Relatives recall stories of fire's horror
- Publication
- Wilmette Life, 1 Jan 2004, News, p. 9, 10
Description
- Media Type
- Newspaper
- Item Types
- Articles
- Photographs
- Notes
- Accounts of the disaster by descendants of the victims and witnesses of the event. Alice Childs, of Glenview and formerly of Winnetka, is the daughter of Verde Alice Clark, who died about 1990, age 98. Clark, 11, went to the show with her father, Nelson Clark, brother, Nelson Raymond Clark, and sister Edith, all of whom survived. Jane Rubens of Glencoe said her mother, Theresa Bissinger, 20, had gone to the performance with her brother Walter, 15, and a cousin, Jack Pottlitzer. Theresa was the only one who survived. Sandra Meyers of Evanston recalls that two of her great uncles, Emil and Albert Eger, had gone to the morgue to identify the bodies of a nephew, a niece and a sister-in-law. Listed among the dead are Meyers' relatives, a Mrs. Gus Eger, and Ernest and Erna Reiss. Evanston resident Gail Struve, whose maiden name is Reinholtzen, said three of her father's cousins died in the fire. William Harwood of Evanston recalls a story his mother, Katherine Lang Harwood, told about the day. Her family had intended to go to the performance, but stayed home because one of her younger siblings was sick. Kathy Carroll's great-grandmother, Mary Foltz, and two of her daughters, Alice 16, and Helen, 14, died in the fire. Kathy Carroll's grandmother, Katherine Foltz, 10, was considered too young to attend the show. Ann Liebrandt of Golf recalls that her grandparents took her uncle, 6, to the performance. Her grandmother's brother-in-law, a Christian Brother known as Brother Baldwin, was a big man who saved the family by breaking one of the theater doors so they could escape. Liebrandt's son is former Kansas City Royals pitcher Charlie Liebrandt.
List of North Shore victims of fire include Linda Boltie [sic]. Photos of Theresa and Walter Bissinger - Date of Publication
- 1 Jan 2004
- Personal Name(s)
- Bissinger, Walter ; Bissinger, Theresa ; Blackburn, Miss ; Bolte, Helen ; Butler, Bennett ; Butler, F. S. Mrs. ; Childs, Alice ; Clark, Edith ; Clark, Nelson ; Clark, Nelson Raymond ; Clark, Verde Alice ; Dyrenforth, Helen ; Dyrenforth, Ruth ; Eland, Alma ; Foltz, Alice ; Foltz, Helen ; Foltz, Katherine ; Foltz, Mary ; Fox, Emily ; Fox, Evelyn Hoyt ; Fox, George Sydney ; Fox, Hoyt ; Forbusch, C. W. Mrs. ; Frantzen, Linda ; Geron, Mable ; Hart, Elizabeth ; Hutchins, Jeanette ; Higginson, Janithe B. ; Higginson, Jeanette ; Kennedy, Frances ; Liebrandt, Ann ; Liebrandt, Charles ; Palmer, Howard ; Palmer, Katherine ; Palmer, Richard G. ; Palmer, William ; Pottlitzer, Jack ; Rubens, Jane
- Corporate Name(s)
- Iroquois Theater
- Local identifier
- Wilmette.News.266038
- Language of Item
- English
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- Contact
- Wilmette Public LibraryEmail:refdesk@wilmettelibrary.info
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