Eastland Read online

  “I have a better idea, Lars. Why don’t we go bowling at the new lanes at Western Electric? I’ve never been, but I hear bowling is fun.” I glanced back at Karel and winked.

  “I’d love to try bowling! So, I’ll pick you up at say, seven?” Lars shifted from foot to foot. I was pretty sure he wanted to kiss me, but with Karel still hanging around, the situation felt more than a little strange.

  “See you tomorrow, Dee. Take care of yourself.” Karel scooped up his Panama from the lawn and strolled down the street toward home.

  I moseyed up to Lars. He put his arms around my waist and then kissed me quickly, as though he’d been waiting for this all day. I know I’d been thinking about moments like this with him and with Karel all morning. Lars must have remembered that we were standing in front of a church because he dropped his arms and scooted back from me.

  I laughed and thumped him on the chest. “See you Wednesday. Be careful on that new ship.”

  “Don’t fret your pretty little head over me.” Lars waved as he strode away. “I’ll be fine.”

  I adjusted my skirt, ran my hands over my bobbed hair, and rushed back to Mama. She said her good-byes to her friends and Father Raczynski as I approached and met me halfway across the sidewalk.

  “Everything is good? Oui?”

  “Better than that. It’s wonderful!”

  She clapped. “Then we can go?”

  “I just want to be sure. There’s no mending to be done at home?”

  “I finished everything last night.” Mama flung her arms into the air. “Do you not love this sunshine? We should stay out the doors all day.”

  Maybe I had left Mass with the wrong mother. “What’s with you today, Mama?”

  “All the time I sew and more sew. Paaa! It is too much!” She dropped her raised arms. “We must stop work and play some time. That is why you disobeyed me. Why you ran off. That and Karel.” “What? How did you know?”

  “I saw you two together that morning. Only for a moment, but a Mama knows these things. I also know now that I could lose you.” She crossed herself. “God has spared me that pain. I will not forget.” She looped her arm through mine. “So? Ice cream or a moving picture?”

  Gruber’s Olde World Creamery would be for me and Karel. And Fritz and Mae.

  “The movies. You and me together all day.”

  31

  Sleep had been impossible last night, so at dawn I gave up trying and got dressed. Today would be the first day with the hundreds of new hires. Twenty-eight of those hirelings would be coilers who needed training and guidance from me. The past three weeks since the Eastland overturned had seemed unnatural, each day feeling more peculiar than the last. There’d been no rhythm to my life. I’d stumbled along doing the best I could. But now it was back to a regular schedule, a normal workday, a full staff.

  Without Mae.

  I put on my new green mid-calf skirt and the white cotton blouse with the lace cuffs. Mama had kept her promise. She’d made me a whole new, professional wardrobe. I pinned my watch over my heart and my employee badge to my collar and then tiptoed into the kitchen.

  I took two baguettes from the wooden bread box, grabbed my lunch basket, and crept quietly into the parlor. My hand went automatically for my umbrella. I hesitated. The sun had risen. The sky looked clear. Rain would be a thing of the past, like my old life. It was time for something fresh. I left the umbrella in its wicker stand and headed outside.

  Dolly O’Brien sat on the stoop.

  “You’re up early.” I checked the time. “It’s barely six-thirty.”

  “Couldn’t sleep. I see you had the same problem.” She stood and stretched. “I’m too excited about all the new people. All the new men. But you don’t have to worry about that, Miss I-HaveTwo-Suitors-and-You-Have-None. So tell me all about your weekend dates.”

  We started walking. “Well, on Saturday night I had dinner at the Palmer House with Karel. On Sunday, Lars took me rowboating in Garfield Park.”

  “You’re my idol. Who would have thought that mousy little Delia Pageau had it in her to tame two men?”

  “Certainly not me.” I kicked at a stick on the sidewalk. It landed with a splash on the soggy grass. “Not ’til circumstances forced my hand.”

  “But you did it. Doesn’t matter how it came to be.” Dolly elbowed me. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and enjoy the game. Play the field for as long as you can. A girl’s got to have some fun before she settles down to dishes and diapers.”

