Clara <maiden name>
Anger Ruhlman (or Ruhleman or Ruehlman) –
audience fatality
Herman Fellman was a carpenter.
In 1888 at age twenty-one he married Sidonie, a
fellow German immigrant. Herman had arrived in
America in 1872 and Sidonie in 1884. They
had two children – a son that died in
infancy and a daughter,
Gertrude Fellman (1890-1964).
Sixty-three-year-old Clara
<maiden name> Anger Ruhleman had traveled
from her home in Detroit to visit her daughter
Sidonie for the holidays. Her body was found at Rolston's
mortuary and identified by her son, Arthur Anger,
who came from Lansing, Michigan.
After the fire
Sidonie testified about
their experiences at the Iroquois Theater before the
grand jury February 15, 1904. Two years later in Detroit, she married Alois Hastreiter
and two years after that married Otto Herman Jarrendt.
in Chicago.
Daughter Gertrude grew up, married Fred Michael Stucker and
they had a daughter named Doris. Gertrude's
family lived with her mother and stepfather in
Chicago in 1920 and by 1930 had relocated to
California.
Not
likely
Several online sites repeat what I believe
must be an
error: that Herman Fellman changed his name from
Sidonic Fellman to Herman Fellman. Inaccurate data
entry or a character recognition error seems more
probable than that a man named Sidonic married a
woman named Sidonie.
Many
questions remain about Herman's family.
Bertha who? The coroner only issued a burial permit for
Herman. None was issued for a female Fellman.
Either his mother remarried and went by a different
last name or she did not die at the Iroquois.
A Bertha Herger from Hammond, Indiana (near Chicago)
was among the victims and I have failed to learn
anything about her. Was Iroquois Theater
victim Bertha Herger actually Bertha <unknown
maiden name> Fellman Herger? Did Bertha survive the
fire but the newspapers were not informed
accordingly? (Unlikely as that sounds, a woman
in another family survived while her sister died.
She was so emotionally conflicted by her survival
that she never issued a correction to newspapers.
The truth was mentioned by relatives after her death
decades later.)
Sidonie living elsewhere? Though the 1900 census shows Herman, Sidonie and
Gertrude living together, Chicago city directories
in 1901 and 1902 show Herman living alone at the
address cited by in the Marshall Everette book as
his residence -- 3113 Vernon. Was Sidonie
accidentally omitted from the city directories?
Where was Clara Ruhlman
living and what was her maiden name?
Newspapers reported her as living in Detroit but the
Everette book said she lived in Chicago. I
could not find her in either city in the 1900
census, or in 1900-1903 city directories.
Clara's son, who identified her body, was named
Arthur Anger. It appears Clara married a man
named Ruhleman after her marriage to the father of
Arthur, and possibly Sidonia as well. Clara's
maiden name is not known, nor is it known if, at the
time of her death, she was married or widowed.
Northwestern med students
accused of body snatching
Anna survived and became
a stenographer
If you have additional
info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error, I would like to
hear from you. Chaos and communication limitations of 1903
produced many errors I'm striving to correct and welcome all the help I can get. Space is provided at the
bottom of stories for comments, or
contact
me directly. To receive email notification of new content,
let me know.
(Don't expect your inbox to fill up with emails as I rarely consider
a story to be finished. For Facebook users, following the
Iroquois Theater
Facebook page will mostly accomplish the same end since mostly
completed Iroquois stories are posted there. Mostly.)
