Benjamin Eli Gould

Husband and wife, Ben and Pearl Gould were seated in the third-floor balcony.  Pearl was so badly burned and injured that her body could not be identified except by her jewelry, and Ben was trampled to death.

They had celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary on Christmas day, five days before the fire. Had the disaster taken place the following year, perhaps their daughter Dorothy "little Dot" Gould would have died with her parents. At only three years of age, she'd been kept at home that afternoon, too young for the theater. By days end she was orphaned and would be raised by her paternal grandparents.  Ben's parents were among dozens who brought a wrongful death suit against Klaw & Erlanger.

Benjamin Eli Gould (b. 1870) was thirty-three years old, and Pearl Cranston Gould (b. 1871) was thirty-two. They had married on December 25, 1895 and lived in Elgin, Illinois where Ben worked as a circuit court clerk. They had lived with Ben's parents when Dorothy was an infant but by 1903 had their own home at 221 Grove Avenue in Elgin.

In 1902, Benjamin Gould was elected Major of the Third Illinois regiment (Illinois National Guard), hence the title of Major in some stories about him.  He joined Company E at Elgin when he was sixteen years old and was continuously with it to his death. He commanded the company during the Spanish American War in Puerto Rico.

Ben's parents raised Dorothy after the fire. They were Leander Johnson Gould Jr. (1842–1931) and Delilah / Delila "Jane" Morgan Gould (1846–1928). In 1900 they had built a large new home at 479 Laurel, at the corner of Laurel and Percy streets in Elgin.  In 1910 Delilah worked as a pastry chef, and Leander received a military pension from his service to the Union army with the 13th Wisconsin infantry during the civil war.  Leander had enlisted in Troy, Wisconsin in 1861 and mustered out four years later as a sergeant.  Gould was active in the GAR in Elgin. Fortunately, he and Delilah lived long enough to provide for their granddaughter until she grew up.  Dorothy's grandmother Delilah passed in 1928 and in 1930, at age eighty-eight, Leander lived with Dorothy and her family.

After graduating from high school Dorothy worked as a milliner. In 1921, she married a former high school classmate, Dudley Weaver Nish —  who also had a sister named Dorothy. Dudley became an insurance agent. The pair had two daughters and a son.