Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

From Page to Stage: A Pulitzer Prize–Winning Author, an Actor, and the Eastland Disaster

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 151

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A single newspaper review from 1938 turned this story on its head.
Digging through Chronicling America, I stumbled upon a mention of Cornelia Otis Skinner's one-woman show—a performance inspired by Margaret Ayer Barnes's novel Edna, His Wife—and it included a "sensational scene" set on the Eastland. That brief reference shatters the myth that Chicago's 1915 disaster simply faded from memory. It never vanished. It lingered in novels, on stage, in film, and in poems. 

I retrace that rediscovery, then plunge into vivid passages from Barnes's novel: morning chatter, a ringing phone, a name called out. The Chicago River teeming with people. A stranger thrusting a peach crate into a woman's arms. In the armory—now a morgue—the coroner pleading with a restless crowd to let grieving families pass. Headlines scrambling for blame. Two sisters selecting gloves, pews, and pallbearers.

These scenes press close because they ring true: the sound of shock, the way loss rearranges a room, a city returning to work beneath the glare of searchlights.

I also pause to ask a larger question: what other stories have been hiding in plain sight? Barnes won a Pulitzer, yet her Eastland chapter is rarely—if ever—mentioned today. Skinner crafted a powerhouse performance from that book, but her credit faded into the background. This story was waiting to be found. 

Why wasn't it?

Here, genealogy, local lore, and literature intertwine—revealing how culture preserves memory even when research falls short. 

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Natalie Zett:

Before we begin, I want to insert a trigger warning. Even though I am about to share with you a fictionalized account of the Eastland disaster, it's very well written, it's very graphic, and it really takes you to the day of the disaster. But I want to warn you about that because given everything that's going on in the United States and in the world in general, and in my home state, Minnesota in particular, this might be difficult to listen to. I'll admit it was challenging to read, but I'm glad that I read it and I'm glad I recorded it because so much of this history has been lost or neglected. But that said, please take care of yourselves, know that I care about you, and join me in another episode if you think this just might not be your cup of tea. Okay? Take care, stay safe. Onward. 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. Hey, this is Natalie, and welcome to episode 151 of Flower in the River Podcast. And I hope you're doing well. There's a lot to share with you today, so I am going to jump right in. A funny thing happened on the way to preparing for this week's podcast. I was searching on Chronicling America, and if you don't know about this resource, it's one I use a lot, and a lot of genealogists and historians and researchers refer to it as well. It's free for one thing, and I'll give you a link to it. Here's the thing about Chronicling America and similar sites like Google Books, Hatha Trust, even the National Archives. New material is digitized and added all the time. That's why I check in with these resources regularly. What's there today might be joined by something new tomorrow. So in that spirit, I was poking around, chronicling America. I felt compelled to search the era from 1930 to 1940. I wasn't sure why, but I knew that there was something there that I needed to find. Well, sure enough, the strangest search result popped up It was from the Washington Daily News Tuesday, February 22nd, 1938. The Eastland disaster happened in 1915, so this is 23 years later. Why do I mention that? Because there is this ongoing myth that's been perpetuated that after the Eastland disaster, people quickly forgot about it, that it was wiped away from history and memory. That's what I've heard. And then there's this other myth that has been perpetuated in recent years that thanks to the stalwart work of just a handful of people, this long lost history of the Eastland disaster has been restored. Here's the thing though, it's never been lost. Ignored, yes. Under researched, absolutely, but it's not lost. And you're going to hear yet another story that has just been sitting there waiting to be discovered. In recent years, there have been theatrical productions about the Eastland disaster presented again as if they were the first time this tragedy had been dramatized for the stage. Once again, that's not true, because what I found on Chronicling America proves that a play featuring the Eastland disaster was produced in 1938. And both this play and the novel it was based on were at risk of being lost to history. So here's the article. The headline reads, Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner skillfully presents, quote, Edna, his wife, end quote. That's the name of the play, Edna, his wife. Now, I knew the name Cornelia Otis Skinner only because I grew up with parents who loved old films, and I share that love of films from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. I knew the name, but I couldn't quite place her. What I found was a review of a one woman show written by, produced, and starred Cornelia Otis Skinner. The article reads Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner skillfully presents Edna his wife, and the article was written by Catherine Hillier. The schism between sketches and an integrated show is as great as the difference between a stripped teaser and Catherine Cornell. But Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner has crossed the Great Divide on a glory road all her own. Last night at the National, she played eight characters in her own dramatization