People remember the USS Maine. They remember the RMS Titanic.And members of an Arlington Heights family want them to remember the SS Eastland as well.
That’s why Jean Decker, her daughters, Susan Decker and Barb Wachholz, and her son-in-law, Ted Wachholz, founded the Eastland Disaster Historical Society about a year ago.
July 24 was the anniversary of the disaster, the deadliest in Chicago’s history.
The Eastland, a 265-foot excursion boat, had boarded about 2,500 passengers the morning of July 24, 1915, when it listed and then rolled over on its port side in the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle streets.
Hundreds of lives were lost.
Among the passengers that day was Jean Decker’s mother-in-law, Borghild 'Bobbie' Decker-Carlson, a 14-year-old who was on the Eastland with her mother, sister and an uncle.
Like the others on the ill-fated ship, Decker-Carlson, who later lived in Arlington Heights and died in 1991, and her relatives were bound for Michigan City, Ind., for a picnic being held by the uncle’s employer, Western Electric.
All four family members survived when the Eastland rolled over. But more than 800 people died.
Given her family’s direct involvement, "My sister and I grew up hearing about the Eastland," Susan Decker said.
But despite the enormous loss of life involved, she said the story of the tragedy is far from being well-known.
Ted Wachholz was unaware of the Eastland disaster until he heard the family stories. Many others, including lifelong Chicagoans, also don’t know about the 84-year-old tragedy, he said.
But Jean Decker’s mother-in-law never forgot.
"She used to tell the girls the stories about when she was 14 years old and her experience. And how she lost her Easter outfit and her big hat," Jean Decker said.
Decker-Carlson also regularly shared her experiences with a radio audience.
"She was with (former WGN host) Wally Phillips every year," Jean Decker said. She always said (the Eastland disaster) was like yesterday.
Decker-Carlson and her relatives were trapped for 11 hours between decks on the starboard side of the Eastland.
"When the boat went over," Barb Wachholz said, "my grandmother said she could remember seeing the sky. So they were fortunate."
"But there was a lot of water that had rushed in. They were still in the water. People were still drowning around them. I remember she said it was awful."
"She said the screaming was terrible," Jean Decker recalled.
The trapped family members had to cling to floating debris while waiting 11 hours to be rescued.
Meanwhile, rescuers were working to save the living and remove the bodies of the dead.
Some saved themselves.
"A lot of people actually walked off the boat dry," Barb Wachholz said.
But hundreds more had to be rescued.
One of the heroes of the Eastland, Jean Decker said, was her mother-in-law’s uncle, Olaf Ness, who was just 27 at the time of the disaster.
"He helped save many lives," she said.
At one point, Jean Decker said, Ness had to abandon a woman he was trying to rescue in order to save his own sister.
"Our little family was running into some trouble," she said, "and they were screaming, ‘Olaf! Olaf!’"
For his heroic efforts, Barb Wachholz said, Ness was honored by the coroner’s office with a special star.
There are a number of theories as to why the Eastland rolled over.
Officially, the courts of the time placed the blame on the ship’s engineer, who allegedly overfilled the port ballast tanks with water.
Ironically, concern over the Titanic tragedy in 1912 may have helped doom the Eastland.
Additional lifeboats had been added to the upper deck of the Eastland because of that concern, Jean Decker said, and added to the vessel’s top-heaviness.
So did the several tons of concrete used that spring to shore up the Eastland’s rotting wood decks, Ted Wachholz.
However, he said, "The Eastland, by the way it was designed and originally built, was not a stable ship. This isn’t something that happened as of that day or that spring."
"This is something that really developed from Day One, from its original blueprints. It was designed to be a fast boat with a shallow draft. It was top-heavy and it just was an unstable ship. It had a history of being unstable."
The modifications just added to the Eastland’s inherent instability, Ted Wachholz said. Before rolling over in the river, he said, it had several close calls on the lake.
Naval professionals who were uneasy about the Eastland’s shortcomings had already written to the federal government, he said.
Some of its passengers also were uneasy about the Eastland on that fateful day in 1915.
"Our grandmother," Barb Wachholz said, "told us that, from the moment they stepped onto the ship after they boarded, our great-grandmother said, ‘I don’t like the feel of this ship. There are too many people on here.’ She could probably feel the listing."
Her descendants feel it’s their responsibility to keep alive the memory of the Eastland. As the older area residents who recall the disaster pass away, Ted Wachholz said, their memories are lost with them.
"It’s evaporating each generation," he said.
For some reason, the Eastland never captured the public’s imagination in the same way as, say, the Titanic.
There was nothing glamorous about the Eastland, Jean Decker said, so there’s no comparison with Titanic and the jewels and the chandeliers and the wealthy people, so to speak.
Instead, most of the Eastland’s passengers were working-class residents of the western suburbs who were of Bohemian, Czech and Polish descent.
The Eastland does compare to the Titanic in at least one way, Barb Wachholz said.
More actual passengers died on the Eastland, she said, than on the famous ocean liner, which listed hundreds of crew members among its more than 1,500 victims.
While the victims of the Eastland are known, the Eastland Disaster Historical Society is attempting to put together a complete passenger list for the day it rolled over. They are up to about 1,700 names.
Barb Wachholz said they've heard from many descendants of Eastland survivors, including some who contacted them after recent radio appearances on WAIT and WGN.
They've also heard from relatives of witnesses to the disaster, she said. One was a Hoffman Estates woman who provided the society with four photographs of the Eastland that were taken by her grandfather, an amateur photographer.
"They were in his scrapbook," Barb Wachholz said.
And they've had contact with people around the country via the society’s Web site, which is at www.eastlanddisaster.org.
They urge that anyone whose ancestors survived, witnessed or helped rescue passengers of the Eastland contact them via the Web site or call the society at (847) 525-3293.
The society is interested in any information or artifacts regarding the Eastland.
"We’re trying to make sure that whatever is out there isn’t lost over the next generation or two," Ted Wachholz said.
