Seven years earlier, William had married widow Abbie
Louisa O'Donnell Luby. Abbie's husband, William H.
Luby, had died three years earlier, leaving Abbie
with two sons, five-year-old Simon and two-year-old
William Luby. Abbie's father, Simon J. O'Donnell,
was a prosperous stockyards man in Pittsburgh, so
there was little likelihood she and her boys would
ever go hungry, but William Dee was nonetheless a
fortuitous catch for the twenty-eight-year-old
widow.
I don't know whether William Dee went through a
legal procedure to adopt Abbie's boys, but they went
by the Dee name from the earliest records I found.
In 1898, two years after their marriage, Abbie and
William Dee produced two children of their own, twin
boys, Samuel Allerton Dee and Edward Mansfield Dee,
and in September 1901, Margaret Louise was born. Two
months later, Abbie Dee died, cause unknown.
Childbirth complications, maybe.
On December 30, 1903, William was 135 miles away
from home on business, at the company's plant in
Mecca, Indiana, west of Indianapolis on the
Indiana-Illinois state line. When he received a
telephone call about the fire, he took a buggy to
Clinton, Indiana, chartered a private train engine
to Danville, Illinois, then took a special train
into Chicago. In his 1933 obituary, it was stated
that he rode beside the engineer in the locomotive,
175 miles to Chicago, and that he was first to
identify his children.
The children's nurse, fifty-five-year-old widow
Agnes Bell Errett (1848–1917)*, had taken four of
the Dee children to Mr. Bluebeard at the Iroquois
Theater. The party consisted of Errett,
twelve-year-old William Luby Dee, and the three
little ones, seven-year-old twins, Eddie and Samuel,
and two-year-old Margaret Louisa Dee. Only the
nanny, William Luby Dee, and Samuel Allerton Dee
came home. Eddie Mansfield Dee died at the theater,
and Margaret died a few days later.
The Dr. Bridge in the Marshall Everette disaster
book (see clipping below) was Canadian native
James Charles Brydges (1858–1931), a profiteer with
a stethoscope. Five months after the Iroquois fire,
Brydges sued William Dee for the care he had provided
Louise. The newspaper report described Dee as a
millionaire contractor and Brydges as a caring
doctor who saved a dying child. Not all newspapers
mentioned that the child had not survived, and none
noted that the doctor took Louise to his home rather
than a hospital where she might have received better
care.
Brydges demanded $3,000 for his services. Or $2,000
— reports varied. That's $52,000–$78,000 in today's
money. Brydge's story differed markedly from that
told by author Everette. According to Brydges, he
found Louise's body beneath a pile of bodies at
Thompson's diner, saw signs of life, and carried her
off. The story in the Everette book was that someone
handed the child off to Brydges as she was carried out of
the theater. A kerchief embroidered with a "D" led
Brydges to contact Dee, and reportedly Brydge nursed
Louise for two to three days, not one as told by
Everette. I did not find a follow-up report about
the lawsuit.
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Father Quinn of the St. James Catholic church conducted Eddie and
Louise's funeral. It was reported that seventy-five carriages followed the hearse to
the cemetery.
The Dee family
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William E. Dee Sr. (1859–1933), oldest of eight
children born to Irish immigrants, William M. and
Julia Hawley Dee. He had joined the family sewer-tile company founded by his father.
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Abbie O'Donnell Dee (1868–1901), the late daughter of Simon and Margaret
Pearson O'Donnell.
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Simon Robert Luby Dee (1888–1955), son of
the late William Luby and late
Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, stepson of William E.
Dee.
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William Thomas Luby Dee (1891–1963), son of
the late
William Luby and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, stepson of William E.
Dee. Saved his younger half brother, Samuel
Allerton Dee, and survived Iroquois Theater
fire. He later married Susie Helt.
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Edward "Eddie" Mansfield Dee (1897–1903),
Iroquois fatality, son of William and late Abbie O'Donnell
Luby Dee.
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Samuel Allerton Dee (1897–1962), son of William and
the late Abbie O'Donnell
Luby Dee, twin brother of Eddie Dee.
Samuel survived the Iroquois Theater fire. He was named after a close
friend and business associate of his grandfather
O'Donnell. Samuel married twice and had two
children.
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Margaret Louise Dee (1901–1903), daughter of
William and the late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee. She survived the Iroquois
Theater fire initially but succumbed a few days
later.
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Mrs. George H. Errett, the Dee children's nanny from Indiana, was
injured but survived. I didn't have much luck
learning more about her. Her given name may have
been Agnes.
In the years after the fire
Two months after the fire, William Dee married twenty-three-year-old
Grace A. Muir (1881–1969), her first marriage. News
of the marriage was withheld until July out of
sensitivity to the Iroquois tragedy. Newspapers
reported she was the daughter of James H. Muir, a
Grand Rapids merchant. William and Grace went on to
have two children of their own:
William E. Dee Jr (1912–1989), son of William E.
Dee and Grace Muir Dee
Jane Elizabeth Dee (1914–1978), daughter of
William E. Dee and Grace Muir Dee
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Discrepancies and addendum
This story abounds in Williams. There are five:
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William M. Dee, Irish immigrant who founded the Dee family sewer-pipe
business
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William E. Dee Sr. who fathered three Dee children and
adopted two step children.
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William Luby Dee, stepson of William E. Dee Sr.
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William E. Dee Jr., son of William E. Dee Sr. and his second wife, Grace
Muir Dee.
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Willam H. Luby Sr., late father of Simon and William Luby
* There is iffiness in the Errett identification. A widow named
Agnes Errett lived with her daughter Olive. A.
Errett, a telegraph operator, at 3133 Wabash in 1903
— the address at which lived the William E. Dee
family at the same time. Dee often advertised for
tenants for that address, probably for flats other
than his own, so Agnes Errett may have also been a
tenant. The nurse could have been daughter Olive,
but newspaper reports consistently referred to the
children's nurse as "Mrs. George Errett," and I
found Olive still working as a telegrapher decades
later, so it seems possible she would have been
working in that capacity on December 30, 1903, and
not at the theater. Agnes Errett gave birth to
eleven children, of which nine were still living in
1910. By that time, she, Olive, a son named Gordon
Errett and a married daughter named Shirley Masson,
and her son moved to San Francisco. The family lived
in Detroit in 1901, and her husband George was still
living. Sometime thereafter, he disappeared. To
Montana? To Chatham in Ontario? Reading between many
lines, I suspect Agnes might have been asking that
question, too. Some newspaper lists reported Agnes' last name as Everett rather than
Errett
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Dee / Luby / O'Donnell / Muir family ties
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