Adelheid Kertscher Guthardt

Wife of John Guthardt. Mother of William, Henry and Elise. Adelheid and her daughter were killed in the Iroquois Theatre Fire.

Adelheid and Elise were the wife and daughter of immigrants John A. Guthardt, mother and sister of William and Henry. The family lived at 159 W.113th St. near the corner of Wentworth.  John worked as a machinist and supervisor at a cooking utensil manufacturer. In the years after the fire, he would remarry and see the birth of a third son and the death of his second wife.  He watched his son's marry and produce a granddaughter that may have reminded him of Elise.  Adelheid's body was found at Ralston's and Elisa's at Carroll's funeral home, both identified by John. Burial was at Mount Greenwood Cemetery in Chicago.  Liability lawsuits of $10,000 each were filed on behalf of Adelheid and Elise. In 1909 they were two of thirty-five $750 settlements from Fuller Construction, builders of the theater.

Among the victims was a party made up of children and adults from the Gartz, Guthardt, Theni and Fahey families. Of six, only one survived.
Fatality — four-year-old Barbara Jane Gartz (b.1899)
Fatality — twelve-year-old Mary Dorthea Gartz (b.1891)
Fatality — forty-one-year-old Adelheid Kertscher Guthardt (b.1862), a governess
Fatality — sixteen-year-old Elise Guthardt (b.1888), Adelheid's daughter
Fatality — sixteen-year-old Emma Clara Theni (b.1886), nursemaid
Fatality — twenty-five-year-old Mary Fahey (b.1878), waitress
Survivor — thirty-seven-year-old Maud Parcells (b. c1866–), nursemaid