Biography

While watching a movie one snowy night in Washington, DC, journalist and author Chauncey Corey Brainerd and his wife Edith were killed when the flat roof of Crandall's Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed under the weight of over two feet of heavy snow. More than 200 other moviegoers and theater employees were killed or injured on that night during what became known as The Great Knickerbocker Storm of 1922. A former congressman, an aide to President Woodrow Wilson and a number of house musicians, including the conductor, perished in the disaster.

Brainerd and his wife, the former Edith Rathbone Jocobs, were married at her parents' home in Mt. Vernon, New York, on June 4, 1903. She was born in Washington, DC, around 1885 and later lived, at least for a while, in Westchester, NY, where her father worked as a postal inspector. Chauncey Brainerd was born in New York City, the son of Alanson and Adelia Corey Brainard. His father was a merchant who died before Brainerd's second birthday. His mother later worked as a housekeeper in order to support him and his older sister Adelia.

Chauncey and Edith, who were both writers, went on to collaborate on a number of stories together under the pen name E.J. Rath. Chauncey was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. At the time of his death he had been the Washington bureau chief for the Brooklyn Eagle for over ten years.
- IMDb mini biography by: John F. Barlow (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)