Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Unearthing the Untold: Jewish Lives and the Eastland Tragedy

• Natalie Zett • Season 2 • Episode 53

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In Episode 53 of "Flower in the River Podcast," I explore:

  • The impact of the 1915 Eastland disaster on Chicago's Jewish community 
  • Theories on why relatively few Jewish passengers died in the disaster (due to it occurring on the Sabbath)
  •  The miraculous survival story of 14-year-old Jacob Aaron Elin (later Jack Elin), who went on to co-found Topps Manufacturing Company, Rochester, Indiana.
  • Jack Elin’s family background, immigrating from the Russian Empire's Pale of Settlement in the late 1800s.
  • The life and death of 24-year-old Eastland victim Carl Friedman, an electrician at Western Electric.
  • Details on Carl Friedman's family and their immigration from Hungary, plus an analysis of the Hebrew, Yiddish and Hungarian inscriptions on his headstone

I  share background on:

  • The history of Jewish immigration to Chicago starting in the 1840s 
  •  The Pale of Settlement region where many Jewish immigrants originated.
  • The Yiddish language 

This episode is dedicated to:

  • Singer, Donna Loren, as well as 
  • My unknown Jewish ancestor, 
  • The helpful members of the Jewish Genealogy Portal on Facebook.

 Further explorations of Jewish genealogy, burial practices and naming conventions are planned for the next episode.

Links:

Music:

  • Artlist
  • Wikimedia Commons


Jewish Community and the Eastland Disaster

Natalie Zett

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 , this is Natalie , and welcome to Episode 53 of Flower in the River podcast . In this episode , we are going to explore the Jewish community in Chicago during the turn of the 20th century and specifically , of course , we are going to focus on how did the Eastland disaster affect this community ? So , before we dive into this one , I want to take a few moments to dedicate this episode to some truly incredible people . First , I have to give a huge shout out to the fabulous Donna Zukor , well more commonly known as Donna Loren , and Donna is Jewish , one of my favorite singers and performers and all around swinging chicks from the 1960s , with a heart of gold and a talent that knows no bounds . So in late 2023 , donna graciously invited me to be a guest on her podcast Loves a Secret Weapon , which I highly recommend , by the way . It's a fascinating journey through that time , through the 60s , and Donna knew everyone who was anyone during that time period , and she co-host this podcast with her friend , the wonderful Adam Jarachi . Donna's podcast centers around her book and not only inspired me personally , but it gave me the courage to start my own podcast about my book and her timing . Donna's timing in terms of inviting me to be a part of her podcast couldn't have been more perfect , because the last year or so had been super challenging and somewhat discouraging , and just being in Donna's presence was a beautiful reminder that there are some phenomenal people in this world and it's really good to bask in their presence from time to time , even if it's only virtually . And in addition to Donna Lauren , I want to dedicate this episode to my unnamed and unknown fourth or possibly fifth great-grandparent , who was Jewish and most likely hailed from the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth . Although I don't know his or her name , I know they existed because of the amount of Ashkenazi DNA that my sister and I have inherited from them . Without this mysterious ancestor , we simply would not be here today , and I've been on their trail for a while , although I feel like we're getting closer to uncovering their identity . We're not quite there yet , but I never give up on this stuff . And finally , I want to thank the members of the Jewish Genealogy Portal on Facebook who assisted me marvelously , I must add , with some headstone translations , and we'll get into that . I'm so heartful of gratitude on this one and I want to embark on this exciting journey .

Natalie Zett

From the moment Chicago was incorporated in 1833 , it became a beacon of hope for so many who were seeking a fresh start . Among them , the Jewish immigrants fleeing poverty , discrimination and persecution from the far corners of Europe and the Middle East . In some cases , by the 20th century , chicago had emerged as a pivotal hub for Jewish life , second only to New York . But who were these early settlers and what drove them to Chicago ? The saga began in the 1840s , with Jewish immigrants from the German states arriving with little more than the clothes on their backs . They started really small , peddling goods in the bustling streets of Chicago , and yet , through entrepreneurial ship and pure grit , they founded iconic companies like Florsheim and Spiegel , leaving an indelible mark on the city's economic landscape . In 1847 , they established Chicago's first synagogue , laying the cornerstone for a vibrant Jewish community that would flourish over the next century . This was just the beginning of a profound legacy that included synagogues , hospitals , social clubs , educational institutions and so on , and this is a testament to their commitment to not just survive but thrive . And not just thrive but also give back , to share , to be generous .

