In Episode 55 of Flower in the River Podcast, I share the remarkable discovery of a story about the Eastland Disaster found in an old periodical.
Today's Tale: The Power of PERSI reveals how attended a webinar led me to discover an eyewitness account of the Eastland Disaster. It was waiting inside the Periodical Source Index (PERSI)! This journey underscores the value of continuous learning and the rich resources available for genealogical research, such as the Allen County Public Library.
Highlight from the Archives: The insightful article from the Concordia Historical Institute sheds light on the impact of the Eastland Disaster on Grace Lutheran Church (Chicago) and its members. The piece, written by Reverend Gotthold G. Elbert, details the community's grief and resilience in the face of unspeakable loss.
We explore the stories of families like the Lemkes, who suffered greatly, and the acts of heroism of young William Haffer that emerged from the tragedy. These narratives remind us of the importance of community support and the strength found during times of crisis.
Looking Ahead: The episode also sets the stage for future explorations into other individuals and families affected by the disaster, promising more intriguing discoveries and stories to share.
Postscript: Listener responses to the recent episodes on the exploration of the Jewish legacy of the Eastland disaster have been overwhelmingly positive. For that, I am immensely grateful. It's vital to honor all communities affected by this tragedy, reflecting on their faith and contributions to the fabric of early 20th-century Chicago.
Acknowledgments: A heartfelt thanks to the staff at the Concordia Historical Institute, the Allen County Public Library, and all the librarians and researchers who assist in uncovering these hidden histories. Their dedication to preserving the past is invaluable.
In Episode 55 of Flower in the River Podcast, I share the remarkable discovery of a story about the Eastland Disaster found in an old periodical.
Today's Tale: The Power of PERSI reveals how attended a webinar led me to discover an eyewitness account of the Eastland Disaster. It was waiting inside the Periodical Source Index (PERSI)! This journey underscores the value of continuous learning and the rich resources available for genealogical research, such as the Allen County Public Library.
Highlight from the Archives: The insightful article from the Concordia Historical Institute sheds light on the impact of the Eastland Disaster on Grace Lutheran Church (Chicago) and its members. The piece, written by Reverend Gotthold G. Elbert, details the community's grief and resilience in the face of unspeakable loss.
We explore the stories of families like the Lemkes, who suffered greatly, and the acts of heroism of young William Haffer that emerged from the tragedy. These narratives remind us of the importance of community support and the strength found during times of crisis.
Looking Ahead: The episode also sets the stage for future explorations into other individuals and families affected by the disaster, promising more intriguing discoveries and stories to share.
Postscript: Listener responses to the recent episodes on the exploration of the Jewish legacy of the Eastland disaster have been overwhelmingly positive. For that, I am immensely grateful. It's vital to honor all communities affected by this tragedy, reflecting on their faith and contributions to the fabric of early 20th-century Chicago.
Acknowledgments: A heartfelt thanks to the staff at the Concordia Historical Institute, the Allen County Public Library, and all the librarians and researchers who assist in uncovering these hidden histories. Their dedication to preserving the past is invaluable.
Hello, I'm Natalie Zett and welcome to Flower in the River. This podcast, inspired by my book of the same name, explores the 1915 Eastland disaster in Chicago and its enduring impact, particularly on my family's history. We'll explore the intertwining narratives of others impacted by this tragedy as well, and we'll dive into writing and genealogy and uncover the surprising supernatural elements that surface in family history research. Come along with me on this journey of discovery. Hello and welcome to episode 55 of Flower in the River podcast. I have to say out of the gate that I am thrilled by your overwhelming response to the last couple of episodes on the Jewish legacy of the Eastland disaster. Your feedback has been a delightful surprise and I'm so grateful for your support. I would do this regardless, because I think it is so important to build that world of 1915. In this case, it's rather like, even if it's a small number of people, that community was still part of Chicago during that time. They were contributing, they loved, they lost and they have descendants, and it is important for me to honor all communities and because faith was so much a part of all of these people's lives whether you came from Lithuania, poland, germany, hungary, wherever people came from to Chicago at that point, those early immigrants, their faith lives, their churches, their synagogues. They were very integral to who they were, and we're going to be exploring that again in this episode. So thanks again for listening, for being willing to I don't know put yourself in other people's shoes and to walk in them for a while and feel what they felt, and, without further ado, let's get going with this episode.
