"Lest We Forget": Chicago's Awful Theater HorrorEverett, Marshall
History
"Lest We Forget": Chicago's Awful Theater Horror
Everett, Marshall
Iroquois Theater, Chicago -- Fire, 1903; Theaters -- Fires and fire prevention
"She's dead," was more often than not the verdict after much work. "Next!"
and the cold and stiffened form of the victim was dragged, head first,
from the marble eating table, thrown quickly under the tables, and another
form, perhaps that of a tiny child, took its place.
STEADY STREAM OF BODIES.
So fast came the bodies for a time that there was one steady stream of
persons carried in--the still living--while without the morgue stood the
ambulances waiting for their burdens. The sidewalk, muddy and crowded, was
strewn with the dead, lying on blankets or else thrown down in the mud,
waiting to be taken to the various morgues of the city.
There was a figure of a man--a large man with broad shoulders and dressed
in black--whose entire face was burned away, only the back of the head
remaining to show he had ever had a head; yet below the shoulders he was
untouched by the fire.
There lay women with their arms gone, or their legs, while one had one
side burned off, with only the cross shoulder-bone remaining. She had worn
a pink silk waist and black skirt; the fragments of the garments still
clung to her like a shroud that had lain in the grave.
There was a little boy, with a shock of red-brown hair, whose tiny mouth
was open in terror and whose baby hands were burned off so that his tiny
wrists showed like red stumps.
CLOTHING TORN TO SHREDS.
There was one young girl, her garments so torn from her splendid figure
that her arms and white bosom rose uncovered from the tattered and
torn--not burned--shreds of her clothing, and the shreds of a
turquoise-blue silk petticoat draped her limbs. She had died from
suffocation--fought and struggled and died. On her finger sparkled a
diamond ring, and about her slender throat was a string of pearl beads.
There was another body of a girl that several persons said they knew, yet
no one could speak her name. She was beautiful in her terrible death, with
a wealth of blonde hair, and staring blue eyes. She was dressed in a
blue-black velvet shirt waist, with gold buttons, a mixed white and tan
and gray walking skirt, with a pink silk petticoat beneath. She had died
of suffocation, and, as she lay on the marble table dead, a tiny blue
chatelaine watch, ticking merrily the hour, was pinned upon her breast.
The crowding, the howling, the screaming in Thompson's was so highly
pitched, that no one could hear the orders of the physicians. Bedlam
reigned--no order, no leader, everyone doing what he could to help. At
length came the loud voice of a man, and those who could hear, stopped
and listened, while those at the front of the restaurant said: "Some man
has gone crazy with grief."
It was State Senator Clark, who, seeing the need of an order, jumped to a
table and gave one.
"Everyone get out," he cried, "and make room for the doctors. Let there be
three doctors to a table and one nurse while they last."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account