Holding a black-and-white photo of his great aunt, Scott Long leaned over the Chicago Riverwalk railing Friday and scattered a handful of flowers into the river, honoring a life the S.S. Eastland disaster claimed 111 years ago.
Long, 62, took a photograph of the portrait of his great aunt, Mabel Deichmann, held against the backdrop of the river where she died on July 24, 1915.
Deichmann was 21 when the Eastland, a passenger steamship, rolled onto its side while docked along the Chicago River, killing 844 people. It remains Chicago’s deadliest single-day disaster.
The Eastland Disaster Historical Society marked the 111th anniversary with a ceremony along the Riverwalk between La Salle and Clark.
Long’s family has carried the story through generations.
“My grandfather, my grandmother, her sister and my uncle were on the Eastland,” Long said.
More than 2,500 passengers, most of them Western Electric factory workers and their families, boarded the Eastland on an overcast Saturday morning for the company’s annual picnic.
Minutes after boarding, before the ship ever left the dock, the overloaded, top-heavy Eastland tipped over. Many passengers were trapped below the deck as the water flowed in, prompting a frantic rescue by first responders and bystanders.
The steamer Eastland lies capsized in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915. The excursion steamer rolled over while partially tied to the dock. More than 800 people were killed, most within a few feet of shore. It was one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history. The Eastland was filled with picnic-bound employees of the Western Electric Company and their families. Investigators determined the top-heavy ship’s lack of seaworthiness was a primary cause.
Jun Fujita/Chicago Daily News
Long’s grandfather helped his wife and young son off the ship then climbed back aboard, again and again, in search of Deichmann, who had boarded with a different group of Western Electric employees.
“Each time he went to look for her, he rescued someone,” Long said. “He rescued three or four women.”
Later that day, Deichmann’s body was identified at the Second Regiment Armory, on the Washington Boulevard on the Near West Side, which was used as a temporary morgue.
A few years later, the women saved by Long’s grandfather presented him with a gold watch-chain in gratitude. The chain, now owned by Long, is on display at the Chicago Maritime Museum.
Long said the tragedy became part of his family’s identity. His uncle, who was 4 years old at the time, spent much of his career working in the Merchandise Mart across the river — “right in the shadow of where the tragedy took place.”
And Long’s stepfather, a news editor, recorded an interview with his grandfather recounting the tragedy. The interview is featured in the PBS documentary, “The Eastland Disaster.”
Other families gathered Friday and shared stories of survival instead of loss.
Barbara Decker Wachholz and her sister, Susan Wachholz, are descendants of a 14-year-old survivor who boarded the Eastland with her 9-year-old sister, their mother and a relative employed by Western Electric.
Their grandmother had eagerly boarded what seemed like an enormous ship, but because the upper deck was crowded, the family found seats on the middle deck. When the Eastland rolled over, they were trapped for hours inside the vessel before rescuers pulled them through a porthole.
Wachholz’s grandmother treaded water for “many hours” and held onto “whatever debris” floated by.
“She saw things that were not pleasant at all for a young girl,” Barbara Wachholz said.
“But what she said gave her inspiration was the fact that when the ship rolled over, they, fortunately, were on the side that was facing up,” Wachholz said. “And she could look through the porthole and see the sky. And she just had such hope that she would be able to pull through.”
“If our 14-year-old grandmother had not survived, my sister, Susan, and I would not be here today. And that goes for so many other families,” Wachholz said.
Barbara Decker Wachholz, a co-founder of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, speaks during a ceremony commemorating those who perished in the S.S. Eastland disaster. Her grandmother was on the ship, but survived. The event was held along the Chicago Riverwalk near the Clark Street bridge on Friday.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Robert Conlon, an author who has studied the Eastland disaster, described the riverfront as “hallowed ground.” He told attendees to imagine the excitement that filled the dock that morning 111 years ago — families dressed in their Sunday best, children carrying picnic baskets, coworkers chatting and a ragtime band playing as they all boarded.
“The ship beneath their feet was a fragile illusion,” Conlon said, describing a “top heavy” vessel “plagued by stability issues” that were ignored by the ship company, crew members and inspectors.
“Little did the happy passengers know that an incoherently large number of them would never touch land again,” Conlon said.
Barbara Decker Wachholz, a co-founder of the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, speaks with U.S. Coast Guard officers on Friday before a ceremony commemorating the victims of the S.S. Eastland disaster. The ceremony was held along the Chicago Riverwalk near the Clark Street bridge.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
The Eastland Disaster fundamentally reshaped maritime safety, said Cmdr. T.J. Bigay, commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit Chicago. It helped shape stronger vessel safety standards and improved life saving and stability requirements.
For Coast Guard members, the Eastland tragedy is “more than just history,” Bigay said.
“It informs our daily missions,” she said. “Every vessel inspection, facility inspection, marine permit that we review, every coordinated response with state, local and federal partners, is driven by the shared conviction that no one should ever have to endure this level of grief again.”