Speaker 1:
Today, I will tell you about how taking a webinar that I didn't want to take in the first place led me into yet another eyewitness account to the Eastland disaster. I title this section the Power of Percy. Yes, that's a word, percy. So let me give you the backstory here. As a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, you're expected and rightfully so to take continuing education classes throughout the year, and since I love continuing education anything that has to do with genealogy it's not a burden to do this at all. I could be in webinars all day, but I have other things to do.
Speaker 1:
However, there is this one exception when it came to Percy, I was more than a bit resistant. Now, if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about here, percy it's P like Paul, e like Edward R-S-I, and it's not a person, but a thing. It stands for the Periodical Source Index and it's a valuable tool because it lets you search for articles, stories and all kinds of valuable information that might be tucked away inside of periodicals that might be difficult to locate if you're using the usual Google types of searches. My previous attempts at using Percy were a bit of a struggle, to say the least. The amount of information, the navigation and the complexity of the search process honestly left me feeling pretty overwhelmed when I attempted to work with it a few years ago. To work with it a few years ago. What's different about Percy is that you're not given links, say, to PDFs or JPEGs or other websites. Even You're given the title of an article and other details about it and in which publication it appeared and the name of the place where it was originally published. If you're lucky, that place is still in existence and if you're not so lucky, then you have to do some more research.
Speaker 1:
So when I saw that, through the Association of Professional Genealogists, that the Allen County Public Library was hosting a webinar on how to use Percy, I almost didn't sign up. But I was also determined to move past that resistance this time and give it one more try. Now here's another organization that I want to introduce you to, if you don't know about them. The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, indiana, is a premier destination for genealogists. It's not as well known as, for example, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, utah, but its genealogy center is one of the largest public genealogy collections in the United States, offering extensive resources such as microfilm records, directories, obituaries and databases. And for those of us focusing on research in the Midwest of the United States, allen County is a terrific resource. I will, of course, put a link to their website. In the Midwest of the United States, allen County is a terrific resource. I will, of course, put a link to their website in the show notes.
Speaker 1:
So I went to this webinar and, wow, the presenter was so good and she broke everything down and made it so understandable and so accessible that, as soon as the webinar ended, I immediately got onto the Allen County Public Library site, to the Percy location, and began experimenting using the tips and tricks that I learned. And right out the gate, I made an incredible discovery I found yet another eyewitness account of the Eastland disaster. Actually, it's eyewitness accounts within eyewitness accounts, because the writer reported on accounts that were shared with him as well. So it was another sort of nesting doll experience, and maybe I shouldn't be surprised by this. But to me this was a very unlikely place to find an article about the Eastland disaster.
Speaker 1:
The article was actually housed in the Concordia Historical Institute in St Louis, missouri. If you listen to this podcast, I know you've heard the word Concordia before. Yes, indeed, and specifically the article was located in the July 1965 edition of the Concordia Historical Institute quarterly publication. I really didn't intend to take us back to the Lutheran legacy of the Eastland disaster so soon. This article was too wonderful to pass up, so I had to share it, and I also want to take this opportunity to thank Mark J Bleas, who is the reference and research supervisor at the Concordia Historical Institute, the reference and research supervisor at the Concordia Historical Institute, and also thank the staff there for the breakneck turnaround speed at which they got me a copy of this article. They were wonderful. That is the nice thing about reaching out to organizations such as CHI, such as the University of Illinois Library, such as the Chicago Public Library. I really think librarians and reference folks are some of the coolest, most helpful, most generous people ever. But that's just me. Anyway, let's continue.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to give you some backstory about this article and what it references. Okay, so the title of the article is the Eastland Disaster and the author is Reverend Gotthold G Elbert, and this author focuses on the impact of the Eastland disaster on Grace Lutheran Church in Chicago, which lost 25 members in the tragedy. And I'll get into that, and we'll get into Reverend Albert's article. And it was no surprise to me that I have family connections to this church as well, because when it comes to German Lutheran people, it just seems like everybody intersects at one point, and particularly when they're in the same geographic locations. So Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church was located at 28th Street and South Karloff Avenue in Chicago and it had its beginnings on January 4th 1896, when St Mark's Lutheran Church, located at 23rd Street in South California, opened a branch school on South Keeler Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets. Now I've mentioned St Mark's Lutheran Church several times in the podcast because that was my family's church, my Pfeiffer family, and those members included my great-aunt Martha, who was killed on the Eastland. All of my folks were members there, and as I was researching the records this week, I saw that, lo and behold, a number of other family members joined Grace Lutheran Church as well. Both locations are pretty close. They're about three miles from one another and are located in present-day Little Village area. Day little village area. St Mark's helped get the school started, but by 1901, I guess, they must have seen the need for a separate church and Grace became a separate church and it was very close to the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric and many members worked at Western Electric.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to read the article by Reverend Gottfeldt-Elbert and I want you to remember this, since he was a Lutheran pastor born to German immigrants, born in 1893, and he died actually in 1980, that he's going to refer to Scripture okay, that was part of his life. And also he's going to share with you a particular worldview that you may or may not be acquainted with in terms I wouldn't think that. Of course you wouldn't. Let me tell you this. 100 years from now, when people are studying us, they're going to say, oh my God, these people I can't believe they thought so-and-so and such and such fill in the blank. So that's always the case. But remember, at that time, these thoughts that we might find kind of strange gave these people comfort, hope and reassurance at a very, very tragic point in their lives. The Eastland Disaster by Gothard G Elbert. This was published in the July 1965 issue of the Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly. The Reverend Gotthold G Elbert is now living in retirement in Glenview, illinois. He was pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, south 28th and Karloff Chicago between 1933 and 1960.
