The story of the wiping out of the children of H. S. Van Ingen, the former manager of the Pennsylvania Coal Company in Chicago, and a resident of Kenosha, is one of the saddest stories of the tragedy. Following the custom established years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Van Ingen and their five children, Grace, twenty-three years old; Jack, twenty; Edward L., nineteen; Margaret, fourteen; and Elizabeth, nine, had all come to Chicago for a matinee party. Schuyler, another son, the sole survivor of the children, was to join the family for a dinner and family reunion at the Wellington hotel after the matinee. The seven persons were seated in the front row of the balcony when the panic ensued, and Mr. Van Ingen, marshaling his little force, started for the exit at the aisle, but the mighty crush of people separated the parents from the children, and Mr. Van Ingen, putting his arm around Mrs. Van Ingen, carried her one way, while the children were swept the other.
The last Mr. Van Ingen saw of the children was when Jack, the oldest boy, took his little sister, Elizabeth, in his arms and shouted to his father: "You save mother and I'll look after the rest." In another moment the party, including the children, was trampled down.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Ingen started to return to the theater for the children and both of them were fearfully burned in the attempt. The bodies of the two boys were located in the evening. Margaret and Elizabeth were found the next day. Grace, the oldest daughter, and one of the best known young women of Kenosha, was identified still later. Mr. and Mrs. Van Ingen, both terribly burned, were taken to the Illinois Hospital.
COOPER BROTHERS DEEPLY MOURNED.
Willis Cooper was one of the best known men in Kenosha. He was the secretary of the great Twentieth Century movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church which resulted in $20,000,000 being raised for missions. He was last year the prohibition candidate for governor of Wisconsin, and was recently elected head of the lay delegation of the Wisconsin churches at the general conference of the Methodist Church. Mr. Cooper was a millionaire, and his gifts to church charities often exceeded $10,000 a year. In Kenosha he was the general manager of the Chicago Kenosha Hosiery Works, the largest stocking making plant in the world.
Charles F. Cooper, his brother, was the factory manager and general salesman of the company. He was the president of the Kenosha Manufacturers' Association, of the Kenosha Hospital Association, and the Masonic Temple Association. He was the founder of profit-sharing in the Kenosha plant, and under his direction it became known as the plant "where the life of the worker is flooded with sunshine." He was most popular with the working classes in Kenosha, and when his body was taken to the morgue hundreds of men and women stood with uncovered heads while it passed.
There occurred between the acts at the Century theater, St. Louis, on New Year's night, an unusual incident, when C. H. Congdon, of Chicago, arose from his seat and related incidents of the Iroquois theater tragedy.
He had proceeded only for a few minutes when some one in the audience began singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which was immediately taken up by the whole audience, the orchestra joining in with the accompaniment.