John Earl Hennessey

An unconscious Earl was carried to the Sherman House hotel on a stretcher before being transported to Mercy hospital.  He lost a hand and suffered mutilation of the other.  His face was badly scarred and he had internal injuries.  He survived despite predictions that he would not. He spent at least six weeks in the hospital.  He became an author of short stories.  John Earl lived with his mother after his father's death in 1923. and he died at age 84 while a resident in a Glenview nursing home.

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.

In 1905 the Hennessey's brought $10,000 liability suits on behalf of William and Earl.  In 1909 the family received two $750 settlements (around $20,000 each in 2018 dollars) from Fuller Construction, the company who built the Iroquois Theater, for John Earl's injuries and Willie's death, making them among a handful of about fifty families who received some compensation.