Speaker 1:
24th July it will be exactly 50 years ago that the Eastland disaster occurred. In 1915 on the Chicago River in Chicago, illinois, the Western Electric had planned a picnic for its employees and relatives and friends on a more elaborate scale than ever before. Nearly 7,000 had planned to go. Five steamers had been chartered to carry these people to Michigan City, indiana, to spend the day at the picnic park there. One of these steamers was the Eastland. At 7.31 in the morning of that sad 24th of July, the Eastland, on the point of being cast loose from her dock at Clark and Water Streets. Chicago overturned with over 2,000 on board. In a few minutes over 900 persons had perished in the river or in the capsized steamer.
Speaker 1:
On this sad 50th anniversary of this fearful disaster, the newspapers and magazines of the nation will bring descriptions of this horrid event. We will attempt to describe to some extent the grief and the mourning with which Grace Lutheran Church, 28th Street and South Karloff Avenue, chicago, was stricken by this disaster. Since Grace Church is only a mile from the Western Electric, many of its members found employment there. Hence, among the victims of the catastrophe there were 25 members of Grace Church. Several families lost not only one of their beloved, but in four instances they lost two, and in one instance even three of their dear ones. Thus the death notice of Grace shows the names of two Yonkis, two Nagels, two Rones, two Tiedemanns and three Lemkes. Pastor Henry Bester was the pastor of Grace Church at that time. He writes about this sad event as follows Twelve of the victims were buried from the church and 13 from the Heitzman Funeral Home on 26th Street, chicago.
Speaker 1:
All funerals were conducted within a period of four days. Five were buried on July 27th, 10 on July 28th, 6 on July 29th and 4 on July 30th. Pastor Theodore Cohn assisted at the cemetery while I conducted the services at the church After the last funeral for the day, I also would go to the cemetery. I preached on different texts at all funerals. Preached on different texts at all funerals.
Speaker 1:
The bereaved at grace bore the shock of the disaster as well as could be expected under the circumstances. It was indeed a great shock to the whole congregation and even though the faith of the members of the families who had lost a loved one or more in the disaster was sorely tried, my observation was that they found much needed comfort and strength for such a time as that in the Word of God, which I was privileged to bring them. We will add a few descriptions given by the members of Grace of this Calamity. One wrote when word reached, the neighborhood, relatives began running for the closest telephone. Back in 1915, there were few telephones in private homes in Old Crawford to reach the scene of the accident by phone. Others stood at streetcar stops hoping against hope that their loved one would come home on the streetcar. The sadness and crying were terrific. People walked up and down the streets crying and praying aloud. I shall never forget it.
Speaker 1:
Some families had as many as two or three lying in caskets in their homes For three days and three nights we would go from house to house to pay our respects and express our sympathy and offer our help. The church bells tolled all day long. One funeral after the other would leave the church. Since it was impossible to get sufficient hearses and carriages. Trucks were also used to take some of the bodies to the cemetery. It was also hard to get caskets, for in those days caskets were not as available as they are now.
Speaker 1:
One undertaker of Grace Church relates the following Alderman Toman took my dad and me to the armory at Washington and Carpenter Street, which was used as an emergency morgue. Here we found people screaming and crying, looking for their loved ones' bodies among the hundreds of dead persons placed side by side in the long rows. When some of our own people recognized us, they begged Mr Heitzman, help us find our son, our daughter. We took care of 26 bodies which had to be embalmed and taken to their own homes within two or three days homes within two or three days. Burials were held every hour. While we took care of our sad task, in the vicinity of Grace Church, other undertakers would help out at the cemeteries. Another member of Grace writes.
