Chicago's Awful Theater Horror Part 9

"Mrs. Phillipson, Phillipson--is Mrs. Phillipson here?"

That cry sounded in drug stores, cigar stores, and hotels until three little girls, Adeline, Frances, and Teresa, had found their mother, from whom they were separated in the panic. At last at the Continental hotel the call was weakly answered by a woman who lay upon a couch, more frightened than hurt. In another moment three little girls were sobbing in their mother's lap.

FRIENDS AND RELATIVES EAGERLY SEARCH FOR LOVED ONES MISSING AFTER THEATER HOLOCAUST.

Friends sought for information of friends; husbands asked for word of wives; fathers and mothers sought news of sons and daughters; men and women begged to be told if there was any knowledge of their sweethearts; parents asked for children; and children fearfully told the names of missing playmates.

The early hours of the evening were marked by many sad scenes. Men would rush to the desk where the names of the missing were being compiled and asked if anything had been heard of some member of their families, then turn away and hurry out, barely waiting to be told that there would be no definite news until nearly midnight.

"Just think!" said one gray headed man, leaning on the arm of a younger man who was leading him down the stairs, "I bought the matinee tickets for the children as a treat, and insisted that they take their little cousin with them."

"Have you heard anything of my daughter?" asked a woman.

"What was her name?"

"Lily. She had seats in the first balcony with some girl friends. You would know her by her brown hair. She wore a white silk shirt waist and a diamond ring I gave her for Christmas. I went to the theater, but I couldn't get near it, and they said they were still carrying out bodies."

"And her name? Who was she?"

"She was my daughter--my only one!"

The woman walked away, weeping, without giving the name, and the only response she would make to questions from those who followed her was:

"My daughter!"

Two men, with two little boys, came in. "Our wives," they said, "came to the matinee with some neighbors. They have not yet come home."

Before they could give their names a third man ran up and cried:

"I just got word the folks have been taken home in ambulances. They are alive."

The men gave a shout and were gone in an instant.

Men with children in their arms came to ask for others of the family who had become separated from them in the panic at the theater. Women, tears dampening their cheeks, hushed the chatter of their little ones while they gave the names of husbands and brothers, or told of other children who had been lost.

One man yielded to his fears at the last minute and went away without asking for information or giving any name. He said:

"I went to the theater with my wife. We have only been married a year.

When the rush came I was torn away from her, and the last thing I remember is of hearing her call my name. Then I was lifted off my feet and can recall nothing more except that I found myself in the street. I have been to all the hospitals and morgues, and now I am going back to the theater again."

So it went until the last dreaded news began coming in. Identifications were being made and hearts were being broken. After that time the inquiries were not for information; they were pleas to be told that a mistake had been made or that one was possible.

CHAPTER IV.

SCENE OF HORROR AS VIEWED FROM THE STAGE.

All but one of the 348 members of the "Bluebeard" company escaped, although many had close calls for their lives. Some of the chorus girls displayed great coolness in the face of grave peril. Eddie Foy, who had a thrilling experience, said:

"I was up in my dressing room preparing to come on for my turn in the middle of the second act when I heard an unusual commotion on the stage that I knew could not be caused by anything that was a part of the show. I hurried out of my dressing room, and as I looked I saw that the big drop curtain was on fire.

"The fire had caught from the calcium and the paint and muslin on the drop caused the flames to travel with great rapidity Everything was excitement.

Everybody was running from the stage. My 6 year old son, Bryan, stood in the first entrance to the stage and my first thought naturally was to get him out. They would not let me go out over the footlights, so I picked up the boy and gave him to a man and told him to rush the boy out into the alley.

"I then rushed out to the footlights and called out to the audience, 'Keep very quiet. It is all right. Don't get excited and don't stampede. It is all right.'

"I then shouted an order into the flies, 'Drop the curtain,' and called out to the leader of the orchestra to 'play an overture. Some of the musicians had left, but those that remained began to play. The leader sat there, white as a ghost, but beating his baton in the air.

"As the music started I shouted out to the audience, 'Go out slowly. Leave the theater slowly.' The audience had not yet become panic stricken, and as I shouted to them they applauded me. The next minute the whole stage seemed to be afire, and what wood there was began to crackle with a sound like a series of explosions.

"When I first came out to the footlights about 300 persons had left the theater or were leaving it. They were those who were nearest the door.

Then the policemen came rushing in and tried to stem the tide towards the door.

"All this happened in fifteen seconds. Up in the flies were the young women who compose the aerial ballet. They were up there waiting to do their turn, and as I stood at the front of the stage they came rushing out. I think they all got out safely.