  Work. Work. L-i-v-e! My head reeled with the exciting possibilities. And then, before I could stop myself, I kissed Dolly right on her freckled cheek.

  She touched her face. “What was that for?”

  “For listening.”

  “That’s what friends do.”

  In less than a month, my world had capsized, flipped sideways, all topsy-turvy. But somehow, through all the chaos and grief, something unexpected had emerged. This wasn’t me and Mae. That friendship could never be repeated. No, this was unpredictable, incorrigible, and fun.

  Dolly O’Brien fit with my new life.

  We paused at the corner. With traffic so light at this hour, we only had to wait for a produce truck that had onions spilling out the open back door and the milkman’s wagon. As the familiar wagon passed, we both stepped off the curb. The horse took that moment to lift its tail and drop a load of manure at our feet. We screamed and scrambled back onto the curb.

  “Damn beast!” Dolly waved a fist at the milkman. He tipped his white-brimmed cap at her and chuckled as he drove on. “Can’t wait for the day when horses are outlawed. Only motorcars should be allowed on public streets.” She grumbled all the way across the muddy road.

  I opened my basket, pulled out the two baguettes, and handed one to Dolly. “Tell me about your weekend.” I took a crunchy bite of bread.

  “Not much to tell.” Dolly snapped her loaf in half and plucked out the soft middle. “I took Grandmum to the store. Caught up on my sleep.”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you and I go downtown after work next Saturday? See a vaudeville show at the McVicker’s?”

  “That’d be swell! And then maybe some supper at Berghoff’s?”

  “Sure. Why not? I love their corned beef. It’ll be two girls out on the town.”

  “Yeah! Who needs men?”

  We looked at each other and burst out laughing as we crossed busy Cicero Avenue.

  “Looks like everybody’s eager to get to work early today.” Dolly pointed a half loaf toward the parking lot forming in the outer yard. A swarm of people scrambled off the Twenty-Second Street trolley. Another flock hastened up the street behind and around us.

  “They’re probably more anxious than excited. I know I am.”

  “Ah, quit worrying. You and Mr. Hofstedder did a grand job getting things ready for today. You’ll be wonderful with all those new coilers.”

  We followed the fast-moving stream through the north gate. “Don’t see any Johnny Volos in this new bunch.” Dolly sighed.

  “Maybe not, but we do have his mother.”

  “Thanks to you. Don’t know that I would have been as generous with a woman who ripped my dress.”

  “You would have been even more charitable. You’d probably have offered her your own job.”

  We finished the last of our baguettes and marched into my building. I stopped to check my watch. It was two minutes past seven.

  “Do we have time for a cup of coffee?” Dolly asked. “To wash down our breakfast?”

  “Yes, but I’d better not. I should probably stick around the time clock. There’s bound to be problems.”

  “See you at lunch?”

  “You bet!”

  “Later, alligator.” She waggled her fingers over her shoulder and headed to her switchboard.

  I raced up to the third floor. Just as I’d suspected, a long line had formed at the time clock.

  Normally, new workers would have been given a tour and then instructe
d on the use of the time clock. But today was not normal. Never in the history of Western Electric had so many new people started at the same time. No contingency plan had been made for an event as catastrophic as the Eastland. Today, we were all new hires learning how to cope in a truly unique situation.

  I stood beside the clock helping out until the starting whistle sounded. I directed the last of the women to their new departments, scooped up my basket, and headed to coiling. At the doorway of department 2322, I paused to peer inside.

  Dozens of new faces had joined the eleven women I’d seen on that first day back. Every seat on every bench was now filled. I hurried down the hall to department 2327.

  The door swung out to greet me. “Miss Pageau!” exclaimed Mr. Hofstedder. “We’ve been waiting for you. Please, come in.”

  I took a deep breath and scuffled through the doorway. A roomful of eager faces stared at me.

  “You remember all these ladies,” said the chief. “And of course, they remember you. In fact, they’ve been telling me quite a lot about you.”