Natalie Zett

As the 19th century waned , a new wave of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived , pouring into the Maxwell Street area . That is an iconic area in Chicago , by the way . They created a bustling community reminiscent of the old world stettles . This influx brought not only cultural diversity but with that diversity also tensions with the established German Jewish community , primarily over religious practices . Yet despite these differences , a sense of kinship prevailed . This spirit of support and collaboration laid the groundwork for a flourishing Jewish community in Chicago by the early 20th century . Education and entrepreneurialship enabled many Jews to move out of the impoverished Maxwell Street area into more affluent neighborhoods . They established strong communities filled with synagogues , cultural institutions and social services , symbolizing their ascent into the fabric of American society .

Natalie Zett

And we will get back into some of those details . But first of all I want to talk about the Jewish community and the Eastland disaster . When I began researching these extended folks from my extended Eastland disaster families , I did not right away see any Jewish people associated with the Eastland disaster . But I just knew that that meant I needed to go deeper in my research because there had to be Jewish people aboard the Eastland as well . I found a Jewish person , a survivor , a couple of months ago , but honestly I wasn't sure what to do with him or his story , but he was the only one I found and I thought well , that can't be right , there has to be more than one person . So Western Electric , which was a major employer in the area . Obviously they employed people from all types of backgrounds , including many Jewish people . And here's my theory . The company picnic on July 24th was eagerly anticipated and , as is documented by many publications from that era , people were forced or threatened to go to the picnic . However , the company picnic that Western Electric sponsored was on a Saturday .

Natalie Zett

For observant Jewish people , the Sabbath begins on Friday night at sunset and ends on Saturday , also at sunset . Observant Jews that I've known they basically they go to Shul , to synagogue , and they might engage in other spiritual activities with the family , studying , things like that , but generally they would not go to work on the Sabbath . And before I get into this any deeper , I have to say that once again , I have to paint with a very broad brush . Of course , families and groups within groups , etc . Did things differently , but I'm making a general statement here , and this is also conjecture , because I'm not sure exactly what happened back then in 1915 . And I'm sure that the company owners , when they were setting these events up , they weren't thinking about the Jewish Sabbath , but in this case , based on when they held this event , it had profound implications for the Jewish community . Had this happened during a non-sabbath observant time , probably more Jewish people would have died .

Natalie Zett

Now , why were some of these other Jewish people on the Eastland ? While I don't know exactly why each individual was on that ship , I do have some theories and they tie back to the original fact that a lot of people were threatened and they were told they had to go and they didn't want to lose their jobs . That was their livelihood and with all of these people , they weren't just supporting themselves , they were supporting their families as well . So the pressure was on . I want to just jump in here and talk about the story that I found . It was really in an obscure newspaper that I found locked inside the Google newspapers that are again free . They're online , but you really do have to do a lot of digging to locate these types of stories . I located the August 22 , 2002 issue of the Rochester Sentinel and this is out of Rochester , Indiana , and it was written by the late Jack Overmyer . The title is A Miraculous Escape from Chicago Ship Disaster .

Natalie Zett

One Saturday morning in the summer of 1915 , july 24 , to be exact five Great Lakes steamships were anchored on the Chicago River in downtown Chicago , near the Clark Street Bridge . They were about to load 7,000 workers of the Western Electric Company and their families to take them on a cruise to the company's picnic at Michigan City . One of the five ships was the Eastland , which was moored from its starboard side on the south shore of the river . Since it was among the newest and most elegant of the ships , there was little doubt that it would be a favorite of the picnickers and be crowded to its limit . Passengers began loading at 6.40 am and 30 minutes later , by 7.10 , the ship had been filled to its rated capacity of 2,500 . Most of the people moved to the port side of the ship to get a view of the river rather than of the dock . Within a few minutes the Eastland began to list and at precisely 7.30 o'clock it turned 90 degrees and settled on its port side .

Natalie Zett

Chaos ensued , passengers were thrown into the water , but many were trapped underneath in the hull . Some escaped , only to be stranded on the exposed starboard side of the hull , as shown in the photographs on page 3 . Those in the water were so thickly clustered as literally to cover the surface of the river . Most horrible remember to bystander was the screaming . The death toll eventually was counted as 844 , the greatest disaster in loss of lives in the history of Chicago , four times the number who died in the Chicago fire of 1871 . Yet the Eastland tragedy largely has fallen through the cracks of history's memory . It is recalled here because one who miraculously survived it was a 14-year-old Chicago boy , Jacob Aaron Elin . Rochester folks later knew him as Jack Eileen and if his luck had not been with him on that summer Saturday , there would have been no top manufacturing company in this city because in 1938 he came here with Brother Seymour to found it . The tale of Jack's escape from the Cap-Size Eastland is recounted in a memoir left by his late wife Mollie , who with her husband and their son Lewis , were longtime residents here .

