Chicago's Awful Theater Horror Part 8

CHAPTER III.

TAKING AWAY AND IDENTIFYING THE DEAD.

In drays and delivery wagons they carried the dead away from the Iroquois theater ruins. The sidewalk in front of the playhouse and Thompson's restaurant was completely filled with dead bodies, when it was realized that the patrol wagons and ambulances could not remove the bodies.

Then Chief O'Neill and Coroner Traeger sent out men to stop drays and press them into service. Transfer companies were called up on telephone and asked to send wagons. Retail stores in State street sent delivery wagons.

Into these drays and wagons were piled the bodies. They lay outstretched on the sidewalk, covered with blankets. Much care in the handling was impossible. As soon as a s.p.a.ce on the walk was made by the removal of a body two were brought down to fill it.

One of the wagons of the Dixon Transfer Company was so heavily loaded with the dead that the two big horses drawing it were unable to start the truck. Policemen and spectators put their shoulders to the wheels.

When the drays were filled and started there was a struggle to get them through the crowds, densely packed, even within the fire lines which the police had established across Randolph street at State and Dearborn streets.

Policemen with clubs preceded many of the wagons. The crowds through which they forced their way were composed mostly of men who had sent wives and children to the theater and had reason to believe that one of the drays might carry members of their own families.

Eight and ten wagons at a time, half of them trucks and delivery wagons, were backed up to the curb waiting for their loads of dead.

Two policemen would seize a blanket at the corners and swing it, with its contents, up to two other men in the wagon. This would be continued until a wagonload of bodies had been handled. Then the police forced a way through the crowd and another wagon took the place.

Occasionally a body would be identified, and then efforts were made to remove it direct to the residence. Coroner Traeger discovered the wife of Patrick P. O'Donnell, president of the O'Donnell & Duer Brewing Company.

"Telephone to some undertaking establishment and have them take Mrs.

O'Donnell's body home," he ordered one of his a.s.sistants. It was taken to the residence, at 4629 Woodlawn avenue.

Friends of another woman who were positive they identified the body among the dead in Thompson's were allowed by the coroner to remove it to Ford's undertaking establishment, in Thirty-fifth street.

HEARTRENDING SCENES WITNESSED AT THE UNDERTAKING ESTABLISHMENTS.

The bodies of the fire victims were distributed among the undertaking rooms and morgues most convenient. By 8:30 o'clock 135 bodies lay on the floors in the establishment of C. H. Jordan, 14-16 East Madison street, and in the temporary annex across the alley. The first were brought in ambulances and in police patrol wagons. Later all sorts of conveyances were pressed into service, and during more than two hours there was a procession of two-horse trucks, delivery wagons, and cabs, all bringing dead. It soon became evident that the capacity of the place would be exhausted and the men, who sat drinking and talking at the tables in the big ante-room in a saloon across the alley were driven out, and this also was arranged for use as a temporary morgue.

Two policemen were in charge of each load of the dead, and as soon as the first few bodies were received, they began searching for possible marks of identification. All jewelry and valuables, as well as letters, cards, and other papers were put in sealed envelopes, marked with a number corresponding with that on the tag attached to the body. When this work was completed all the envelopes were sent to police headquarters, and all inquirers after missing friends and relatives were referred to the city hall to inspect the envelopes.

The scenes in the two long rooms of the morgue in the saloon annex across the alley were so overpowering that they appeared to lose their effect.

Many of the bodies last brought from the theater were sadly burned and disfigured and almost all of the faces were discolored and the clothing rumpled and wet.

The condition of many of the bodies evidenced a vain battle for life.

Almost all of them were women or children, and the majority had been well dressed. Among them were several old women. The men were few. In many cases the hands were torn, as if violent efforts had been made to wrench away some obstruction.

As quickly as the work of searching the bodies was completed, the attendants stretched strips of muslin over the forms, partly hiding the pitiful horror of the sight.

Persons were slow in coming to the undertakers in search of friends. Many had their first suspicion of the catastrophe when members of theater parties failed to return at the usual hour.

Among the first to arrive at Jordan's were George E. McCaughan, attorney for the Chicago & Rock Island railroad, 6565 Yale avenue, who came in search of his daughter, Helen, who had attended a theater party with other young women. A friend had been in Dearborn street when the fire started and soon after had discovered in Thompson's restaurant the body of Miss McCaughan. He attached a card bearing her name to the body, and, leaving it in the custody of a physician, went to the telephone to notify the father. When he returned to the restaurant the body already had been removed and the friend and the father searched last night without finding it.

As it grew later the crowd around the doors increased, but almost every one was turned away. It would have been impossible for persons to have pa.s.sed through the long rooms for the purpose of inspecting the bodies, they were so close together. Women came weeping to the doors of the undertaking shop and beat upon the gla.s.s, only to be referred to the city hall or told "to come back in the morning."

