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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.