Natalie Zett

In the summer of 1915 , jack got a job to work aboard the Eastland during his summer cruises along the Great Lakes . On that fateful Saturday , he was assigned as a hat-check boy and was busy behind the counter of his station when the ship fell over . Confused and unsure of what to do , he saw the older boy who worked alongside him climb through a porthole . He did the same and slid into the water opposite the portside on which the ship had capsized . There , a fisherman who was nearby rescued the two boys and took them to his shack to dry out .

Natalie Zett

Jack should have been relieved at his unexpected delivery from death , but , being only fourteen , he had a more pressing concern being to pass for eighteen years old to get the Eastland job . Jack had applied for it wearing the long pants of his Bar Mitzvah suit instead of his usual knee-high pants that his mother , bessie , had ordered him to wear . Jack looked older than his age , and so the long pants . Ruse worked . Now , though , he feared his mother's wrath when she found out , as he knew she was sure to do . He was late that evening when his suit dried out , and he made his way home anxiously , anticipating his punishment . So it was with relief and surprise , upon his arrival , to find himself overwhelmed with hugs and kisses . His parents and family had learned of the catastrophe earlier in the day and for long hours afterward were consumed with worry concerning his fate . Jack became a familiar and esteemed figure in Rochester during the years of directing operations at the Topps plant . He was an active member of the Kiwanis Club and was an organizer and leader of the local Great Books Study Course . When he died in 1983 , at the age of 82 , he probably was one of the Eastlands last survivors .

The Eastland Disaster and Jewish Immigration

Natalie Zett

As for the Eastland itself , it was refloated , modified several times and became a training vessel for the Naval Reserve . In 1947 , it was decommissioned , disassembled and sold for scrap . Forgotten by then was the fact that twice before it capsized , the ship had exhibited problems of stability while loading passengers . That evidence was overlooked during the investigation that followed the Chicago River disaster . Conveniently , some said , back to Jack Eileen's family

Jack Elin's Family

Natalie Zett

.

Natalie Zett

He was born into a Jewish family who immigrated in the late 1800s from what was then the Russian Empire not today's Russia , but the Russian Empire . From what I can tell , these families were living in what was known as the Pale of Settlement . That's an interesting term if you're not used to it . If you ever watch Henry Louis Gates finding your roots , a lot of his guests . Their family histories go back to the Pale of Settlement , and this was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from about 1791 to 1917 , in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency , permanent or temporary , was mostly forbidden . It seems as if the Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus and Moldova , lithuania , Ukraine and East Central Poland , and small parts of Latvia and what is now the Western Russian Federation . If you've ever heard the term Beyond the Pale , it's not referring to the Pale of Settlement In this context .

Natalie Zett

Pale is a gate , so there were areas where certain populations were allowed to live and if they went outside of that gate , outside of that area , well , bad things happened to them . And in the case of the Pale of Settlement , if they went outside the Pale of Settlement , they got into trouble . But the fact that they were living inside areas that everyone knew where they were , that also caused problems persecutions , pogroms , mobs attacking them , murdering them , destroying everything . And this is well before the Holocaust . By the way , I think a lot of people who aren't acquainted with Jewish history might not understand that the Holocaust didn't just come out of thin air . There was precedence for this type of thing . And so the answer why did they immigrate ? Well , that's probably one of the big reasons you wanted to stay alive , you wanted your families to stay alive , and threats were real and people had to get out of there for their lives .

Natalie Zett

And so let's get back to Jack's family . Again , Jack survived . He's got a different story than a lot of the people from the Eastland , and he also went on to become this incredible business person with his brother Seymour , and Jack's wife , molly , also was very active in the community there in Rochester , Indiana , as well as in Chicago . So Jack's father , alexander Aleen and I want to pause just for a moment to say that if you work in Jewish genealogy , you already know that names can be dramatically changed from time to time , and I'm not referring to the myth that says that names were changed at Ellis Island . This is something completely different and I need to cover that topic in another podcast episode because it's a big one . I'm not sure if Aleen that's E-L-I-N was actually the name . I'm not sure .

