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Just call Stella
When a child performed on a Chicago stage in the early
1900s, there was a good chance Stella B. Follis
(1863–1916) was responsible. If a production also called
for a chicken or a dog, well Stella could handle
that, too. In an era when married women rarely
worked outside the home, Stella worked as the agent,
manager, acting coach and babysitter for stage
children — beginning with eight of her own
nine. (Of the eleven she'd birthed.
Two did not survive early childhood and one son,
the oldest, chose to follow in the path of his
bookkeeper father, Richard J. Follis. At age
eighteen William ran a classified newspaper ad
looking for office work.)
Low overhead
Operating from a rented home, with a list of three
hundred neighborhood children, Stella
supplied Chicago theatrical productions with child
actors, dancers and singers. As
their go-to person, Stella was counted on by
producers to know where to find a tall child or a
toddler, who could deliver a line, jump rope or sing a tune. Or, as
was the requirement for Mr. Bluebeard in 1903, a
dozen or so children, around eight years old, to
ballet dance while wearing costumes of drummers and
frogs.*
Stella to the rescue
The story of Stella's actions at the Iroquois Theater
fire on December 30, 1903 is fuzzy. Newspaper
reports in 1903 were skimpy and the recollection of
two of her charges thirty-three years later differs
from 1903–4 accounts. One remembered Stella
and the children breaking down a door and one remembered a fireman
coming to lead them out. What can be safely
assumed is that Stella made sure a dozen or more children escaped
from the burning structure — while she was seven months
pregnant and fearful that two of her
daughters were in the screaming audience in the
auditorium.
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Lady luck
Stella and Richard's oldest daughter, Nellie
Follis (1881–1961), had a lead role as "Pansy Good" in
The Billionaire that was playing at The Illinois
Theater. One of her middle daughters, Mae
Follis, may also have had a role. The star comedian in
Billionaire, Jerome Sykes, had died of the flu
and his funeral was taking place at the same time as
the Mr. Bluebeard matinee at the Iroquois.
While some of the Billionaire cast attended
the funeral, Nellie, Mae and some of their friends
had purchased tickets to Bluebeard prior to
Sykes death and planned to skip the funeral and
go to Bluebeard. At the last minute
Nellie and her friends changed their mind, leaving
Mae waiting impatiently in the Iroquois lobby.
She grew tired of waiting and left the
theater before the fire broke out. Stella
did not know that, however, and as she took care of the other children she must have
prayed someone was looking out for hers.
Stella's daughters
Post-fire newspaper lists of the missing included Stella, Mae
and Vivian, identifying Mae and Vivian as children
in the ballet (see clipping below). Vivian was the right age to
have been in the children's ballet but Mae was not
and other reports had her planning to attend the
matinee with a group from The Billionaire
cast, including her sister. If she was in the
Bluebeard cast she would have been on the stage, not in
the lobby. Nellie's omission from the report means that her
father and siblings knew she had not gone to Mr.
Bluebeard that afternoon. Stella took her
huddle of frogs and drummers somewhere to get them
out of the cold. Wherever they holed up, her family
didn't find her before making the gruesome round of morgues.
In the years after the fire
Nellie's stage career seems to have ended when she married in 1905.
Four other Follis sisters performed in vaudeville into the late
1920s. Mae and her first husband, Nat Le Roy, performed as a comedic
duo and as two in a trio with another Follis sister. Hazel Follis and
Vivian Follis performed as a singing duo, beginning in the Ziegfield Follies
and later as the Ginger Snap Girlies. Violet Follis performed with
several singing comedy acts.
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