Pearl Cranston Gould

Husband and wife, Ben and Pearl Gould were seated in the third-floor balcony. 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.

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.

Pearl was one of six children born to John E. Cranston (1839–1885) and Elizabeth D. Taylor Cranston (c.1845–). She was born in Livingston, Michigan. Newspapers after the fire reported that Pearl jumped from a balcony to the floor below and suffered a fractured skull.  She can't have expected to survive the fall so must have jumped to escape agonizing pain from flames.