Natalie Zett

I have yet to find the naturalization records , but there is a bit of conflict in the records and according to one record , alexander arrived in 1889 . And according to another record , alexander arrived in 1890 . After a few years he married Bessie Bardetsky or in some records it's Bordowski . Bessie Bardetsky's family came from an area what is now Ukraine . That's their backstory . So somewhere along the line Bessie and Alexander met . They got married on the 3rd of January 1897 , in Chicago , and they had several children . Now what was Alexander's profession ? According to the 1930 census it looks as if he was a cutter , probably cloth cutter in the clothing industry . It does not let us know where he worked , but that was his profession . Alex died in 1931 . And Bessie , his wife , lived until 1948 . I wonder what was their life like after the Eastland disaster ?

Natalie Zett

And there was a reference in the earlier article that I read that Jack Eileen's wife , molly had written a memoir . I cannot locate it , but that doesn't mean it's not out there someplace . One noteworthy thing is that Jack had a younger brother , robert . He was born in 1908 . So that's six years after Jack was born and Robert was 24 when he died . And there's no mention in the obituaries that I located as to how he died , but that's pretty young . But Jack and his other brothers seem more . They went on to live long and they prospered .

Natalie Zett

In terms of Jack , it wasn't just that he was businessperson good . He had a greater vision , I think . For example , besides being involved with the Kiwanis , jack and Molly set up this great books series , which sounds phenomenal . I am surprised that I haven't found out more about Jack before now , but he's on my radar and I think there probably is more information out there about him . A lot of times what's been happening in this podcast is that a relative of one of these people will hear the podcast and will contact me with more information which I add to my website . Jack died in 1983 and is buried in Roseh ill Cemetery in Chicago . But hold on , we're not done with Jack yet .

Natalie Zett

This article is also from the Rochester Sentinel . This is Saturday , march 1 , 1975 . The headline is Talk of the Town . The capsizing of the steamer Eastland in the Chicago River on July 24 , 1915 , as recalled recently in the Sentinels the Instant it Happened picture series , was of more than a passing interest to Jack Aleen , president of Topps Manufacturing Company here . Elin was aboard the boat . He was 13 years of age at the time and employed as a messenger aboard the excursion steamer when it capsized . He made his way to an opening in the exposed hull , slid down the side and swam to the dock . Over 800 people died in the catastrophe . Elin remembers the panic among the passengers vividly , but says that he did not realize the extent of the tragedy until later . And , as you can see , there are some differences between that small blurb and the article that was later written by Jack Overmire . So , briefly , that's Jack Aleen and his life .

Natalie Zett

Well , now I will introduce you to one individual who did not survive

Meet Carl Friedman, who left a message in his headstone

Natalie Zett

the Eastland disaster and in some ways his life is a portal into all the other people who I will introduce to you in upcoming episodes . So you may be wondering how I found these Jewish people who died on the Eastland . I want to tell you the process of my discovery too . That's just as important as the actual research that I was doing . As I've mentioned many times , I send people over to Find a Grave simply because there's an actual Eastland memorial site set up on Find a Grave . So when you're on Find a Grave and you go to this Eastland memorial page , you have to realize that you will need to be very patient with all the scrolling you need to do , but it is worth it , because there are generally photographs for just about everybody and there's always at least a sentence that they died on the Eastland . And the other beautiful thing that the people have done on this site is that they also point out their other relatives . In other words , if a young woman or a young man died and they were unmarried , they would list their parents , their siblings . If they were married , they would list their parents and siblings , and spouse and children if applicable . So you get immediately a view of this person . They were not just an isolated entity who died , they were connected to a family , they were connected to a community , and that's what I like about Find a Grave . So as I was scrolling along on the Eastland memorial site on Find a Grave , I scrolled to the very last listing of cemeteries and I found Waltyme .

Natalie Zett

So Jewish Waltyme cemetery , located in Forest Park , illinois . This is just west of Chicago . It is a historic Jewish cemetery established in 1870 . And it has a rich history as well . It was founded during the second wave of Jewish immigration to Chicago and Waltyme became a critical part of the community as the first institution's Jewish immigrants established were often religious , educational and fraternal organizations , and the cemetery was part of that . These groups sought to create their own sections within the cemetery and this was the thing that led to Waltyme being unique in its structure . Okay , get this . It was comprised of over 250 separate cemeteries , each with different owners , rules , regulations and individual caretakers . The first Jewish internment at Waltyme took place in 1873 . And at that time reaching the cemetery from Maxwell Street neighborhood , which is where many of the Jewish people were living , was a day-long excursion . To facilitate access , a special funeral route train service was started in 1914 on the Metropolitan Elevated L track , which operated for over two decades . Over time , as the immigrant-based organizations that maintained the cemetery sections began to decline Waltyme-based challenges of upkeep . So today , meaning currently , most sexton duties and supervision of the cemetery sections are conducted by the Waltyme Cemetery itself . The cemetery stands as a testament to the history and legacy of the Jewish community in Chicago , and this is from the Encyclopedia of Chicago .

