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At sixty-eight, Brooklynite William H. Aldridge
(1835–1911) was probably one of the older stagemen working with
traveling theater companies in 1903 (and was
still at it in 1910). In December that
year he was in the crew with
Klaw & Erlanger's
Mr. Bluebeard company. His wife, Mary
Glancy Aldridge (1839–1911) and grown son,
Charles E. Aldridge (1874–1921), remained in New York.
Of seven children, only two of William and
Mary's survived by 1910. Charles lived
with his parents and Minnie had married a man named Forrest.
William Aldridge was a carpenter but in a 1906
Brooklyn city directory described himself as an
artist so perhaps brought more to the job than
woodworking skills. He may have painted
pictorial scenery and helped design wood
components. As part of the traveling
theater company he also operated lighting, which
was the job he was doing at the Iroquois
Theater.
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His
calcium lamp was not needed during the
Moonlight dance
scene in Act II the afternoon of December 30, 1903 so he was
watching the performance from a bridge thirty feet
above the tage. In later court testimony he
described seeing a six-inch flash of light at the back
of the combination flood/spot light lamp being
operated on the flybridge at the south side of the stage.
He saw a curtain sway near and in seconds fire raced
up the side and across the top of the curtain,
quickly leaping to adjacent curtains.
In the years after the fire
Son Charles followed his father into carpentry
and in the years after the Iroquois fire become
a building inspector. Mary Aldridge died
in September, 1911 and William died two months
later by gas suffocation. Both were buried in
Evergreens Cemetery. I found nothing
in newspapers to explain how he came to
suffocate from gas exposure.
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