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From locomotive machinist to bright lights
Twenty-four year old Tommy J. Flanagan (b.1879, New York)
married Charlotte "Lottie" M. Caster Jan. 1, 1902.
He had a good start on a career as a locomotive repair
machinist at the Big Four Shop in Brightwood, Indianapolis and was a
member of the Machinists International Union. He was
also a member of the Modern Woodsmen fraternal
organization.
In September of 1903, to the consternation of his
Irish immigrant parents, Thomas left his job at the
railroad and went to work at the English Theater in
Indianapolis. When the Mr. Bluebeard
company completed its five-night engagement
at the theater and headed on to St. Louis, Frank and
his wife Lottie went along.*
His parents objected to his career change but Thomas
was persuaded by "a friend" (probably
Frank Polin — see below) that there was a good
future as an electrician in the theater industry.
His father, Patrick Flanagan (b. 1853, Ireland),
also worked for the railroad, but as a common
laborer. In Patrick's view, perhaps, his son's
machinist job was a position with enviable
opportunities that should not be cast aside to join
the theater business.
I suspect Patrick was ill at the time of his son's
death at the Iroquois. According to the 1900 census,
Patrick worked for the railroad but in 1903
Elizabeth Flanagan traveled alone to Chicago to
bring home their son's body. My guess is that
illness prevented Patrick from accompanying her on
that unhappy journey. Patrick died three months
later. His fellow members of the Ancient Order of
Hibernians (a fraternal organization of Irish
Catholics) gathered at St. Patrick Hall in
Indianapolis to plan his funeral. I wonder if there
was a connection between Patrick's illness and
Thomas deciding to quit his railroad job. If Thomas
blamed his father's illness on the type of work he'd
done, theater work might have seemed like a safer
alternative.
Upon arriving in Chicago, Thomas and Lottie found a
room at the Mecca Hotel on State and 34th streets.
The city must have seemed enormous to the young
marrieds. The population of Chicago then was ten
times that of Indianapolis. Thomas's new job with
Klaw & Erlanger's Mr. Bluebeard company was as an
assistant to an assistant electrician, operating arc
lamps in the stage gallery.
Recovery and burial
Thomas' body was taken to Buffum's
Undertaking in Chicago. His mother and sister would later
report to the Indianapolis News that the
undertaker wanted to charge seven times too much for
the coffin and embalming. An Indianapolis
undertaker, Renihan & Blackwell, intervened and got
a lower rate for the family.
Thomas was buried at the Holy Cross Catholic
cemetery in Indianapolis on Jan 3 or 4, 1904. His
funeral service was conducted by Reverend J. J. Wade.
In attendance were friends and coworkers from the
Machinists Union he'd been part of just a few months prior.
Hometown hero. Not so much
In Indianapolis, newspapers and mourners warmed to
the story that Thomas gave his life by keeping stage
lights in operation during the fire so that audience
members could escape from the theater. Dramatic
and noble but probably inaccurate. By the time the
house lights went out in the auditorium, the fire
was raging on the stage, providing far more
illumination than what came from subdued blue arc
lights high above and at the back of the stage.
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 Frank Polin
(1869–1951)
Tommy Flanagan's supervisor at the Iroquois
was Massachusetts native, Frank Polin, assistant
electrical manager in the Mr. Bluebeard
company. In turn, Polin reported to Mr.
Bluebeard's head electrician,
William Dunn.
It is not known if the plan was for Tommy to
continue on with the theater company after the
Chicago engagement or to remain in Chicago as an employee of
the Iroquois.
Frank Polin may have been a relative of Tommy's, and the
person who persuaded Tommy to join the theater company.
(Though Polin would claim to police that Flanagan was a
stranger.†)
When Polin was
still a boy living with his family in Chelsea,
Massachusetts, (part of Greater Boston),
a younger cousin named Lawrence Flanagan
lived with the Polin family. Thus far I have not
been able to determine the identity of cousin
Lawrence's parents so cannot verify a familial connection
between the Polin family's Flanagan relative, Lawrence,
and the Patrick Flanagan family of Indianapolis.
As an adult living in New York City and working for
Klaw & Erlanger, Frank Polin roomed with his
Mr. Bluebeard company supervisor, William Dunn,
so was well positioned to obtain a job for an ambitious
young relative. In the 1900 U.S. Census
both Polin and Dunn reported their occupation as
"actor." Frank was counted twice in
the census that year, once as a resident of
Manhattan on June 8 and once as a resident of his
grandmother McVey's home in Chelsea, Massachusetts
on June 13. He still lived in Massachusetts in
1899 so probably made the move to NYC in early 1900
but perhaps the folks back home thought he might not
stay in New York so reported him as still a resident
of the household. His theater career had begun
while still in Chelsea when he worked as a "calcium
lighter" (theater lamp operator) 1897-1899.
By 1894 both Frank's parents were deceased.
They are thought to have been Daniel F. Polin,
a Chelsea constable and city councilman, and Amelia McVey Polin (a
dress maker who died of consumption when Frank was
ten years old). He left school after the 8th
grade.
Polin's description of what happened at the Iroquois
Frank Polin was arrested the day after the
fire, January 31, 1903, with eleven other men from
the Mr. Bluebeard company, jailed at the
Harrison Street police station, and held on $3,000
bond.**
Polin was operating a
stereopticon spotlight during the production.
He testified that when the fire broke out,
he and Thomas Flanagan climbed down out of the
stage gallery on a rope ladder** and that Thomas was
crushed to death. If Polin elaborated in court, his
further remarks were not published. The stage
gallery was high enough that Thomas could have died
from injuries incurred in a fall from the rope
ladder. A miss-step may not have caused his
fall, however. As the fire progressed, suspension
ropes burned and the multi-ton rigging loft gave way
and came crashing to the floor with such
force that witnesses outside the theater
thought there had been an explosion. Anyone on the
stage floor beneath it would have been crushed.
Alternatively, a man
descending a ladder adjacent to the falling scenery
might have been knocked, pulled or swept from the
ladder into and beneath a ten-ton mass of timbers,
canvas, ropes and counterweights.
Frank Polin doesn't seem to have married and
remained in New York City for the rest of his life
and did not marry.
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