of the Margaret Ayer Barnes novel, Edna His Wife, and the Cornelia cult remained constant. In eleven scenes, Miss Skinner presents the rather pathetic story of a woman with a small town disposition who reluctantly endeavors to adapt herself to life among the orchid conscious. She is Edna, who should have married Al, the railroad brakeman. Instead, she falls for Paul, a city slicker, a lawyer with ambition, brains, and the ability to flatter his boss's wives. Through the years from 1900 to 1937, Edna is as unhappy as a chameleon on a piece of Scotch plaid. Just about the time she acquires a comfortable suburban complexion, Hall gets a raise and she is confronted with the complexities of golf club society, and so on until a lonely life in a penthouse. No more quarrels. And so the Edna to us is an uninteresting person. The evening she dominates is far from dull. Two amusing scenes begin her story, whose lavender and old lace humor will be good in the theater marts as long as audiences continue to believe early twentieth century slang is funny. There's a sensational scene based on the excursion boat Eastland disaster. Two genuinely tragic, one piquant, and several pitiful scenes. Well, there's more to the article, and I will post it in its original form on my website. But that mention of the Eastland disaster, that's the part that caught my attention. I thought, what is this? Cornelia Otis Skinner was not just an actress, but also a playwright and someone who could take a book and adapt it for the stage. And so she transformed the novel, Edna, his wife, into a one-woman show. The fact that the Eastland disaster is mentioned in this tiny review, almost as a throwaway line, it just floored me. I thought, what in the heck is this about? And thanks to the Internet Archive, I was able to locate the book Edna, His Wife, by Margaret Eyre Barnes. And despite what the reviewer suggests, the story of this fictional family's experience of the Eastland disaster is haunting, riveting, all those words. It just pulls you in. It's compelling. In an odd way, it's similar to what I've been sharing with you in the article, Catastrophe on the Chicago River, because it's not written as a news piece. It's written from the inside out. This time it's done from the viewpoint of a fictional family. Margaret Eyre Barnes was born in Chicago in eighteen eighty-six and died in 1967 in Massachusetts. She was an American playwright, novelist, and short story writer. And her nineteen thirty novel Years of Grace won the Pulitzer Prize. Let that land for a second. A Pulitzer Prize winning author wrote an Eastland related story. This is not just striking but puzzling. Margaret Eyne's book and the story about the Eastland disaster is never mentioned, at least I've never seen it, in any of the popular Eastland disaster stories retellings. What that tells us is that the research, again, did not go very deep and did not go very far. A Pulitzer Prize writer choosing the Eastland as a subject tells us something very important. This disaster didn't only leave records and headlines and then disappeared. It entered the culture. It stayed on people's minds long enough to become a part of literature. Barnes took the aftermath seriously. It weighed on her, and that alone should earn this story a place in conversation. And so that's what we're doing with it. As far as I can tell, Margaret Eyre Barnes did not experience the Eastland disaster directly. But she was living in Chicago at the time, as was the actor Cornelia Otis Skinner. Back then the technology was different, news traveled differently, but in reality it's not that much different. Whatever happens in a city affects everyone living there and however they interpret it. Although this is fiction, fiction drawn from the Eastland disaster carries its own truth. We'll continue with the story. Then there's Edna's sister, Pearl, and Pearl's husband Shub. Then we have Pearl and Edna's parents, mister and Mrs. Lawser. Then there are Paul's and Edna's children, Junior and Jessica. There's also Shub's coworker and friend, Joe Kubia, his wife, and their baby. The following is an excerpt from the book Edna, his wife, by Margaret Ayer Barnes, published in 1935 by Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston and New York. They have a nice day for the picnic, said Edna. She was sitting at the breakfast table behind her Georgian silver coffee pot, with her eyes fixed absently on Junior, who was pouring too much syrup on his waffles. She decided she wouldn't mention it. It would only annoy Paul. Jessie was eating her poached egg very neatly. Her table manners had improved so rapidly in the course of the last six months that they gave Edna hope for Junior. She couldn't see Paul at the other end of the table, just his lean hands supporting the screen of the tribune. Jessie said indifferently, What time do they start? Oh, they're off by now. The boat sailed at seven thirty. Aunt Pearl didn't see how they were ever going to catch it. I wish I could have gone, said Junior, finally spilling the syrup. Careful, said Edna, but mildly. She smiled on her son. She wished she could have taken him, for the lossers were off on a rare family spree. The Western Electric Company had planned a gala excursion for its employees to Michigan City and had charted two lake steamers for the day. Schub had a young Polish friend, Joe Kubiak, who was a draftsman for the company, and Joe had wangled a job for Schub in one of the bands. Schub had persuaded Pearl, and Pearl had persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Lawser to buy tickets, price 75 cents, and join the party. They all liked Joe and his young wife Rosie, and Mrs. Lawser thought that Pearl needed the pick-me-up of a little pleasure. Pearl said she'd go if her father would. He had been feeling the cruel July heat, so William Lasser had taken a day off. He hadn't had