Speaker 1:
Minutes after the boat capsized, the river was full of people. Poultry houses located on the banks of the river threw empty chicken crates out on the water to which people could cling till they were rescued. For the next three hours I helped pull bodies from the water, most of which were dead For three days after this, since I knew many of the employees at the Western Electric, I stayed at the morgue and helped to identify bodies. One, william Haffer, 19 years old, had helped quite a few people to escape from the boat which was fast filling up with water. Among those he helped were a number of members of Grace. While engaged in this work of love of helping others to safety, he was killed by the her home and heard the sad news of her boy's death. She was at first unconsolable. Then they took her to the neighboring Lemke home. Here three children lay in caskets, mourned by the mother, a widow. Then Mrs Haffer thanked God that he had only taken one of her children and not three. Mr Haffer, a shoe repairer, was able to identify his son's body, mutilated by the explosion through the new soles he had put on his son's shoes.
Speaker 1:
The day before the accident. Scenes like this were duplicated in other churches in Old Crawford, as the area was called, yes, in the entire city of Chicago and suburbs. I myself, then 21 years old, attended the funeral of three victims of the Eastland in St Paul's Lutheran Church, melrose Park, illinois. The late pastor Herman Meyer conducted the funeral services. His text was Hosea 6-1, quote Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us.
Speaker 1:
Other survivors of the disaster speak of their hands as being bruised and bloodied while climbing out of the Eastland to safety by others who, with them, frantically, were trying to escape. The same way, one relates that a person whom he tried to pull out of the water in desperation dug his fingernails deeply into his the rescuer's cheeks, so that he himself had to seek medical aid and desist in his attempt to help others. And then there were, for many, the long years of hard work caused by the death of the breadwinner in order to raise the now fatherless children, and this in addition to the loneliness of a long widowhood. We must now ask which is the Christian way to regard such a disaster, and we must acknowledge gratefully that not all the Christians who had boarded the fated vessel died. Many were rescued in the nick of time and some escaped by not getting there. God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
Speaker 1:
One member of Grace had bought a beautiful blouse to wear on the occasion of the Western Electric Picnic, and now she had mislaid it and couldn't find it. She was urged to hurry, but she felt she simply had to wear that blouse. But the search had just delayed her long enough that when she reached the dock from which the Eastland was to leave, the ship had already capsized. Others found that the streetcars they had boarded could not proceed as fast as they usually went due to the heavy traffic. On that rainy Saturday morning, the grumbling of those passengers too changed to prayers of thanksgiving when they found that the lack of speed had saved their lives. That morning, the Western Electric Company did all it could for the victims and for their families. Electric company did all it could for the victims and for their families. So did Chicago. So did the nation. Now, what caused the accident? From those on the faded vessel and from people who had stood on the pier, I learned that either it was caused by the sudden shower of rain which caused many to crowd to the other side of the ship, or that such crowding was caused by a desire to wave farewell to one of the steamers which was slowly starting out on its intended journey.
Speaker 1:
Mr HB Thayer, president of the Western Electric Company at that time, had some pertinent words to say in the August 1915 edition of the Western Electric News concerning this accident. He wrote In disaster there is always a lesson. For whom is the lesson? Working people are entitled to their pleasures and to the enjoyment of them in safety. That lesson is not for them. It is not that they should forego their innocent pleasures. Even after the event and looking backward, we cannot see that those who made the arrangements left anything undone which should have been done or that there was anything which they could have done better. The lesson is not for them. An official investigation is in progress. For someone there is a lesson. The lives of the innocent have been taken and they will have been taken in vain unless the lesson is heeded. And hereafter there is safety. Where our fellow workers. There was death, end of article.
Speaker 1:
And of course, you can hear that their thinking was probably different than ours about how to explain what happened here. In terms of faith, it brought comfort to them and it brought meaning and it helped them to go on. The other thing I was struck by is how they reached out to help one another, to support one another during this time, where the one mother reached out to the other mother and they were able to, for that moment, put their own grieving process in perspective. Now, in terms of the explanation for what happened. I hope people realize by now that the Eastland had many, many near misses, near capsizings before all this. So it was determined to be what they called a cranky ship. It wasn't the fact that people went from one side to the other, it was simply a dangerous ship and should have never been out there in the first place. And the other thing that stood out to me is that Reverend Albert said there were 900 people. So in 1965, they're saying 900 people died, and by the late 1990s, early 2000s, many times, they're saying 844 people died.
