Donald Francis Hennessey

Twelve year old Donald Francis Hennessey survived the fire and as an adult became a bookkeeper for a coal company.  He died at age 20, never married.

Donald, John Earl and Willie were the sons of William Henry Hennessy (1863–1923) and Annie McEnery Hennessy (1865–1949).  William had immigrated to America from Ireland with his parents as a youngster in 1868, becoming a naturalized US citizen in 1883, and Annie/Anna was a native of New Hampshire.  They married in 1887 in Hyde Park.

In 1903 the Hennessy's lived at 4411 Calumet Ave in Chicago.  William Hennessy worked in sales for the Jefferson Theatre Program printing company.  That meant he worked with Chicago theater managers every day.  Based on their homes, William was a good provider which meant that to support his wife and two remaining sons, he had to continue working, like all the other fathers of Iroquois Theater fire victims, but for William Hennessy that meant selling and writing orders while listening to discussions about the fire at work from co-workers and theater manager customers, all with conflicting opinions about the fire, some sympathetic to the owners, some condemning, some critical of the audience for not having calmly filed from the theater.  Then he went home to share the grief with his wife and sons, helping son John with the pain of his severe injuries and learning how to function with one hand, and finding time to assuage the survivor guilt of his youngest son, Donald, who not only survived but did so without grievous injury.