one since the Saturday last August, when he and Pearl and Mrs. Lawser had gone to Riverview to eat hot dogs and ride the roller coasters. The baggage master that the road had installed in the depot with the growth of population in Blue Island could spell him at the ticket window. Paul put down the tribune and took his watch from his pocket. Twenty minutes till nine, he said. I've got to be off. Goodbye, dear, said Edna placidly. Don't hurry in this heat. As she spoke, her eyes strayed to the strip of blue lake water that she could see from her dining room windows over the green lawns through the fringe of the drive's elm trees. She just loved a boat trip, but she knew that Paul would never have approved of this one. He'd think a company picnic was pretty plebeian. He was beginning to have ideas that were definite on what he had wished and didn't wish his wife to do. Then, hand me the paper, Jessie, she added. She wanted to glance at Lillian Russell's beauty secrets. Ignoring the war news, she turned the pages until she found the heading Be Careful of Your Hair, and settled back comfortably to read. A woman's crowning glory will repay attention. Just then she heard the telephone ring in the hall. Paul, at the front door, stepped back to answer it. She heard him say hello? Then, after a brief pause, yes? What? What? With sudden emphasis, there was another pause, much longer, broken finally by Paul's voice, strangely altered, tense, yet subdued. My God. No, no, we haven't. The phone hasn't rung. Yes, you'd better. Yes, I think that's the best thing to do. I'll wait for you here. I'll go back with you. How is she? Yes, of course. We'll be ready for her. I'll tell Edna. Keep your nerve, old man. You can't be sure. I don't believe of course I can't realize it. All right, Shub. Goodbye. At the name Shub, Edna, already alarmed and listening, had risen from her chair. She heard Paul's steps in the hall. In the doorway he paused. She met his shocked eyes and saw in an instant that something terrible had happened. Pearl? she faltered. No, not Pearl. He moved quickly to meet her. Sit down, Edna. His hand was on her arm. Not since the day that Jessie was born had she read such concern in his glance. She sank back in her chair, her body trembling. She was conscious of the children's faces turned toward them, blank questioning. Tell me, she whispered. But he stood silent, frowning unconsciously, as if he didn't know just how to say what needed to be said. She tried to speak again and couldn't. She felt her lips move soundlessly. The eastland turned over at her dock and An hour ago, he said. The Eastland, she questioned stupidly. The words meant nothing to her. The boat, the excursion boat. Then she understood. If you could call it understanding. She gasped that's not possible. It happened. The quiet words carried conviction. Turned over in the river? He nodded gravely. They were all on board. They were thrown into the water, separated somehow. Shub wasn't very clear. Anyhow he's got Pearl. They're safe, but mother and father, whispered Edna. Then sharply. Paul, tell me I can't tell you I don't know. Shub didn't know. He's been looking for them. Looking for Pearl too. He found her in the crowd. He's bringing her up here in a cab. She's alright, but she was in the water three quarters of an hour. He called up from a drugstore to ask if we'd heard from if anyone had telephoned. There's a great mob down there milling around. He said there was a panic. It's perfectly possible they're all right, saved. I mean they couldn't find each other. He said there were thousands on board, literally thousands, twenty five hundred, maybe. Twenty five hundred people? Edna's lips moved stiffly. Paul nodded. All in the water? Yes. Men, women and children. So you can see. Paul's voice was steadier now. It was almost plausible. Edna buried her face in her arms on the table, trying not to see the picture that his words had evoked. She felt the pressure of his hand on her shoulder and heard the children's voices, questions flung excitedly at Paul and gravely answered. Yes, in the river, Jessica, near the Clark Street Bridge. I don't know how deep, junior, I couldn't say. Of course they'll be saved. Lots of them, most of them. Why, they were right next to the dock, within arm's reach of the shore. You know how many boats there are always in the river, and people on the bridges. It isn't as if it happened out on the lake. Grandma, grandma couldn't swim, that was Jessie's voice trembling. Neither could Aunt Pearl, and she's all right. Grandpa could, shilled Junior triumphantly. And Uncle Shub? Of course. And there'd be lots of others who could too. And lifeboats and life preservers and rafts. Edna raised her head. Her eyes were tearless. She said tonelessly, I want to go down there. Paul patted her arm. My dear, you can't. And what would you do? I'd look for them. I might see them in the crowd or in the water. Her voice was still flat and lifeless. My dear girl, they wouldn't let you get within sight of the water. The police will rope off the mob. What will you do? Go back there with Shub. But if I'll get to the dock somehow. She knew that he would. Take me, she said. He shook his head. You must take care of Pearl. She'll be all in. Edna rose to her feet, leaning heavily on the table. Her knees were shaking. She felt exhausted, like an old woman. The realization of the calamity was slowly coming home to her in all its implications. She saw her mother drowning, her father's white face lifeless, Pearl and herself orphaned. Parents died, of course. All parents did, but not like this, not helpless, in terror and panic. In the clear moment of revelation she knew they were dead. Paul said gently, You must think of Pearl. She'll be here in a minute. With a visible effort she forced her mind from that desperate inner vision. She said vaguely, Yes, we ought to get ready