The body of sixty-five-year-old
Louisa Timpel Rubly was found at Rolston's funeral home and identified by her son,
thirty-three-year-old George H. Rubly.
Louisa was a native of Germany,
as were her parents. At the
time of her death she lived with George and five
others of her children.
Thirty-eight year old Anna Marie "Mattie" Rubly
Fieser lived at 793 N. Springfield Avenue in Chicago. Her
husband, forty-three-year-old Tennesee native, Henry
"Harry" A Feiser (1859–1943), found her body at
Jordan's funeral home and identified it by her
garments. Harry was a Chicago police officer
in the 39th precinct at the corner of Larrabee and
North Avenue. His younger brother, George
Fieser, was also a police officer.
Harry and Mattie had married in
1890 and were childless but in 1900 were rearing a
nine year old niece of Harry's, Jennie Fieser
(1891–). They owned their home on
Springfield Ave. They also rented rooms
to two boarders.
Forty-two-year-old Ida Weimer lived at 1970 Kimball
Avenue in Chicago. Her body was found at Rolston's
funeral home and identified by
her brother, George H. Rubly
and/or her husband, Thomas Weimer 1858–1908).
In the years after the fire
At George's death in 1932,
six of his siblings survived. The last of
Louisa and Theobald's children, Alma Rubly, passed
in 1962.
Thomas Weimers remarried two
years after Ida's death, to Elizabeth Hageman. He and his second
wife had one child, a daughter they named Ruth Ida Weimers. He died a year after her birth.
Four years after the Iroquois
Theater fire Harry Fieser remarried Iva Beck.
Following retirement from the police department he worked as
a watchman. He and Iva did not have
children.
Four of the Rubly children,
Alfred, Alma, Rose and Louise, moved to California
where Alma worked as a stenographer in the motion
picture industry.
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German immigrants Louise and Theobald Rubly
(1830–1912) had married in 1858 and made their home in
Port Washington, Wisconsin. They raised eleven
children there. With a population then of
around 1,500, the town was a small pond for such a
large family but whatever footprint they made there
has yet to make it online. In their early
years Theo was a saloon keeper, then a grocer.
Around 1888 they moved to Chicago where he and one
of his sons opened a grocery. It was also
where trouble and tragedy began dogging the family.
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Emma, the oldest daughter, married James Edge in
1896. Their only
child, a son, was four years old in 1901 when
Emma died in an Elgin, IL insane asylum.
Her husband remarried two (2) months after her
death.
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In 1896, son George Rubly, an accountant, sued his father, Theobald, for
default of a $2,500 loan — and the following
year Theobald sued George for $1,880. In
1889 George had worked as a clerk in his
father's grocery, Rubly & Son, but it isn't
known if the financial dispute was related to
the store.
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Louisa and Theobald's long marriage broke up sometime
after 1880. (I'm betting the split came around
1896 when father and son were suing one
another.) By 1900 Louisa was living with
six of her children at 838 Wilson Avenue in a
house owned by George Rubly (the son who sued
his father) while Theobald lived with their
oldest son, Theodore, with whom he'd partnered
in Rubly & Son. In the 1900 U.S. Census
Louisa described herself as still married but
Theobald declared himself widowed. Though
I did not find evidence of a divorce, adopting the
status of widowhood was common for divorcees in
the early 1900s. A dispute
over a business loan may have split the family
into two camps.
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In March, 1903 came the unexpected death of Frank Rubly's wife,
thirty-one year old Bertha Slivinsky Rubly
(1872–1903), leaving him with three young sons.
William Frank Rubly (1867–1952) was the
second-born of Louise and Theobald's five sons.
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On December 30, 1903 came the Iroquois Theater fire
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Discrepancies and addendum
There are many name variations in this family, some that were
probably recording errors and others that varied by
time and/or region:
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Rubly was also spelled as Rubley and Ruebly
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Weimers was also reported as Weiner, Weiners and Wymer
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Theobald was sometimes reported as Theobold
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Mattie Fieser was sometimes reported as Mate
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Fieser was sometimes spelled as Feiser and as Feeser
* In 2021 merged with Our Lady of the Lake —
that as of 12/30/22 has not yet changed the history section on its
website to reflect Our Lady of Lourdes lengthier time in Chicago.
It's first mass was held in October 1892, nearly a decade before Our Lady of the Lake. |