Later it was learned that physicians would be admitted for the purpose of inspecting and identifying the dead, and many persons came accompanied by their family doctors for that purpose. Two women, who pressed by the officer at the door, sank half fainting into chairs in the outer office.

They were looking for Miss Hazel J. Brown, of 94 Thirty-first street, and Miss Eloise G. Swayze, of Fifty-sixth street and Normal avenue. A single glance at the long lines of bodies stretched on the floor was enough to satisfy them. They were told to return in the morning or to send their family physician to make the identification.

"The poor girls had come from the convent to spend the holiday vacation,"

sobbed one of the women.

During the evening the telephone bell constantly was ringing, and persons whose relatives had failed to return on time were asked for information.

"Have you found a small heart-shaped locket set with a blue stone?" would come a call over the wire, and the answer would be, "We can tell nothing about that until morning."

At Rolston's undertaking rooms were 182 bodies, lying four rows deep in the rear of 18 Adams street and three rows deep in the rear of 22 Adams street.

On the floors, tagged with the numerals of the coroner's scheme for identification, were bodies of men, women, and children awaiting identification. One was that of a little girl with yellow hair in a tangle of curls around her face. She appeared as if she slept. A silk dress of blue was spread over her and the sash of white ribbon scarcely was soiled.

Over the long lines of the dead the police hovered in the search for identifying marks and for valuables. Most of the bodies were partly covered with blankets.

Outside a big crowd surged and struggled with the police. Not till 10 o'clock were the doors opened. Then Coroner Traeger arrived, and in groups of twelve or fifteen the crowd was permitted to pa.s.s through the doors.

There was a pathetic scene at Rolston's morgue when the body of John Van Ingen, 18 years old, of Kenosha, Wis., was identified. Friends of the Van Ingen family had spent the entire evening searching at the request of Mr.

and Mrs. Van Ingen, who were injured. At midnight four of the Van Ingen children, who were believed to have perished in the fire, had not been accounted for. They were: Grace, 2 years old; Dottie, 5 years old; Mary, 13 years old; and Edward, 20 years old.

In the undertaking rooms of J. C. Gavin, 226 North Clark street, and Carroll Bros., 203 Wells street, forty-five bodies swathed in blankets were awaiting identification at midnight. Of the fifty-four brought to these places only nine had been identified by the hundreds of relatives and friends who filed through the rooms, and in several cases the recognition was doubtful.

An atmosphere of awe appeared to pervade the places, and no hysterical scenes followed the pointing out of the bodies. The morbid crowds usually attendant on a smaller calamity were absent, and few except those seeking missing relatives sought admission. Only one of the men, James D. Maloney, wept as he stood over the body of his dead wife.

"I can't go any further," he said. "Her sister, Tennie Peterson, who lived in Fargo, N. D., was with her, and her body probably is there," motioning to the row of blanket-covered forms, "but I can't look. I must go back to the little ones at home, now motherless."

In Inspector Campbell's office at the Chicago avenue station Sergeant Finn monotonously repeated the descriptions, as the scores of frantic seekers filled and refilled the little office. Several times he was interrupted by hysterical shrieks of women or the broken voices of men.

"Read it again, please," would be the call, and, as the description again was read off, the number of the body was taken and the relatives hurried to the undertaking rooms. The bodies of Walter B. Zeisler, 12 years old, Lee Haviland and Walter A. Austrian were partly identified from the police descriptions.

The list of hospital patients also was posted in the station and aided friends in the search for injured.

Sheldon's undertaking rooms at 230 West Madison street were the scene of pathetic incidents. Forty-seven bodies, some of them with the clothing entirely burned away, and with few exceptions with features charred beyond recognition, had been taken there. Late in the night only four had been identified. The first body recognized was that of Mrs. Brindsley, of 909 Jackson boulevard, who had attended the matinee with Miss Edna Torney, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. Torney, 1292 Adams street. Mr. Torney could find no trace of the young woman.

Of the forty-seven bodies thirty-six were of matured women and five of men. There were bodies of six children, three boys and three girls.

Dr. J. H. Bates, of 3256 South Park avenue, was searching for the bodies of Myrtle Shabad and Ruth Elken, numbered among the missing.

There were similar scenes at all of the undertaking rooms to which bodies were taken.

"When the fire broke out I was taking tickets at the door," said E.

Lovett, one of the ushers. "The crowd began to move toward the exits on the ground floor, and I rushed to the big entrance doors and threw three of them open. From there I hurried to the cigar store and called up the police and fire departments.

"When I returned I tried to get more of the doors open, but was shoved aside and told that I was crazy. The crowd acted in a most frenzied manner and no one could have held them in check. Conditions on the balconies must have been appalling. They were well filled, but the exits, had they been opened, would have proved ample for all."

Michael Ohle, who was ushering on the first balcony, noticed the fire shortly after it started. He hurried to the entrances and cleared the way for the people to get out. Then, he says, he started downstairs to find out how serious the fire was. Before he could return the panic was on and he fled to the street for safety.