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The Smith kids came to Chicago from Wisconsin
The Smith children — Henry, Lizzie and Mellie — grew up
as big fish in the small pond that was New Lisbon,
Wisconsin in the post civil war years, with a
population then of around one thousand.
Arriving in 1856 with his wife, Maria Moore Smith
(1824–1909), Richard Smith (1818–1899) was New
Lisbon's first attorney. Eventually he
would serve as post master, circuit court judge,
district attorney and justice of the peace. By
1894 Richard and Maria's three children were married and
raising families of their own, each with a child
about ten years old:
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Henry J. Smith (1854–1903), founder in 1892 of
the H.J. Smith & Co., a subscription-book
publisher in Chicago, had married a woman named Emma
(1859–). Their nine-year-old was named
Richard R. Smith (1885–), after Henry's, Lizzie's
and Mellie's father. He perished at the
Iroquois Theater with his wife's niece.
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Elizabeth Caroline Smith
(1858–1895), nicknamed Lizzie, had married Henry
L. Richardson (1854–1903), pastor of the First
Congregational church in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Their ten year old was named Arthur H.
Richardson (1886–1958).
Henry L. Richardson was one of seven children born to Wisconsinites
Caroline Nichols Richardson (1821–1908) and stone
mason, Lewis Richardson (1821–1897).
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Mary A. Smith, nicknamed Mellie (1860–1949), had married
New York native, Edgar Eugene Fowler (1856–1922), a
former school teacher who later went to work for Henry J.
Smith's book-publishing business. The pair had three
daughters, including Elva Fowler (1886–1903).
When the family looked back, 1894 may have been seen as
one of the best, before everything slid off a cliff.
Troubled times
Elizabeth Lizzie Smith Richardson
died in 1895 while in Philadelphia. I
failed to learn the cause of her death.
With a young son to raise, Henry L. Richardson soon remarried
but the union got off on the wrong foot during the honeymoon
and ended in divorce two years later. The scandalous
court proceedings cost Henry his church in Racine, WI.
1897 brought the death of Henry's father, Lewis
Richardson. In 1901 Henry brought Arthur to
Chicago where they lived at 5738 Drexel near the
University of Chicago. Henry had a part time
income as a substitute pastor at a church in Whiting,
Indiana while he worked at adding a theology
doctorate from the University of Chicago to his
University of Wisconsin and Yale Divinity School degrees.
Richard Smith, father of Henry, Lizzie and Mellie, died
in 1899, leaving Maria Moore Smith widowed and living in
Meadville, Pennsylvania, far from her children
and grandchildren. (Wondering why Maria and
Richard Smith left New Lisbon, whether it was before
or after Richard's death.)
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Then it got worse
At the Iroquois Theater Henry and Arthur made it out safely but Henry went back inside, perhaps to find Elva.
Newspaper reports said he was found with a little
girl in each arm. Newspapers reporting on the
disaster were frequently inclined to describe
teenagers and young adults as "little girl" or
"little one" so it is possible the girls found with
Henry's body were those of teenagers Elva and a schoolmate
from Englewood High School,
Florence Dow.
Seventeen-year-old Arthur
Richardson identified his father's body. Henry
was buried next to Lizzie in the Hillside Cemetery
in Ripon, Wisconsin.
The Fowlers
Elvira "Elva" Irene Fowler (b.1886-1903), her parents
and two younger sisters, Marjorie and Elizabeth, lived at 3450 W.
63rd Place in Chicago. Nothing was said to suggest that
Marjorie (age ten) and/or Elizabeth (age six) attended the
theater as well and survived, but it is possible. If
it was a cousins excursion, Richard R. Smith, Henry's son,
may also have been in the party and survived.
Elva's body was found at Jordan's funeral home and identified
by Henry J. Smith (her uncle and Edgar's boss, as well as Henry
Richardson's brother-in-law.
Funeral services were held Sunday, January 3, 1904 at 1:00 pm
and burial was in the Forest Park Cemetery in Cook County.
In the years after the fire
Arthur H. Richardson inherited roughly $10,000 from his
father's estate, administered by his guardian and
uncle, Edgar E. Fowler (Elva Fowler's father). Arthur
graduated from Beloit College in 1909 and married a Bryn Mawr
girl from Vermont in 1912. They produced two sons,
including a boy named Henry D. Richardson, presumably named
after Arthur's late father.
Two years after the Iroquois fire Edgar and Mellie Fowler
moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh where Mellie
could be near her mother for Maria Smith's last two years.
Edgar took a job there as a sales manager for a corset factory.
In 1922 and 1949 they were laid to rest beside their daughter
Elva. Their daughter, Marjorie Fowler, married a Fitzhugh and
had a daughter, Ann, pictured above, the only clue I've found
as to Elva's appearance.
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