Enlarge

On the morning of December 30, 1903 William E. Dee was a forty-four year old widower with five children, aged two to fifteen, including two stepsons born to his late wife and her late first husband.  At day's end, one of those children was dead and a second was missing, her body located the following day.

Seven years earlier William had married widow Abbie Louisa O'Donnell Luby.  Abbie's husband, William H. Luby, had died three years earlier, leaving Abbie with two sons, five year old Simon and two year old William Luby.

Abbie's father, Simon J. O'Donnell, was a prosperous stockyards man in Pittsburgh so there was little likelihood she and her boys would ever go hungry but William Dee was nonetheless a good catch for the twenty-eight-year-old widow.

I don't know whether William Dee went through a legal procedure to adopt Abbie's boys but they went by the Dee name from the earliest records I found.

In 1898, two years after their marriage, Abbie and William Dee produced two children of their own, twin boys, Samuel Allerton Dee and Edward Mansfield Dee, and in September, 1901, Margaret Louise was born.  Two months later Abbie Dee died, cause unknown.  Childbirth complications maybe.

On December 30, 1903, William was 135 miles away from home on business, at the company's plant in Mecca, Indiana, west of Indianapolis on the Indiana-Illinois state line.  When he received a telephone call about the fire he took a buggy to Clinton, Indiana, chartered a private train engine to Danville, Illinois, then took a special train into Chicago.  In his 1933 obituary it was stated that he rode beside the engineer in the locomotive, 175 miles to Chicago, and that he was first to identify his children.

The children's nurse, fifty-five-year-old widow Agnes Bell Errett (1848-1917)*, had taken four of the Dee children to Mr. Bluebeard at the Iroquois Theater.  The party consisted of Errett, twelve year old William Luby Dee and the three little ones, seven year old twins, Eddie and Samuel, and two year old Margaret Louisa Dee.  Only the nanny, William Luby Dee and Samuel Allerton Dee came home.  Eddie Mansfield Dee died at the theater and Margaret died from one to three days later.  Accounts varied.

The Dr. Bridge in the Marshall Everette disaster book story (see accompanying photo) was Canadian native, James Charles Brydges (1858-1931), a profiteer with a stethoscope.  Five months after the Iroquois fire Brydges sued William Dee for the care he provided to little Louise.  The newspaper report described Dee as a millionaire contractor and Brydges as a caring doctor who saved a dying child.  Not all newspapers mentioned that the child had not survived and none made note of the fact that the doctor had taken Louise to his home rather than a hospital where she might have received better care. 

Brydges demanded $3,000 for his services.  Or $2,000 -- reports varied.  $52,000 - $78,000 in today's money.  Brydge's story differed markedly from that told by Everette.  According to Brydges, he found Louise's body beneath a pile of bodies at Thompson's diner, saw signs of life and carried her off.

The story in the Everette book was that someone handed her off to Brydges as she was carried out of the theater.  A kerchief embroidered with a "D" led Brydges to contact Dee and reportedly Brydge nursed Louise for two to three days, not one as told by Everette.  I did not find a follow-up report about the law suit. 

The Dee family prior to fire

• William E. Dee Sr. (1859-1933), oldest of eight children born to Irish immigrants, William M. and Julia Hawley Dee.  He had joined the family sewer tile company founded by his father.

• Abbie O'Donnell Dee (1868 – 1901), late daughter of Simon and Margaret Pearson O'Donnell.

• Simon Robert Luby Dee (1888 – 1955), son of late William and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, stepson of William E. Dee.

• William Thomas Luby Dee (1891 – 1963), son of late William and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, stepson of William E. Dee, who saved his younger half brother, Samuel Allerton Dee and survived Iroquois Theater fire.  Later married Susie Helt.

• Edward "Eddie" Mansfield Dee (1897 – 1903), Iroquois fatality, son of William and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee.

• Samuel Allerton Dee (1897 – 1962), son of William and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, survived Iroquois Theater fire, Eddie's twin.  Named after a close friend and business associate of his grandfather O'Donnell.  Married twice, had two children.

• Margaret Louise Dee (1901 – 1903) daughter of William and late Abbie O'Donnell Luby Dee, survived Iroquois Theater fire initially but succumbed a few days later.

• Mrs. George H. Errett, nanny, from Indiana, injured but survived.  Not having much luck learning more about her.  Her given name may have been Agnes.

In the years after the fire

Two months after the fire William Dee married twenty-three year old Grace A. Muir (1881-1969), her first marriage.  News of the marriage was withheld until July out of sensitivity to the Iroquois tragedy.  Newspapers reported she was the daughter of James H. Muir, a Grand Rapids merchant.  William and Grace went on to have two children of their own:

• William E. Dee Jr (1912 – 1989), son of William E. Dee and Grace Muir Dee

• Jane Elizabeth Dee (1914 – 1978), daughter of William E. Dee and Grace Muir Dee

• William M. Dee, Irish immigrant who founded the Dee family sewer pipe business
• William E. Dee Sr. who fathered five Dee children by two women and adopted two children orphaned by the deaths of their natural parents
• William Luby Dee, stepson of William E. Dee Sr.
• William E. Dee Jr., son of William E. Dee Sr. and his second wife, Grace Muir Dee.
• Willam H. Luby Sr., late father of Simon and William Luby

Enlarge

Discrepancies and addendum

*  There is iffiness in the Errett identification.  A widow named Agnes Errett lived with her daughter Olive. A. Errett, a telegraph operator, at 3133 Wabash in 1903 – the address at which lived the William E. Dee family at the same time.  Dee often advertised for tenants for that address, probably for flats other than his own, so Agnes Errett may have also been a tenant.   The nurse could have been daughter Olive but newspaper reports consistently referred to the children's nurse as "Mrs. George Errett" and I found Olive still working as a telegrapher decades later so it seems likely she would have been working in that capacity on December 30, 1903 and not at the theater.  Agnes Errett gave birth to eleven children, of which nine were still living in 1910.  By that time she, Olive, a son named Gordon Errett and a married daughter named Shirley Masson and her son moved to San Francisco.  The family lived in Detroit in 1901, and husband George was still living.  Sometime thereafter he disappeared.  To Montana?  To Chatham in Ontario?  Reading between many lines I suspect Agnes might have been asking that question, too.

Story 2663