Natalie Zett

So now I would like to introduce you to Carl Friedman . He died on the Eastland at age 24 , and Carl is also buried in Jewish Waldheim Cemetery . He was working as an electrician at Western Electric at that point and nine years before that . It looks as if Carl and his dad immigrated together when Carl was just 16 or so . I only found , unfortunately , two mentions of him in newspapers from that time and it was the New York Sun on the 26th of July 1915 , that I found that he was living at 2149 West Division Street , Chicago , which is not too far from the Humboldt Park and Wicker Park areas , and at one point it was near several synagogues , so I'm guessing this was at that point a thriving Jewish neighborhood . I want to tell you a little bit about Carl's family . Herman Friedman was his dad , and the most recent record I have is the 1910 census , where Herman lists his birthplace as Hungary and he was born there in 1863 . And the language that they spoke at home was Yiddish . According to this record , he and his family immigrated around 1905 , and both he and his son , carl , were working in a factory . The area where they were living at that point also seemed to be predominantly Jewish and unfortunately it's really hard to read the address , but the location does indeed seem to be the northern part of Chicago .

Natalie Zett

What is Yiddish ? I'm making this really high level and very simple , as simple as I can make it . Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews . Ashkenazi Jews traditionally have been from Central Europe and Eastern Europe and , according to some of the research , the origins of Yiddish go back to the 9th century in Central Europe . Yiddish is written in Hebrew characters and read the same way , meaning from right to left , and for a while Yiddish seemed to be dying out as the older population began dying . But in the last 25 years or so there's been a concerted effort to keep it alive , to teach it , to speak it , and when I was growing up in Cleveland there were a lot of Yiddish singers who would perform regularly . This guy called Joel Katz you might know him as Joel Grey . He was one that was really kind of famous . And there were two women , two sisters , called the Barry sisters or Bagelman sisters , who I knew of because I knew a lot of older Jewish people in my neighborhood and they enjoyed their music and I learned to love it too . So I'm glad Yiddish is still alive and well .

Natalie Zett

Now getting back to Carl Friedman's family . So we have Serena Gross . Serena Gross was Carl's mother and she was born in 1872 in Hungary . She and Herman Friedman married in Romania in 1889 . So right now it looks as if just Herman and Carl immigrated first to Chicago and then later Serena immigrated with the rest of the children . Serena became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1938 , which was a year after her husband Herman died .

Natalie Zett

I don't have much , unfortunately , in terms of a bio about Carl , except his headstone in Waldheim is not only eye-catching , I think it holds a lot of his bio as well . It has a lot of writing , for one thing , in both Hebrew , perhaps Yiddish and Hungarian . I know this cost extra for the family simply because my great aunt also had that extra inscription on her headstone that reads On the Eastland , letting people know how she died . But Carl's holy smoke . It's much more elaborate . Why did the family do this ? I'm not sure . So what I did was take a first pass through the translation and then I shared it with the good folks on the Jewish genealogy portal . And here is our crowdsource translation . The first part of Carl's headstone is written in Hebrew characters and it says here lies buried the young man Chaim Moshe , son of Zvi Arya . May light shine from his candle . 13th of 5675 . May his soul be bound in the bond of eternal life . Chaim Moshe , son of Zvi Arya , by the way , is Carl Friedman . Those are the other names that Carl was known by . Also , I learned that the Hebrew date of death matches the 24th of July 1915 . Here's the second part on the headstone , which is written in Hungarian here lies our unforgettable son and brother . Karoli Friedman Lived 24 years . He found his death at the sinking of the ship Eastland on the 24th of July 1915 . Peace upon his ashes .

Natalie Zett

In our next episode I will go into detail about Jewish genealogy , jewish burial practices , jewish naming practices and so on , because that would be a lot for this episode . I will also put some links in the show notes to YouTube videos and various resources about Jewish genealogy . I think it's always best to learn from people who have been doing this for years , and there are some phenomenal teachers out there who can help you understand what all this is about and how wonderful and how complicated and how challenging it is . But I wanted to introduce these two people to you initially , and in the next episode I will introduce a couple more Jewish people who died on the Eastland . Until then , shalom khaverim le hitralt . Goodbye friends , I'll see you later . I'm not available as audiobook , e-book , 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 .

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Natalie Zett

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