for her. Practical planning, always the sole salvation. I'll put her to bed in our room, Paul. She touched the bell on the table. When the waitress came, she said, Mrs. Schultz has had an accident. Get my bed ready for her. She had never given an order with so much composure. The girl's eyes widened, startled, and she left the room. Edna again turned to Paul. Shouldn't I call a doctor? We might try. I guess they're all down there, though, from that part of town. He looked a little puzzled by her unnatural calm. Just then the doorbell rang. The children rushed from the room, Paul only a step behind them. Edna reached the hall as Jessie flung open the front door. Paul's tall figure was blocking the doorway. Junior's yellow head was bobbing at his elbow. Then Edna pushed by them. In the bright July sunshine on the broad grey stone step, Pearl and Shub were standing. The taxi was still at the curb. Pearl's first thought was stupidly, I'd forgotten they would be wet. They were drenched, sodden, seen against the ordinary perspective of Bank Street with richie cord stretching beyond it, a block of neat palmer houses. Their demoralized appearance was monstrous. Shub's shoddy blue shirt clung to his thin body. He had no hat. His fair, wavy hair was plastered to his skull. His shoes oozed water on the pale doorstone. His arm was around Pearl, supporting her. She needed support. The new print frock that Edna had given her was molded to her gaunt figure. The sheer silk was saturated, and the colors had darkened and the dye had run. The skirt was torn, and the blouse was stained with a muddy slime, and one of her shoes was missing. Like shobes she had no hat. Her hair was soaked, flattened over her high forehead where a bruise was darkening, and her puffs of false curls were mere dripping strings of hair, dankly awry, straggling down her neck. All this Edna saw in a glance. And then Pearl's face. It was yellow white, dazed, vacant, her wide lips blue, her pale eyes void with grief. Pearl cried Edna, and caught her in her arms. She stood on the doorstep holding her, not thinking at all, conscious only of the thick wave of heat reflected from the stone steps, and the sun beating down on them, and Pearl's damp body. Then Paul came forward. He helped Pearl stumbling into the relative coolness of the dark front hall. She sank on the nearest chair and began to cry helplessly. Oh Edna, she sobbed. Mother I lost her. And father Hush, Pearl. Wait, don't try to tell us. Then Pearl saw that Paul had brought some whiskey from the dining room sideboard. He was handing her a glass. Make her take this. His voice was quick and cool, like that of a doctor. He was pouring Shub a drink. Pearl took it obediently. After a moment, she was able to hold the glass in her own hand. She drank the whiskey, shuddering. Edna looked up at Shub and saw he was only a little less shaken. His teeth were chattering on the edge of his glass. He sat down suddenly on the bottom step of the stairs and smiled foolishly. I guess I'm kind of done up, he said. Paul took command of the situation. You come upstairs with me, I'll get you some dry clothes. With Edna at his heels, he helped Pearl up the staircase to Edna's bedroom. He pushed Jessie and Junior before him from the room. A moment later, as she was stripping Pearl, Edna heard his voice and shobes in the dressing room. Pearl heard it too. Oh, they ought to go back there, she moaned. She was still crying, crying and shuddering and trying to talk. They will, Pearl, they will. Now, don't you say anything more until you're safely in bed, said Edna. But she too felt that every minute was precious. She was filling a hot water bottle for Pearl's feet from a tap in the bathroom. In spite of the heat, the girl was shivering when Shub came in with Paul. How do you feel, Pearl? he asked solicitously, bending over the bed. The comedy of his figure in a suit of Paul's clothes that was much too large for him, contrasted weirdly with the anxiety of his face. Oh Shub, wailed Pearl from her pillows. Please go back. You shouldn't have come here with me. We're going back, said Paul. I've called a cab. Then, turning to Edna, I've been talking to Jessica. She's right on the job. She wants to help, and she's taking Junior up to the park to see the animals. I told her to stay away until lunchtime. Now, he smiled uncertainly, looking from Edna's pale face to Pearl's wan one. Will you two girls be all right? I want you to take it easy. Easy sob. Easy sobbed Pearl. Yes, easy. I think we'll find them. Paul's voice was brightly reassuring. We'll telephone any news. I wish you'd call up my office Edna and say what happened. And you might ring the doctor. I don't want a doctor, put in Pearl. I just want you to go. There's the cab, Shub. Paul was glancing out of the window. Both men kissed their wives. A moment later, Edna waved tremulously to them from the window. Then she went downstairs to telephone to Paul's secretary. Jessica and Junior had already left the house. When she came back to the bedroom, she thought that Pearl looked more tranquil, and certainly her color was better. It was a relief to know that Paul and Shub had gone, that everything was being done that could be. From the clock on the bed table, Edna observed that it was only half past nine. Fifty minutes since Shub had telephoned. It seemed like days. She sat down wearily on the foot of the Chase lounge. Her sister's eyes had followed her own to the clock. Just two hours, said Pearl slowly, since we were standing on the dock, looking up at that boat. Etna said nothing, and after a moment Pearl added, We almost missed it. Then she began crying again, but quietly. Wiping her eyes, she said brokenly, We might just as well have been on the Theodore Roosevelt, Edna. That was the other boat. It was right there, but Shub's ban was assigned to the Eastland. I think you better not talk about