DEATH ENTERS THEATER
AS ORCHESTRA PLAYS.
HEART DISEASE CLAIMS E. L.
DORSEY AT THE ORPHEUM.
Faints in Seat and Expires When
Carried Into Foyer -- Had Been
Having "Jolly" Day
With Daughter.
As the orchestra of the Orpheum theater was closing the last strains of the overture from Mignon, E. L. Dorsey, a traveling salesman, leaned on the shoulder of his daughter, Miss Leonora, and with a single gasp lost consciousness. Doctors, who were summoned from the audience and reached his side by the time he was carried into the foyer, pronounced him dead.
His heart action had stopped, they declared, when he collapsed in his seat.
The collapse of Mr. Dorsey caused consternation among the occupants of the nearby seats, but ushers quickly carried him into the foyer and a request was made from the stage for a physician for a man who had fainted. This allayed the excitement and few in the audience realized that a death had occurred in their midst.
AT THEATER WITH DAUGHTER.
Mr. Dorsey was a salesman in the employ of the Burnham, Hana, Munger Dry Goods Company. He lived in Norborne, Mo., and traveled in the northern part of the state. He met his daughter Leonora, 18 years old, at the depot yesterday morning by appointment. They were to spend yesterday and today in Kansas City and then he was to have taken her to the Missouri Valley College at Marshall, Mo. A daughter of Virgil Conkling was to have accompanied them.
Mr. Dorsey secured seats close to the front at the Orpheum, and with his daughter reached the theater before the members of the orchestra took their places. It was while the last notes of the overture from Mignon were being played that Mr. Dorsey collapsed.
"I always like this selection," Mr. Dorsey told his daughter just a few moments before he fainted, "but it is seldom that I have the pleasure of listening to it."
EXPECTED A JOLLY TIME.
Attaches of the theater supported Miss Dorsey when she realized that her father was dead. She was taken to the Savoy hotel, where Miss Conkling and other friends were summoned to her side. Mr. Dorsey's body was removed to Stine's undertaking rooms.
"Father suffered from heart trouble occasionally, but he did not give it much thought, and none of us ever thought it was serious," said Miss Dorsey. "He was in fine spirits this morning and enjoyed a hearty lunch. We expected to have the jolliest sort of time here before Miss Conkling and I left for school."
Friends wired Mrs. Dorsey at Norborne, Mo. Besides the widow and daughter, Mr. Dorsey leaves a son, Edward, 10 years old.
Mrs. Dorsey and her son arrived last night and were taken to the Savoy hotel and later with Miss Leonora Dorsey to the home of friends. The body will be sent to Norborne, Mo., for burial today.
