Elizabeth "Libby" A. Norris

Wife of Henry Norris. Mother of Elmer, William, Thomas, Henry and Mabel. Libby was 50 years old at the time of her death.

On December 30, 1903 mother and daughter, Mabel and Libby, attended an afternoon matinee at Chicago's newest luxury playhouse, the Iroquois Theater on Randolph Street.  It is unknown if others of the Norris children also attended the Mr. Bluebeard matinee. Only Mabel perished with her mother. The seven and a half mile trip from the Norris family home at 5124 Dearborn would have taken twenty to thirty minutes on a streetcar or train.

Libbie and Mabel's double funeral was held on Sunday at St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal church on 50th and Wabash under auspices of the Columbia chapter of the 210 Order of Eastern Star. Libby was a past matron of the chapter and organist of Pyramids, Harmony Council No. 179. Reverend W. H. Holmes and Reverend Frank Gardner of the Boulevard church conducted the service, attended by over five hundred friends and family. Interment was reportedly at Mount Hope, with the bodies transported via a special train from the 47th Street station.

Libbie Breed Norris was the youngest of five children born to William E. Breed (1814–1903) and Abigail S. Eastman Breed (1815–1894). Her father, who had lived in Kansas for several decades, died one month before the Iroquois fire. In the late 1880s, Libby worked as a grocer at 131 W. Fifty-first St. She played the organ and was active in the Order of Eastern Star. Before her death, she saw the marriage of at least one of her children and the birth of a grandson.

Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1871-1998
Name Libbie A Norris
Sex Female
Age 50
Address 14 E Madison Str
Death Date 30 Dec 1903
Death Place Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States
Birth Year (Estimated) 1853
Marital Status Married
Occupation Housewife
Race White
Event Type Death
Entry Number 29126