it just yet, said Edna. She made herself say it. She wanted desperately to know every detail that Pearl had to tell. Talking's better than thinking about it, said Pearl. Then, after a long pause, Father's drowned, I know. But possibly mother her voice failed her. Then Edna began crying. Great tears gathered in her eyes and ran down her cheeks unheeded. She forgot her concern for Pearl. Oh Pearl, she cried, tell me, tell me from the beginning. For a moment Pearl lay motionless, her head thrown back on the pillow, not looking at Edna. The beginning was fine. She spoke slowly, wearily as if she were trying to preserve and recapture her early impressions of that morning, to dissociate them from the horror that had followed. It was a lovely day. We got up awfully early, not long after five, and we caught the six hundred ten train to town. We almost didn't. Mother had to leave the breakfast dishes unwashed, and that bothered her. She kept talking about it on the train. You know, she always liked to leave the house as neat as a pin, but when we got down to the dock she forgot about it. It all seemed so gay. The crowd, you know, and that early morning feeling. Not hot yet. Down on the wharves we could actually smell fresh water. The water looked very green. And narrow. So narrow, Edna. A big crowd? Yes. The streets had been empty, it was so early, but down on the dock there was a perfect mob, all out for fun, boys in duck pants and men without coats and women in wash dresses. Lots of women with children, mostly family parties. Her voice dropped a little and lost its detached note. The Kubiks had their baby. Oh Pearl Oh Pearl Edna's eyes widened and then clouded in pity. Oddly enough it was the Kubyak's baby that brought home to her the first acute realization that this was more than a personal tragedy. What happened to it? I don't know. Drowned, I guess. Pearl's tone was as laconic as her words, but her mouth was quivering. It was only eight months old. It looked awfully cute. Rosie had made a hat for it. Its first hat out of white piquet because she thought the sun would be pretty strong. We met them at the gangplank and all went up on the top deck. Because that's where the band was. Shub went straight to the band. The rest of us pushed through the crowd and Joe found two chairs for mother and Rosie right next to the rail. Then father said he'd go downstairs and check the lunch basket. Everyone was checking the lunch. It was hard to hold it, and the top deck was hot with sun beating down on it. And mother thought the mayonnaise would spoil. Rosie said she'd go with him. She had the baby's bottles in a pail on ice, but the ice was melting, so she thought maybe she could find an ice box. Joe said he'd go, but she said no, that the baby needed changing, and she'd take him down to the ladies' room. So she went along with father and took the baby and the bottles with her. So that was how they were separated, thought Edna. She hadn't understood it. The sense of impending tragedy was almost intolerable. And then what happened? she asked. Pearl answered quite matter of factly. Why nothing happened for a few minutes? I took Rosie's seat and Joe went off to see if he could find any more chairs. You could hardly move on deck. It was just jammed. But everyone was very good natured, laughing and talking and yelling after children, and some were waving at friends on the other boat, and the band had begun playing. Mother and I just sat there and listened to the band. We looked over at the rail at the dock and saw the gangplank pulled in, and the line that held the back of the boat cast off, and five or six people arriving too late to get on board. They were arguing with the ticket taker when the boat swung out from the dock sideways, because the line that held it in front was still tied. And then it seemed to sway a little. Not much, but I noticed it. I remember thinking it was funny because there were no waves in the river. I was watching a tug that was chugging around in front of us. It was tied to us by a rope. I guess it was going to tow us out into the harbor, and then Pearl paused with an effect that was as dramatic as it was unconscious. She paused and drew a long breath and leaned up on her elbow on the pillow. She stared at Edna intently, her pale brows contracted in a little frown. Beneath them her eyes looked puzzled. Then it gets so I can't tell it very well, she said. The boat began to heel over, slowly at first, so you didn't believe it was happening, and then quicker. The deck slanted horribly and our chairs slipped. I reached out and grabbed the rail, and I saw Mother grab it, and neither of us said anything, and then there must have been an instant of silence. Maybe nobody said anything, for I heard the band much louder. It was still playing. It was the last thing I heard before the screams began. Suddenly everyone screamed and slipped and fell down, all jumbled up on top of each other, and the deck was a hill. And inside the boat there was a great roar above the screams of heavy things falling, and our chairs caved in and slid out from under us. I saw Mother's hand slipping away from the rail. I saw her face. She just looked surprised. I tried to catch hold of her, but I couldn't. And then there was a sort of lurk. And my hand slipped too. I fell down on other people, and the deck was sloping up above me. I saw two men dive over our heads, and then there was the water. I was in it, with people all around me. I tried to swim, but I can't do more than two or three strokes, and I kept hitting people. They were everywhere, beside me and beneath me, struggling and fighting. Someone hit my face and I went under, and then I came up and I went under again, and then a man got hold of me, a bald headed man. I never saw him before. His face looked perfectly wild and he shouted, Don't struggle and he held me up at arm's length for a