known about Charles. A man named Charles
Smith appeared on Iroquois victim lists but nothing
was reported indicating that Charles Smith the
stagehand was injured.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: department lighting
Robert Smith
Known only as Robert Smith,
his age, address and relatives never reported, the
elevator operator on the Iroquois stage made three
or a dozen trips to six floors of dressing rooms on
the south wall of the stage to bring down cars full
of performers. (Some reports said three, others a
dozen.) Some accounts said they had no other egress
but one stagehand testified about some performers
escaping from the dressing rooms via a catwalk
leading to a spiral stairwell on the opposite side
of the stage. Upon reaching the stage floor they
were grabbed by a twenty-foot long chain line of
stagehands (including J. R.
O'Malley,
Archie Bernard, Arthur Hart,
Edward Farley,
Fred Dutton and William Price)
and passed from one to another until they were
safely outside the theater. Nearly overcome by
smoke, his hands burned, on his last trip Smith ran
through the dressing rooms and dragged a few
stragglers to elevator car that by then had caught
fire. It was reported that he was permanently
crippled from injuries to his hands.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: elevator operation
Charles L. Sturgis
Sturgis lived at 318 State
St., site of Silver Moon Restaurant, owned by H.
Chasky. Building was previously a saloon and
an anatomy museum. Charles testified at the
Fulkerson inquest the first week in January.
There was an actor named Charles Sturgis in Chicago
in 1890s, presumably not the same man.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: unknown
Charles P. Sweeney (1881–1943)
One of the flymen hired by
Seymour, twenty-two-year-old Charles Sweeney (spelled Sweenie
in newspaper reports, Sweney in city directory and
Sweeney in official records) was a teamster (as in a
driver of a horse-drawn wagon) who had
worked part time at the Iroquois since its opening. He was
seated on a bench about ten feet from the proscenium
opening on the lowest level bridge on the south side of the
stage, above and a bit to the west of where the
fire started. With him was lamp operator
Charles T. Smith and one or two other stage workers.
The others were there keeping warm while waiting for
their next duty call. The north side of the
stage where a majority of the flymen were stationed,
was colder than the south.
Sweeney's job was to use a
fouling pole to keep drops from becoming entangled
during ascent and descent. In court testimony
he described noticing a flame, running to look over
the pin railing see what it was and calling out
across the stage to John Dougherty to lower the fire
curtain. He and Smith then tried to smother
the fire with tarps (seems like that might have just
fanned the flames). Recognizing that the fire
had grown out of control, Sweeney ran up steps to
the sixth floor dressing rooms to alert
performers.‡ He led an unknown number of
female performers down the stairs to the stage floor
and escaped with them out the Dearborn street
audience exit.§
Charles was one of two
children born to the late Frank Sweeney of Canada
and Jennie Beard/Baird Sweeney of Scotland. In
1903 his father had been gone for seventeen years,
Charles had been married for one year to Beatrice
Johnson, and his mother lived with them. By
1910 he was the father of two daughters and
presumably left his teamster and theater jobs behind
when he found work as a shipping clerk for
the National Meter Company, manufacturer of water
meters and gas engines. In 1913 came a third
daughter and his mother's marriage to James Mott.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
Cal Wagner
Bread crumb note for later
research.
Cal's name appeared on a list supplied to
authorities of everyone who worked at the Iroquois
but it wasn't clarified whether all on the list were
on duty the day of the fire. I chewed up time
chasing the idea that this was Happy Cal Wagner
(1840–1916), legendary blackface performer and
producer. Happy Cal and Davis had ample
opportunity to be acquainted through their mutual
association with Jack Haverly but it looks as if
Wagner was in Syracuse, NY in 1903, on December 30
probably grieving the death of his wife three weeks
earlier. There wasn't a Cal or Calvin Wagner/Wagganer/Waggener
in Chicago in 1902–1904 according to Chicago city
directories but those only listed heads of household
so I checked 1900 and 1910 U.S. Census and he wasn't
listed there either. So I looked for a man by
that name anywhere in the country from 1900-1930 and
found nothing. Then everyone named Cal or
Calvin with an occupation designated as in a
theater. Nothing but learned there were a
surprising number of Stage Road's in the country.
Employer: Mr.
Bluebeard Company ??
Department: unknown
John Whitten
Other than his address the first week in 1904, 363 Van Buren, and
that he testified in fire attorney Fulkerson's inquest,
nothing is known about Whitten.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: rigging
William Henry Wiertz (1871–1958)
Thirty-two-year-old William Wiertz lived on
Union Avenue in West Pullman. He was a versatile
man. In addition to working
at the Iroquois operating arc lamps and doing small
wiring jobs, he worked as a bicycle repairman and
before that sold coffee. His
testimony at the coroner's inquest shed light on how
sparks or direct contact with the carbon rods, could
have ignited fabric.
A native of Holland, he and his wife of six
years, a Swedish girl named Ericka Engelholm, had
two young children. Three decades later their
family had grown to six children and he was still
working in Chicago theaters but Ericka had passed
and he'd remarried.
One son, Vernon, born in 1903, the year of the
Iroquois fire, only attended school until the second
grade and spent his life in institutions.
In 1949 at the Iroquois Theater memorial
association's 46th anniversary program, William told
a story that was not reported in 1903, leastwise his
role was not reported, about his attempt to rescue
aerial ballet dancer Nellie Reed. This is
one of at least three conflicting stories about
Nellie's last moments at the Iroquois.
Employer: Iroquois Theater
Department: lighting and carpentry
|
