"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
The numerous funeral trains which left Chicago contained in nearly every
instance more than one coffin. Hearse after hearse and carriage after
carriage arrived in the blinding snow and stopped at the depots, opening
an epoch of funerals that continued daily until the last victim was laid
to rest.
Thus opened the year 1904 in Chicago, the stricken and desolate.
CHAPTER XI.
A SABBATH OF WOE.
A majority of the victims of the fire were laid to rest, however, during
the Sabbath succeeding the awful calamity. The main thoroughfares of the
benumbed city leading north and west toward the resting places of the dead
were crowded with funeral processions, sometimes four and five hearses
together showing as white as the snow on the ground, bearing as they did
the bodies of children.
As one funeral procession after another passed through the streets the
numbers of the sorrowing at the cemeteries increased. A few hundred feet
from one freshly made grave there was another and a short distance away
still another that told the mourners at one funeral that others were
bereaved.
The work of burying the dead began early in the morning and lasted until
late in the evening. Sometimes the homes of several of the dead were
grouped in a few blocks and in one instance a glance down a single street
would reveal the thickly crowded carriages for half a dozen funerals that
had thrown an entire neighborhood into mourning. Where hearses could not
be furnished they were improvised from other kinds of vehicles and
mourners who could not get cabs rode in carriages. As the night closed
down on hundreds of mourning homes, in every cemetery in the city the
speaking mounds of fresh earth told of the end of families broken and
altogether destroyed.
SEVEN TURNER VICTIMS.
More than a thousand turners joined in the services for seven victims who
were members of their societies. The Chicago Turnbezirk, the central body
of the turners, had charge of the exercises. Representatives of the Aurora
Turnverein, Schweitzer Turnverein, Forward Turnverein, Social Turnverein,
and other turner organizations joined in the services.
The exercises were held at the Social Turner hall, Belmont avenue and
Paulina street. The coffins of the victims were placed in front of the
stage at the end of the hall. After the services the coffins were taken by
uniformed turners through the hall to black wagons and the march to
Graceland cemetery began. Three drum corps, with muffled drums, beat a
funeral march.
Women turners, in their gymnasium suits, escorted the bodies of the women
victims, and uniformed turners watched the coffins of the men.
Short services were held at the cemetery.
SAD SCENES AT WOLFF HOME.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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