Speaker 1:
I don't know about you, but doesn't that make you wonder how they reached that conclusion? So let me give you a little bit of backstory about these families, because the Lemke's and they're spelled a couple different ways L-E-M-K-E or L-E-M-P-K-E. That's what I have found in my research. They suffered the loss of three children in the disaster and the article mentions that Mrs Lemke, a widow, was mourning her three children, who lay in caskets at their home as a reminder. Back then, and even until 1934, when my own grandmother died, her body was laid out in the house in Johnstown and my mother, even though she was three, she still remembered that for the rest of her life. So the Lemkes. They were members of Grace Lutheran Church at that point.
Speaker 1:
The Lemke sisters were Elizabeth, wilhelmina and Amelia, and they were born to Hermann Lemke and Wilhelmina Trapp, who were themselves German immigrants to Chicago. Their dad was a day laborer and they were living on the west side of Chicago, not too far from where my family was living. Perhaps they all knew one another. They were baptized on the west side of Chicago, not too far from where my family was living. Perhaps they all knew one another. They were baptized. The girls were baptized at our family's home church of St Mark's and in 1906, they moved on to St Matthew's Lutheran Church, also nearby, where Elizabeth was confirmed and similar to my family's situation. Their father also died in 1914, a year before the Eastland disaster, as did my great-grandfather, and all three sisters were working at Western Electric.
Speaker 1:
Here's an excerpt from another article, and unfortunately the news clip is so faded I can't see the source. I'm guessing it might be the Chicago Examiner, though from 1915. But here's what I can read. One of the most pitiful cases was that of Mrs Wilhelmina Lemke, south Kedvale Avenue. Mrs Lemke is 60 years old and she had depended for support on her three daughters, elizabeth, 23 years old, minnie 21, and Emily, 18, all employed in the offices of the Western Electric Company. They had laughed down her fears of the danger of the lake trip. The humble little parlor yesterday contained three white coffins and the aged mother was left to finish her days alone. John W Tropp, her brother of 2311 North Ayers Avenue, made possible the proper burial of his nieces by borrowing $500. The girls' bodies will occupy a single grave. Okay, so the mother's brother paid for the proper burial of the nieces. So there was supposed to be assistance for these families. And now I'm wondering what happened here.
Speaker 1:
And the other thing was and this is really kind of eerie, as I was searching for any possible images of these young women, I did find only one on Find a Grave, and it was small. And I did some more searching. And on one of the Chicago Tribune's websites of old photos, they have a photo of all three of the sisters, probably taken right before the Eastland disaster. Now this photo was obviously taken inside a studio because it looks just like a set design, the type of set that you would see if you went into a theater, for example. And this particular photo has the three young women sitting inside probably a cardboard boat that says Michigan City. So this was maybe a publicity type of photo for the Western Electric annual company picnic, but I found that just amazing and jarring at the same time. This photo appears to be in the public domain, but I will do a double check just to make sure and, if so, I will put it on my website so you can see it as well.
Speaker 1:
This article actually needs some more deconstructing because there's a lot of information in it, and I will do that in another episode because there are some other biographies that I want to pursue but honestly, ran out of time this week. But the last person I want to mention was the young man, william Hoffer, who was trying to help and trying to rescue. William lived with his parents and other siblings on the west side of Chicago, and I don't have a lot of information about him, but according to one of the articles I found, william was supposed to start work at Western Electric. He hadn't even started working yet, according to this article, but he was there and he was trying to help. So that's one of our rescuers who unfortunately died along with the other people of the Eastland disaster. Also, it doesn't appear that William was a member of Grace Lutheran Church, but I thought it was really kind of them to call out his acts of heroism, and his mother and Mrs Lemke formed some kind of relationship after that event.
Speaker 1:
So I will post additional information on my website, as well as in the show notes and along with everything else. I hope you'll take a moment to visit virtually or maybe physically, the Allen County Public Library, because what a resource. And for sure, visit the Percy site, which the Allen County Public Library hosts, and see what you can find there. So I will talk to you next week and have a great week. Hey, that's it for this episode and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes, and for more information, please go to my website, that's wwwflowerintherivercom wwwflowerintherivercom. I hope you'll consider buying my book available as audiobook, ebook, paperback and hardcover, because I still owe people money and that's my running joke. But the one thing I'm serious about is that this podcast and my book are dedicated to the memory of all who experienced the Eastland disaster of 1915. Goodbye for now.