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Thirty-nine-year-old Walter Howe Thacher (b. 1865)
lived at 443 W. 60th Place in Chicago. He was a
piano salesman for the Chicago Weber
Piano* store on Wabash Ave, and successful enough
in his occupation to
employ a Swedish servant to help his wife,
Jennie M. Hewett Thacher (1871–1945), with their three
daughters: Bessie, Lucy and Jennie Edith, aged four to nine years old.
With such a young brood, the $10,000 double indemnity accident life
insurance policy referenced in the ad
must have made a huge difference for his family.
After inflation, today that would be $675,000.
JJennie and Walter
were natives of Massachusetts and had married in Taunton
in 1892.
Possibly she and one or more of their
daughters attended the Iroquois with him and
escaped. It was not reported if Walter was
in a party or attended the theater alone.
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Walter's body was found at Rolston's
Undertaking and idenfied by his father, Francis
Thacher (1845–1919).
His funeral was held mid afternoon January 2,
1904 at Van Duser's Undertakers at 6138 Wentworth
Avenue.
It is not yet known where Walter was interred but it
may have been in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago where
Jennie was buried in 1945.
In the years after the fire
In 1905
Jennie served on an Englewood committee to raise subscription donations of $1 or
more for the Iroquois Memorial hospital. It was reported that fifty two victims
had come from Englewood. In 1906 she lived in Taunton, Massachusetts
with Walter's family but returned to
Chicago and in 1911 married Alfred Callham.
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Discrepancies and addendum/p>
IIn the
1900 Federal Census the name was spelled
Thatcher and in the 1910 Census Jennie is listed as a female named Walter.
I don't know if another Iroquois victim,
Remington Hewitt Thomas, was related to Jennie.
Weber brand is today owned by Samsung Group./p>
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