A party of seven from Michigan, Chicago and
Metuchen, NJ survived the Iroquois Theater fire
Clara
Mingins and Eleanor Periam helped establish
Detroit's kindergarten system and went on to train
kindergarten teachers at Alma College.
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Joseph Bruce was one of early escapees from the third
floor balcony at the Iroquois Theater
In 1874
Joseph and his family survived a locust fire and
helped his family found Creighton, Nebraska. the
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Flora helped Joseph build the
ghetto's largest department store, then saved their
four daughters.
Ten year
old Lillian was for a time thought to be among the
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Bernard B. Boecker, Naperville, Illinois
businessman, survived Iroquois Theater fire in 1903.
Boecker
remained in the theater until the last possible
minute.
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The John R. Thompson restaurant on Randolph Street
in Chicago became a temporary hospital during the
1903 Iroquois Theater fire.
Like
hundreds of other fathers,
John Thompson was frantic
to learn if his two
children were safe.
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Ruth Smith was orphaned eighteen
months before losing her life at the Iroquois
Theater. She was buried in Benzonia, Michigan
with her grandparents and parents.

Carrie
came from a devout Congregationalist family that
relocated from Ohio in the mid 1800s to help found a
religious community in Michigan.
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Carrie Leavenworth went to the theater by herself,
to see the play recommended by her teenage son back
home.

Carrie
came from Decatur into Chicago to spend some time
with her mother-in-law.
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Mary Lutiger survived the Iroquois Theater fire but
lost her career, senses and her mother.

Eleanora
Lutiger spent over sixty years overcoming obstacles
and protecting her children but was defeated by the
Iroquois fire.
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Abba Breed Morris was the mother of five children
and the wife of a Chicago police officer.

Abba,
nicknamed Libby, and her youngest child, Mabel, were
among over six hundred victims of America's worst
theater fire.
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Charles Dalby James was the third generation in this
Detroit family to enter the hardware business.

In
January, 1904, Charles and Sarah James buried their
sixth child. Their son was a victim of the
Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago on December 30,
1903.
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Winthrop Spring brought his wife and daughter from
their small town home in Iowa to Chicago.

Toddler
Marjorie Spring lost her mother in 1903 at the
Iroquois Theater fire, her husband in WWII when he
became a Japanese POW and died in the sinking of the
Arisan Maru, and her own life from spinal
injuries incurred in an auto accident in Grants
Pass, Oregon.
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William Rattey had seconds in which to make a
decision with no good options.

Four-year-old LeRoy Reinhold survived for five days but his
uncle Willie passed on before him.
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Emma Mann was a music teacher for Chicago public
schools, known by hundreds of students. Her
niece Olive Squire was a student
at the Blaine school.

Wilhemina
Squire lost her third child and sister.
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Nellie Padgitt had just celebrated her first wedding
anniversary and was looking forward to the birth of
her first child.

Frank
Folice lost his wife and unborn child. He
spent the last seventeen years of his life in an
asylum.
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Presence of Ghouls at Iroquois disaster exaggerated

Despite newspaper hyperbole,
just five stories were at heart of body robbing
claims
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Domestic servant, Gertrude Fitzpatrick

Gertrude Fitzpatrick worked as a housekeeper for insurance broker, George Elias Shipman
and helped care
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Uncertainties about fire alarms

There are discrepancies in
reports about alarms connected with the Iroquois
Theater fire.
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Mr. Bluebeard chorus girl Ethel Lytle
Dancer
Lytle survived the Iroquois Theater fire but her
mother was a tougher challenge.
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Winnetka thirteen-year-old-Linda Bolte
Granddaughter of an industrialist and daughter
of an early feminist, Linda would have led an
interesting life.
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Pharmacist Humma saves future wife
and stepdaughter

Osmond
saved Martha and Anita Lawrence from the Iroquois
Theater fire.
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Everyone thought he was dead - until he returned
from his honeymoon

Erie and Western Transportation
Company railroad
man Will Ahern did not die at the Iroquois.
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Iroquois Theater defense and prosecution attorneys

There were
three
trials, seven prosecuting attorneys and thirteen
defense attorneys.
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Birdie Dryden just wanted to give the school boys a
nice ending to their Christmas break

Robert Caldwell was visiting
from St. Louis and went to the theater with his
hosts, the Dryden family.
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More is known about her son than about seventy-eight year old
Minnie Christopherson

He was co-owner in the
Larson picture frame manufacturing company.
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Animosa and Cedar Rapids, Iowa girls Bessie and Nina
Chapman set out for a carefree theater excursion

Bessie was a college student and Nina was a
stenographer
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Iroquois Theater ushers were unfairly characterized
in newspapers.