"The fire seemed to spread with a series of explosions. The paint on the curtains and scenery came in touch with the flames and in a second the scenery was sputtering and blazing up on all sides. The smoke was fearful and it was a case of run quickly or be smothered."

Stage Director William Carleton, who was one of the last to leave the stage when the flames and smoke drove the members of the company out, said:

"I was on the stage when the flames shot out from the switchboard on the left side. It seemed that some part of the scenery must have touched the sparks and set the fire. Soon the octette which was singing "In the Pale Moonlight," discovered the fire over their heads and in a few moments we had the curtain run down. It would not go down the full length, however, leaving an opening of about five feet from the floor. Then the crowd out in front began to stampede and the lights went out. Eddie Foy, who was in his dressing room, heard the commotion, and, rushing to the front of the stage, shouted to the spectators to be calm. The warning was useless and the panic was under way before any one realized what was going on.

"Only sixteen members of the company were on the stage at the time. They remained until the flames were all about them and several had their hair singed and faces burned. Almost every one of these went out through the stage entrance on Dearborn street. In the meantime all of those who were in the dressing room had been warned and rushed out through the front entrance on Randolph street. There was no panic among the members of the company, every one seeming to know that care would result in the saving of life. Most of the members were preparing for the next number in their dressing rooms when the fire broke out, and they hurriedly secured what wraps they could and all dashed up to the stage, making their exit in safety.

"The elevator which has been used for the members of the company, in going from the upper dressing rooms to the stage, was one of the first things to go wrong, and attempts to use it were futile.

"It seems that the panic could not be averted, as the great crowd which filled the theater was unable to control itself. Two of the women fainted."

"When the fire broke out," said Lou Shean, a member of the chorus, "I was in the dressing room underneath the stage. When I reached the top of the stairs the scenery nearby was all in flames and the heat was so fierce that I could not reach the stage door leading toward Dearborn street. I returned to the bas.e.m.e.nt and ran down the long corridor leading toward the engine room, near which doors led to the smoking room and buffet. Both doors were locked. I began to break down the doors, a.s.sisted by other members of the company, while about seventy or eighty other members crowded against us. I succeeded in bursting open the door to the smoking room, when all made a wild rush. I was knocked down and trampled on and received painful bruises all over my body."

"I was just straightening up things in our dressing room upstairs," said Harry Meehan, a member of the chorus, who also acted as dresser for Eddie Foy and Harry Gilfoil, "when the fire started. Both Mr. Foy and Mr.

Gilfoil were on the stage at the time. I opened Mr. Foy's trunk and took out his watch and chain and rushed out, leaving my own clothes behind. I was so scantily dressed that I had to borrow clothes to get back to the hotel. Mr. Gilfoil saved nothing but his overcoat."

Herbert Cawthorn, the Irish comedian who took the part of Pat Shaw in the play "Bluebeard," a.s.sisted many of the chorus girls from the stage exits in the panic.

"While the stage fireman was working in an endeavor to use the chemicals the flames suddenly swooped down and out, Eddie Foy shouted something about the asbestos curtain and the fireman attempted to use it, and the stage hands ran to his a.s.sistance, but the curtain refused to work.

"In my opinion the stage fireman might have averted the whole terrible affair if he had not become so excited. The chorus girls and everybody, to my mind, were less excited than he. There were at least 500 people behind the scenes when the fire started. I a.s.sisted many of the chorus girls from the theater."

Said C. W. Northrop, who took the part of one of Bluebeard's old wives: "Many of us certainly had narrow escapes. Those who were in the dressing rooms underneath the stage at the time had more difficulty in getting out.

I was in the dressing room under the stage when the fire broke out, and when I found that I could not reach the stage I tried to get out through the door connecting the extreme north end of the C shaped corridor with the smoking room. I joined other members of the company in their rush for safety, but when we reached the door we found it closed. Some of the members crawled out through a coal hole, while others broke down the locked door, through which the others made their way out."

Lolla Quinlan, one of Bluebeard's eight dancers, saved the life of one of her companions, Violet Sidney, at the peril of her own. The two girls, with five others, were in a dressing room on the fifth floor when the alarm was raised. In their haste Miss Sidney caught her foot and sank to the floor with a cry of pain. She had sprained her ankle. The others, with the exception of Miss Quinlan, fled down the stairs.

Grasping her companion around the waist Miss Quinlan dragged her down the stairs to the stage and crossed the boards during a rain of fiery brands.