  “They have?”

  Mr. Hofstedder scurried toward the front of the room and rolled out a chair from behind a polished oak desk.

  “Have a seat, Miss Pageau. I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “You want me to sit at your new desk?”

  “No.” He grinned at me.

  What was going on? I glanced around the room.

  Maria Tomaso smiled at me as she rubbed her rotund belly. Mrs. Volo grinned, waving quite enthusiastically. I scanned every face and every single woman was smiling.

  “Come, Miss Pageau. I want my new assistant chief to sit at her own desk.”

  The room erupted in applause. I stared at Mr. Hofstedder.

  “But … But … There are no female assistants in the company.”

  “There’s one now.” He rolled the chair closer to me.

  My heart thundered as I slipped behind my brand new desk.

  “Now, as your first duty as my assistant, I want you to go over the Employee Handbook with our new staff. They all have their copies. Yours is in the top drawer.”

  I opened my desk drawer and found my handbook. And on top of it, my new badge. Bigger than my present one and blue instead of white. But there was something else in the drawer.

  I pulled it out.

  Tears flooded my eyes.

  I looked at Mr. Hofstedder. He nodded, pulled out his handkerchief to wipe away his own tears, and walked to the back of the room.

  I ran my fingers over Mae’s badge. I inhaled and then tucked my treasure back into my drawer for safe-keeping. I rolled back my chair and stood, removing my old badge and pinning on my new one.

  “All right, ladies, open your handbooks. Let’s begin.”

  Author’s Notes

  Researching Eastland has been a long, intensely emotional journey for me. What began as the seed of an idea ten years ago blossomed into a passion for the real-life story of the SS Eastland, the 844 victims, and the hundreds of survivors and rescue workers. I’ve tried to keep the details of the capsizing as authentic as possible, but all conversations with the customs agents, the crew, and the captain are imagined, as is the character Lars Nielsen, First Assistant Engineer.

  However, one truth remains. On the morning of Saturday, July 24, 1915, a series of events occurred in catastrophic succession, resulting in the greatest loss-of-life disaster in the history of Chicago.

  For the most part, the victims were working class, Catholic, and of European descent. St. Mary’s of Czestochowa Catholic Church, where twenty-nine caskets were eulogized at a single Mass, is still, at the time of this writing, an active parish in Cicero, Illinois. The small, brick church/school of 1915 has since been restored and now serves as the center for religious education classes. Bishop Peter Paul Rhode and Father Aloysius Raczynski were the real-life priests involved in the funeral Mass. The expansive Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Cicero was demolished in the mid-1980s and replaced by the Hawthorne Works Shopping Center. As of 2014, only the iconic water tower remains, standing as a long-forgotten sentry at the southeast corner of the plaza.

  Western Electric lost nearly five hundred employees on the Eastland that day. The women’s departments were hardest hit, with the real-life department 2327 experiencing the most losses. As a tribute to those women, I used some of their actual first names in the story. Maria Tomaso, workbench four, is a fictitious character, but Eleanore, Rose, Helena, Frances, Louise, Jennie, Anna, Lillian, Elizabeth, Barbara, Julia, and Fannie all lived and died on July 24, 1915.

  Midway Gardens, where Dee and Lars have their first date, really existed. Built in 1914 by the renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the gardens succumbed to financial burdens and the pressures of Prohibition and were demolished in 1929. World-famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova did indeed host a benefit for the victims’ families at Midway Gardens. She can be seen online performing “The Dying Swan.”

  The plot of the novel developed as a direct result of my newspaper research. Though I had a main character and a premise, I didn’t know how the story would unfold until I studied the microfiche newspapers of July to August 1915. On the morning of the picnic, the headlines were about the First World War in Europe. With so many immigrant readers anxious for news of their homelands, the papers were keen to cover wartime stories, including the recent sinking of the Lusitania by German U-boat torpedoes.