Ushers at
the Iroquois Theater behaved with human
predictability, some with courage, some with
cowardice.
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Charlie Bibel, a trombone
player from Bloomington, IL survived the theater
fire, and his dysfunctional family but died in an
insane asylum after being beaten by a street car
conductor

After
escaping from the Confederate army and defying a
president, Louis Schwitalsky Bibel had to fend off
his wife and son's murder attempt in the town
square.
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Excepting a few weasels, the
1903-1905 Chicago city council made a diligent
albeit belated effort to atone for having treated
public safety like a casino bet

The
stakes were higher than the aldermen imagined when
they procrastinated in reconstructing the city's
theater ordinance.
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The men and women who worked behind
scenes at the Iroquois Theater.

The scene
shifters and lamp operators, talent coaches and
riggers.
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Fourteen from
ten families in LaPorte County,
Indiana were impacted by the 1903 Iroquois Theater
fire.
Wile,
Norris, Holmes Barker, Bray, Beahm, Loomis, Dickhut,
Wachs and Lefmann. All but one survived
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Father and son Fred and Edward Bahr from Manitowoc,
Wisconsin survived America's worst theater disaster.

Did
Manitowoc newspapers ever cover the Bahr's story?
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Eva Wilcox's husband was a photographer, a druggist,
an oculist, a dentist, a pornographer and a con.
Fifteen
years before the Iroquois Theater fire their lives
were turned upside down by an ambitious newspaper
reporter.
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Frank McMillan invented the first practical motion
picture projector with Alvah Roebuck
In 1903
Frank lost his young
wife and found himself with
two
babies to raise.
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Helen and James Long of Geneva, Illinois lost all
three of their children at the Iroquois Theater
fire.

Who went
with the Long children to the theater that fateful
day?
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The Stoddard family of Minonk, Illinois had it all.
Wealth, health and a strong spiritual foundation.

On
December 30, 1903, everything came tumbling down
when two of the Stoddard children were lost at the
Iroquois.
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For the Martin and Pridmore families the Iroquois
Theater fire was just the start of their sorrows.

Imagine
losing five of your children, one at a time, over a
twelve year period. That was the what the
fates gave Emma Martin.
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Louis Guenzel's report described configuration and
condition of the the theater's many doors.

Iroquois Theater doors did not open inward but had
other issues preventing proper operation
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Charles Page saved Chicago baseball leagues but
couldn't save his wife and child from Iroquois
Theater fire.

Two
mothers and their teenage children lost their
lives.
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Jacob and Milton Falk lost their parents, then their
sister Gertie.

Twenty-one-year-old Gertie was
buried at Jewish Graceland , one of Chicago's oldest
cemeteries
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The prosperity of one of Chicago's wealthiest
families could not save the Gartz daughters.

Two Gartz
daughters perished, along with their governess and
her daughter.
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Floy Olson and Bessie Stafford

Before
Floy's move to Minneapolis, she and Bessie became
good friends through their activities at the Warren
Street Congregational church.
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Theater party of four perished
As a
special treat, Mary Foltz took her two daughters and
their friend to an afternoon
theater matinee.
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The Boice family trio died at the Iroquois

William Boice had just returned to the
business of canes and umbrellas.
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Decatur woman's ex-husband went after her estate six
days after she died at the Iroquois Theater

Josephine
Bowman was a wealthy woman with no survivors.
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Charles Hewitt's family survived the fire

Irene
Beath from Louisville found more excitement than she
expected when she visited her sister in Chicago in
1903.
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Chicago building department in court after the fire

Trial testimony revealed
systemic
problems.
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Cella lost her father a year earlier but it was time
to stop mourning

Consilia Byrne and her aunt
Mary Byrne just wanted to celebrate a new year.
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Thirteen-year-old John Clayton went to the theater
by himself
Described as
artistic,
Vinton may have been as attracted by the scenery and
decor
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Dr. McInnes of Belvidere, Illinois survived to
describe the ordeal

Three-term mayor established
city's first paid fire department.
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Retired baseball player Frank Houseman owned a
successful bar
Despite injured hands,
Raphael became a commercial artist. His eleven
year old sister Jennie was lost.
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Watches melted at 3:50 PM

Watches established time of
fire ball
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Peterson sisters from Preston, Minnesota and Fargo,
ND were having fun in the big city

Clara Maloney was showing
her sister, Nettie Peterson, a school principal in
Fargo, the Windy city.
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