Some say the ghosts still haunt the river. In another layer of forgotten Chicago history lies a story of a mass watery grave. Three years after the famous Titanic hit an iceberg, two thousand people boarded a ship docked on the Chicago River for a company picnic. On a cool July morning in 1915, a massive ship called the Eastland quietly rolled over sending 844 passengers and crew to their deaths in the murky waters of the Chicago River. Ever heard of this tragedy? Neither have I! Glancing mindlessly through a little magazine called Streetwise, bought outside a Walgreens from an elderly homeless man eating Cheetos, I learn that "it was Chicago's biggest disaster in terms of fatalities, but somehow...it has escaped the city's memory"(Colleen Connolly "Streetwise" 11 July).
The immigrants that boarded the Eastland that morning were dressed in their Sunday clothes and carrying picnic baskets. They imagined a day at the beach with their families. No one imagined the horror that would take only six seconds to change lives forever. The majestic ship, top heavy with new lifeboats from recent regulations put into effect after the Titanic tragedy, leaned and then rolled over into waters so polluted the river itself was known to "self ignite from industrial waste...spontaneously combusting" (Bonansinga, The Sinking of the Eastland 24).I'm not sure why this story captured my imagination so poignantly over the weekend, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. How could the Titanic be so famous while this story is remembered only by a tiny plaque on the Clark St. bridge in the Loop? Why do we remember some things in history and forget others so quickly? What is the point of remembering when our overloaded hearts can barely hold the emotional strain of our own struggles, much less our friends, much less the world, much less people who lived 100 years ago?!
Fans of Woody Allen movies will identify common themes in his work. He often weaves stories of longing- longing for relationship, for being known, for being loved, for romantic connection. But the deeper or parallel plot lines often involve his struggle with the fear of death, with the meaning of life, with the struggle for knowing the point of everything anyway. Part of the fear and angst of his characters is the element of being forgotten or of living a life that leaves no legacy. The story of the sinking of the Eastland ship had an impact on me both in its tragedy AND in history's amnesia of it. The passengers on that ship were not rich like the ones on the Titanic. They were poor Eastern European immigrants struggling to make a way for their family and to survive in a city that was often hostile to them. Like the homeless man selling his $2 magazines to North Shore housewives and retired golfers filling their prescriptions at Walgreens, these people are not the ones written into the history books or cast with Kate Winslet in red lipstick. Are they forgotten? For the most part, yes. Do their lives matter in the story that is being written. Yes.This Sunday Joel Hamernick, a minister who lives on Chicago's South side and leads a ministry to a desperate neighborhood called Woodlawn (see blog post "A Visit to Sunshine"), preached to our church. He shared with us the witnessing of three shootouts in his neighborhood in the last two and a half weeks. He explained that Chicago has experienced a 40% increase in homicides in the last year. And in the middle of all this he is raising his eight children. "The world is chaotic," he explained. "We wake up to chaos in the world and in our own hearts. We feel fear that makes us want to run, but sometimes God says, 'I'm not moving you. Hold tight. You've misunderstood what is happening in the midst of the chaos and lack of control that you feel. Settle down. Build your house. Trust in me and live for others.'" Joel went on to explain that one of the biggest differences between those who are poor and those who have money is not the level of brokenness but the ability to cover it up. Life hurts. If our own lives don't teach us this then history certainly can.
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| Clark St. Bridge- modern photo of accident site |
This future, this hope, has already been secured for us in the peace of Christ. It is in His shalom that we will find peace, hope, and meaning in this transient life. It is in His story that all the stories of history have meaning and a purpose. Your life, the lives of the people you love and the ones you struggle to love, matter because of the one who walks with you in exile.
*Interested in learning more about the Eastland tragedy? Check out the book by Jay Bonansinga called The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy.