minute. But I guess I did struggle and he pushed me off. I sank, of course, but when I came up he shoved a crate at me, just a rough yellow peach crate that was floating by in the river. It almost went under with me, but not quite. I hung onto it and coughed and choked, but when I got my breath again, I pulled myself up and lay with my chest on it, like a raft. It was all underwater, but it raised me a little, and then I looked around for mother and Shub. Did you see them? Edna's words were breathless. No, said Pearl, no. You can't imagine what it looked like, Edna. Something in hell. The water was just thick with bobbing heads, people splashing and struggling. But the screams had stopped. You can't scream when you're drowning, except on the boat. There was screaming there. It had turned clear over on its side and the river wasn't very deep, so it just lay there, half out of water. Some of the people were hanging on to the chairs that had slipped off its deck, and some had climbed up on its hull. But it must have been hard to do that because there weren't as many women there, mostly men, and a lot of little boys. I wasn't more than fifty feet away from it, and I saw Joe Kubiak for a minute. He was kneeling over a porthole, I think. He must have smashed the glass somehow, and he was just yelling into the huge hole like a madman, and I knew he was yelling to Rosie and the baby, and I thought of father caught somewhere inside. I felt he was drowned, though I saw some men dragging a few women out of another porthole. Oh Pearl, gasped Edna, I don't see how you lived. You want to live, said Pearl. You fight to live. I don't know why, but you do. It must have been just about then that a man grabbed my waist and felt the crate under under me and tried to pull himself up on it, and it began to sink. I fought then, Edna. It was like a nightmare. He was awfully strong, but I had the crate. I kicked him off, and he started to go under, but then he caught hold of my leg. He was pulling me down from beneath, but I struggled, and his hand slipped down to my foot, and I kicked and suddenly my shoe came off. And he he just disappeared. After a minute I realized that I'd drowned him. I really didn't care. But then I hated to think of him under me. I was glad I was floating with the current. It didn't take long. Joe Kubiak was still yelling when I looked back at the boat. I was floating downstream, upstream, rather, you know, the funny way the Chicago River flows. I could see the people crowded on the bridge and hear the trolley cars running over it, and even the rumble of the L on the Wells Street Bridge beyond. The docks were jammed by then with people watching, and the windows of the warehouses, some people were even on the roofs. Edna shuddered at the thought of those impotent watchers. And they couldn't help you? Oh, said Pearl, they tried. The river was full of things by then. The Roosevelt had lowered its lifeboats, and some of the Eastlands had swung free from the daffots. Women were hanging on to them and men were climbing into them. I saw life rafts floating, crowded with people, and others were clinging to life preservers, and all along the docks the stevadors were flinging boxes and chairs and ladders and barrels into the water, anything that would float. And the people were clutching them. I guess that's where my crate came from. Or maybe it was on the eastland. And other boats came. The tug was there, you know, and the steamer called the Potoski. I saw its name on a lifeboat, but by this time there were ever so many fewer heads bobbing around, and almost no splashes, and I began to be sure that Mother had drowned, and Shub, too, maybe. And I thought of father again inside that black hulk, and there were firemen on top of it now cutting through the steel plates with some kind of flame. But the people inside, even if they weren't drowned, all must have been terribly injured. I couldn't believe but Pearl What happened? To you, I mean. Oh. After a while I was dragged into a lifeboat. My crate bumped into it, I guess, just in time. I was getting awfully tired and my hands ached, and I hardly knew what was happening. It was full of survivors. The thought came over me as they dumped me down on top of them, that I was a survivor. They had to carry me up on land. They laid me down on a baggage truck near a big pile of fruit crates. I could smell peaches, and the smell of that kindling wood that they make crates out of. I just lay there and smelled it and felt the sun slowly warming me. I guess I was hardly conscious, and then Shub came. He found you there? Yes, he'd been looking everywhere, pushing through the crowd and staring at dead bodies. There was fighting on the deck too. Just like there was in the river. Mothers looking for children and men looking for wives. Shub was alright. He dived in as soon as the band stopped playing. They kept on playing till their chairs slipped under them. They dug their heels into the deck and went on with the tune. Shub said he didn't know why, they just felt they had to. But but then he dived, and he swam around a long time looking for me and mother, but he couldn't find us. He thought they were all dead before he found me. Pearl's voice died down so definitely that Edna was alarmed. Then Pearl fell back from her elbow and lay relaxed, her long body stretched beneath the smooth sheets in a line of utter lassitude. Her face looked very yellow against the white pillows. Drawn and exhausted, Edna rose to her feet. I wonder you're not dead, she said gravely. But you're not. So maybe mother isn't, and even father. Remember, Pearl, you saw some people brought out of that boat alive. I'm going to go on hoping. Severely she disciplined emotion. In the meantime, I'm going downstairs to try to get hold of a doctor and order you an eggnog. You must drink it, Pearl. Pearl made no remonstrance. The hands of