Obituary for Agnes

 

Alphonse Mucha. Rêverie (1898).

This post serves as an obituary for Agnes Atherton O'Brien Gillette, my 2nd-great-aunt, sister of my 2nd-great-grandfather John J. O'Brien, and daughter of my 3rd-great-grandfather John O'Brien and 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget Dooner O'Brien.

Agnes was born in La Salle, Illinois in 1858. After the untimely death of her mother in 1859, she was left in the care of the Sisters of Charity in La Salle with her sisters Anna Maria and Isabella. Agnes learned to sew, developed a talent for singing and dancing, and eventually made her way to nearby Chicago.

What followed was an over thirty year career on the stage, starting in the Midwest, but eventually starring  in the Northeast, Southeast, and Canada. Agnes began as a dancer and singer, received top billing and rave reviews for her performances. She later evolved into bigger roles as a producer, stage director, theater manager, costume and set designer. From humble beginnings, through hard work and probably a bit of good fortune and skill, Agnes became a well-known and sought-after performer in the early days of vaudeville.

It is unclear where Agnes had a permanent home. Chicago may have been a base for a while, but she also spent extended time in St. Paul, Minnesota; Omaha, Nebraska; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and later in Lima and Cincinnati, Ohio. She performed on a new stage in a different city every few weeks for decades. Although she died in Chicago in 1910, she had only been living in the city for six months by that time.

In her personal life, Agnes was married at least twice, first a short-lived marriage to musician Frederick Day in 1881 (later annulled by Day in 1887 so he could marry someone else), and a second marriage to acrobat and fellow performer Alfred M. Gillette. It is unclear where or when they married, but they were together at the end, living in Cincinnati and Chicago in 1910. Agnes does not appear to have had children.

In 1899, she reconnected with her father, John O'Brien, when he was about 106. During this visit she may have met the family of her brother, John J. O'Brien, and his talented children. This visit may have inspired several of them to go into business for themselves, as musicians or milliners.

Although there is no mention of Agnes in the American Vaudeville Museum archive, the frequent references to her performances in newspapers around the US and Canada over her lengthy career show that she had been seen by many and touched the lives of countless other women in the theatre profession between the 1870s and 1910.

Over the years of family history research, I have run across the stories of many branches in the family worthy of recap on film or television. Agnes' story seems similarly deserving of a limited series on your streaming platform of choice. I am sharing this obituary of Agnes' life and my previous posts resurfacing her story from family mystery to recovered history, so that her memory lives on beyond the paper trail, census entries and city directories.