  But following the capsizing on the Chicago River, the Saturday evening editions related nothing but sensationalized headlines of the Eastland. For ten days straight, the disaster dominated the front pages, not only in Chicago, but across the nation. From the horror of the makeshift morgue at the Second Regiment Armory (now Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios) to Black Wednesday’s funerals and the chaos at the gates of Western Electric, the news was heartbreaking and alarming.

  Then, on the morning of Monday, August 2, the Eastland was banished to the back pages, and the war in Europe once again dominated the headlines. The victims and their families were old news as life returned to “normal” in Cicero and around the country. The Eastland faded from our collective consciousness to become a mere footnote in our history books.

  I was aided in my research on Western Electric by Dennis Schlagheck, Cathy Lantz, Jennifer Butler, and John Gieger, the dedicated library staff of the Hawthorne Works Museum at Morton College in Cicero, Illinois. Alberta Adamson, President and CEO of the Center for History in Wheaton, Illinois, shared her museum’s amazing collection of Eastland memorabilia with me, including a recorded interview with one of the last remaining survivors. Funeral Director, Nathan Tamayo, provided valuable details on the burial process. My SCBWI writing group in Schaumburg, Illinois, and my Script Sisters, Marianne Lurie and Lyda Williamson, offered insightful critiques of these chapters. Linda Colaprete and Amber Cheatham suffered through my entire first draft. Tiffany McPherson endured every single revision of the novel and survived.

  Thomas Reid, tattoo artist extraordinaire, www.StayDownTattoos.com, created the detailed map of Cicero and the gorgeous rendering of the SS Eastland found in the opening pages. Freelance editor, Bethany Kaczmarek, www.alittleredinc.com, approved the final touches with an incredible eye for detail. D. Robert Pease, www.walkingstickbooks.com, designed the dramatic cover.

  For more information on the doomed steamer, I recommend Jay Bonansinga’s powerful nonfiction book, The Sinking of the Eastland, America’s Forgotten Tragedy (Citadel Press, 2004). Photos of the disaster can be found in Ted Wachholz’s stunning book, The Eastland Disaster, from the Images of America series (Arcadia Publishing, 2005) or visit his website at the Eastland Disaster Historical Society. However, the definitive nonfiction book on the subject is: Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic by George W. Hilton (Stanford University Press, 1995).

  As for the history of the Eastland after the capsizing, the steamer was righted three weeks later and then put up for auction. The hulk was purchased by the Illinois Naval Reserve, renamed t
he Wilmette, and used as a training vessel at the Great Lakes Naval Base. The Wilmette remained in duty through WWII. She was finally scrapped into oblivion in 1947.

  My own personal interest in this tragedy began in childhood with a story my dad told me about his mother. It seems that Grandma Manseau had a ticket to the Fifth Annual Western Electric Employee Picnic. On the night before the big event, Great-Grandma Savageau had a premonition of danger and begged my grandmother not to go on the outing. In Eastland, teenager Dee Pageau ignores her mother’s warnings and runs off to the picnic. But in real life, Grandma Manseau was an adult at the time of the disaster and heeded her mother’s pleas. My grandmother remained safely at home that day, and for that fateful decision, I am eternally grateful. If not for GreatGrandma Savageau’s premonition, I might not be here to tell this tale.

  There is a permanent memorial to the Eastland near the site of the disaster along the Chicago River between the Clark and LaSalle Street bridges. An urban legend persists that the spot is haunted. I’ve visited the riverwalk memorial several times, and each time, I’ve heard screams rising from the water. My husband, who accompanied me on each visit, never heard a sound. I don’t have an explanation for my unnerving experience. Was it simply fatigue from too many hours at my laptop poring over particulars of the disaster or some strange psychic phenomenon? I’ll leave the final determination to the reader.

  Author Bio

  Marian Cheatham lives in a suburb of Chicago with her family and their menagerie of pets.

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  www.facebook.com/mariancheatham.author Visit her website for more information on the SS Eastland— trivia, lectures, paranormal phenomenon, ghost and cemetery tours, anniversary memorials, new books on the subject, museum exhibits, and more. Be the first to learn about Marian Cheatham’s upcoming books.

  www.mariancheatham.com