the clock on the bed table stood at three minutes past ten. Edna thought desperately of the lagging minutes, the creeping hours of vigil that lay ahead of them, but Pearl was living, preserved to share that vigil. Edna was deeply moved by her inert presence. Facing the sorrow they shared the common memories of childhood. In some ways, as you grow older, there is no one so close to you as a sister. Even back in Blue Island, before they were married, Edna had never felt nearer to Pearl. At two o'clock that afternoon, the telephone rang, and Edna answered it. All morning she had been waiting for that ring. She answered other rings, hope struggling with fear, only to be disappointed, but this was Paul's voice. Yes, she said breathlessly. It's me, it's Edna. Edna we found your mother. Living? She gasped. The pause, no more than instantaneous, was terrible to live through. Then Paul's voice answered tonelessly. No, Edna, dead. She closed her eyes. She leaned against the wall of the telephone closet. Thought was for an instant suspended. Paul's quiet words went on. She died quickly, I think. There's no mark, no sign of a struggle. Then, as she did not speak, his voice rose anxiously. Edna, are you all right? Are you there? She said where did you find her? Again there was a pause. When Paul spoke, his tone was a little constrained. They threw a wire net across the river at La Salle Street. You know there's quite a current. It was there. I see, said Edna. She tried to see. She tried to see her mother's body dragged up with other bodies from the river bottom. She could not see it. She said vaguely, What are you going to do? Go on looking, said Paul tersely. Shub's making the arrangements about your mother. He's pretty well exhausted by this time. He can't stand much more of this. I think he'd better go back to Pearl when he's finished. But how are you, Edna? How's Pearl? Oh, we're all right. Pearl's resting, she just dropped off to sleep. I guess I won't tell her till Shub gets here. When will he get here? I don't know. He's gone to telephone. We'll both be home for dinner. I'll go out again afterward unless unless he meant they had recovered her father's dead body. Edna turned from the telephone, realizing vaguely that she must be stunned by calamity. She could think thoughts like that with hardly a tremor. The knowledge of her mother's death had oddly eliminated all hope of her father's survival. She found herself standing at the foot of the staircase, her mind already nibbling at the thought of black clothes. Of course he's dead, she said the words aloud, bluntly, unconsciously, but they called up no picture of her living father. As she moved about the lower floor of her house, pulling down window shades on the bright afternoon sunshine, that picture still did not come. The caskets can stand in the drawing room, she thought, or should we have a blue island church funeral? That would be better. So many railroad men would want to come. That thought, that phrase broke down her dulled preoccupation with things that did not matter. In a great flood of grief, she saw her father's little figure in his blue station master's uniform, his mild, kind face beneath his visored cap, her mother in the kitchen. Oddly enough, she saw her mother with the dough on her plump fingers, standing at the mixing bowl at the kitchen table on the far away Sunday afternoon of Paul's declaration. Her mother, outraged, angry, imperious, and very much alive. She had made short work of Paul on that occasion, but she had come later to well, appreciate him. She had only wanted to protect her daughter. From what? From Paul? That seemed absurd now. But Edna thought suddenly of Jessie. For didn't a mother always think of a daughter? Think a daughter needed protection from something? From everything? From life itself? It was only to your mother that you remained forever a defenseless child. Edna was overwhelmed with a sense of desolation because that maternal delusion had died with misses Lausser. The tender solicitude had been stilled. To everyone left on earth now, Edna would seem just what she was, a stout, almost middle aged matron who needed no protection. When Shub came back an hour later, he found Edna quite calmly ordering black silk stockings and black kid gloves from Marshall Fields by telephone, and Jessie reading Treasure Island aloud to Junior, and Pearl still asleep in her bed. She slept until tea time, and had only just been told of her mother's death when Paul turned up for dinner. Edna was startled by his appearance, his grave, grey face, his tired, jaded motions. But after a long drink and a sound meal and three cigarettes over a large cup of black coffee, Paul declared he would go back to the search. Shub must not come with him, he said. And indeed, poor Shub looked simply ready to drop. The day on the docks had shaken him terribly. He accepted Paul's suggestion that he stay home with Pearl and Edna and talk over the plans for the funeral. It was to be at Blue Island. Pearl had settled that. She had settled everything with lugubrious competence. She had views on pews and pallbearers, and music and the proper number of carriages. She had a violent prejudice against a motor hearse. Hurrying people to their graves, she said vehemently. Her lassitude left her in the throes of mournful argument. Paul went back to the river where scores of men were working in the brilliant shafts of searchlights, taking bodies from the boat. The dead were carried out and placed on litters. The litters were emptied into motor trucks and police wagons and ambulances. Etna read the story of what he was seeing in the evening extras that Shub stepped out to buy as they were shouted on the street. Five hundred more bodies were in the hull, they said. Four hundred had been recovered from the river. Four hundred and thirteen men, women, and children were reported missing. Seven hundred were known to be safe. The papers were strewn about Edna's Taffeta hung bedroom. All afternoon she had never thought of them, but now she read them, horrified, learning more gruesome details of the tragedy than the workers on the dock could learn from their work. The three inch headlines shouted Greatest all time water disaster. State Attorney Hoyne announces inquiry. Criminal negligence charged. Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis orders impaneling of special grand jury. Somebody made a mistake. Defect in water balance system or too many passengers. The city mourns its dead, but the Eastland was known all over the lakes for its lack of stability. Below decks the grand staircase collapsed under the weight of hundreds of passengers rushing for the companionways. Paul telephoned at ten to say at eleven o'clock the public would be admitted to the morgue that had been established in the 2nd Regiment Armory, and that he was going over there. He told Edna later that night of the tragic thousands he found waiting in the street. They waited patiently. All signs of panic stilled for the doors of the vast death chamber to open. The faces of the mourners indeed could be distinguished by their dulled apathy from those of the sensation seekers who mingled in the crowd. A moment before eleven, the figure of Coroner Pete Hoffman appeared before the doors of the armory. Paul recognized him instantly in the dim light of the street lamps, and others did too, for the mob surged forward. He raised his hand for silence. In the name of God, I ask you to go away and let those who are seeking for relatives and friends come in and identify their dead. The words rang out solemnly, yet terse with official authority. The mob fell back. Twenty at a time the searchers were admitted to the armory. In less than a minute a line began to form on the side. Sidewalk that stretched the length of the block. As the moments passed, the line grew longer and longer. It was there in the farther corner of the armory that Paul found the little body of his father-in-law. A strange young man had already identified it. Paul did not know him. He was standing by a litter not far away with his own dead, a woman and a baby, a young woman with long dark hair that straggled over her shoulders and over the child in her arms. I'm I'm a friend of Shub's, the young man said brokenly. He did not add his name, and Paul did not ask it. But when he reached home with his story, Shub told him who it must be. Edna heard him and thought that the name completed the perfect cycle of her misery. She had not known the Kubiaks, and their baby meant nothing to her, but it seemed peculiarly pointless and poignant that it should have perished with its mother in the Eastland disaster. And strangely enough, it was of that baby she was thinking and its little PK at, when two hours later, in a cot in Junior's nursery, she dropped into a troubled sleep. There is a bit more to this chapter in Edna His Wife by Margaret Eyer Barnes. And I'm sure that the 1930s style of writing sounds a little stilted and stiff to our ears, but nonetheless, this writing remains one of the more emotionally powerful pieces that I've done about the Eastland disaster in the last couple of years. And interestingly or not, it's fiction. And fiction often brings us closer to reality than, say, news reports or even first-hand accounts. That's the beauty of a well-crafted piece of fiction. And Barnes wasn't just a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. You can tell that she cared about the material. And all of that aside, this is what I felt. She truly did honor the people of the Eastland disaster by placing you and me inside of a family, not a heroic or idealized family, but a deeply human one, probably one that most of us can relate to. These are flawed people, grappling with unbearable loss, the unfairness of life, and they struggle. They think things and say things, maybe that they wish they hadn't. And this, too, is part of trauma. And it's honest and it's truthful. So perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that this work, along with Cornelia Otis Skinner's many portrayals of Edna, has been ignored. So much about the Eastland disaster history has been ignored in the 21st century. Yet these works form a significant part of the Eastland disaster's cultural and emotional afterlife. The disaster wasn't forgotten. It continued to shape lives for decades. And people responded through literature, through scripts, through plays, and through poetry. Previously, I shared the poem Eastland Waters by Agnes Lee. I actually shared it in two episodes because it too was ignored. I suspect that there's a lot more waiting to be found based on the patterns that I've seen. In some ways, I think people didn't know how to continue it. And many of the early researchers are no longer with us. That's also a problem. And later, some who followed chose a different path, that of branding and marketing rather than research and documentation. But the work must continue, the research must continue because you have to admit, this stuff is fascinating, right? It's compelling, and it gives us yet another facet to this amazing, undertold story of the people of the Eastland disaster. We'll return next week to continue reading from Edna, His Wife by Margaret Eyre Barnes. Until then, take care of yourselves and please take care of each other. We really do need each other. Talk to you soon. Hey, that's it for this episode, and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes. And for more information, please go to my website. That's www.flowerinther.com. I hope you'll consider buying my book available as audiobook, ebook, 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.

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Natalie Zett

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