OLE NICHOLAS JENSEN Submitted by Richard H. Jensen 1999

My grandfather, Ole Nicholas Jensen was a survivor and a rescuer. Ole was born in Denmark in 1880 and came to the US at the age of 9 around 1889. After a short stay in New York or New Jersey, he lived in Chicago the rest of his life. He was on the excursion by himself that day, even though he was married with a wife and two young sons at the time - one of them my father. He retired from Western Electric in 1945 and died in Indianapolis, IN in 1962 at the age of 82. He didn't talk about the Eastland too much. He always said that the boat rolled on its side when everybody rushed over to wave goodbye to those on the dock (A theory that was probably not complete. But he lived for another 47 years believing that this is what had happened). He was below deck on the port side and had to pile furniture up to crawl out a porthole. After hoisting himself onto the hull, he helped pull many people from the water. Then he spent many hours identifying the bodies of his co-workers at the makeshift morgue. The family back home in Jefferson Park had heard of the tragedy and were very worried about his well-being until my grandfather finally walked into the yard, where my father and uncle were playing. I grew up thinking it was quite normal for my grandfather to have survived a steamship disaster. We actually had a next door neighbor in Elmhurst, IL when I was very young, whose two sisters had reportedly survived the Titanic. This is why steamship disasters seemed normal enough to me when I was young.

HERMAN EDWARD KRAUSE Submitted by Karl J. Sup 1999

Herman Edward Krause was born the first son of Herman Carl Krause and Augusta Caroline Kottwitz Krause on August 8th, 1893. His older sister succumbed to smallpox before he was born. His father came from the Hinterpommern village of Gross Lüblow and Ossecken to Chicago in April 1888. As a young child, Herman would work in the glass cutting plants in Janesville, Wisconsin. Sweeping up at the factory caused him to inhale glass dust which would eventually cause tremendous breathing problems later in life. At the age of 21, he applied for a job at Western Electric. The Hawthorne plant was close to home and very convenient. As the annual company picnic was planned, Herman was asked to play Uncle Sam in the parade in Michigan City. After all, he was 6'3", thin as a rail and perfect for the part. He accepted and soon his mother Augusta busily sewed together a handsome garment. The parade participants were encouraged to board the first ship out, the Eastland, to allow time to set up the parade at their destination. When the ship capsized, Herman was on the starboard railing waving goodbye to friends and was thrown into the water. Throngs of people thrashed about and Herman did his best to stay above the water. As rescuers descended on those in peril, Herman heard a rescuer shout, 'Grab Uncle Sam!' as he was pulled from the water. Several years later he met Elsie Neumann at his church, later marrying her on June 4th, 1921. Ironically, Elsie was also a passenger on the Eastland. Herman passed away on August 24th, 1959 and is buried in Concordia Cemetery.

MARY LIPPERT nee VRBA Submitted by Glenn Lippert 1999

She was born 1894 on a small farm, owned by my grandfather Victor Vrba, near the small town of Coloma Wisconsin. She was the eldest of seven children, when her mother Anna died at a early age. Mary then became the "mother" of her six siblings. At that time in history rural folks had to be self sufficient, but neighbor would help neighbor. As they grew older her "mother" duties came to an end and it was her time to start a life for herself. She then left for Chicago, and all that her father Victor, said was "Don't let me hear anything bad about you". She came to Chicago alone and started working at the Western Electric plant. She was in her early twenties and single. She at the time was living in Maywood Ill. She was one of the lucky survivors of the Eastland disaster.She never spoke about the incident much and always downplayed it. She was in the water and a man from an adjacent office building threw her a life preserver. She took a hold of it and paddled over to the dock and climbed up a makeshift ladder. When asked about what she did once on dry land, she answered that she was soaking wet, got on board a street car and went home. It was later after the disaster she met Edward E Lippert. In due course they married and had three children. The oldest Donald died at a early age before the other two were born. Later a son Glenn, followed by a daughter Carole, made up her family. She had great pride in the Western Electric. She earnestly wanted Glenn to work there. During the days of WWII, he applied for work there while he was waiting for his 17th birthday, to enlist in the Navy. The noise in their punch press department, where the presses were as tall as a one-story building, was so loud and neverending, he quit before even starting. To some extent this broke her heart a little. Needless to say she had a fear of water, she didn't like Glenn going into the Navy. Her fear was further componded while he was aboard ship overseas. She, Carole and husband Edward went on a day excursion aboard a ship on Lake Michigan. He suffered a celebral hemorage out in the middle of the lake, and by the time they reached shore he was dead. This componded her fear, together with the fact Glenn was particiapting in the invasion of Okinawa, subject to Kamakize attacks. The war ended, he came home and her life as a widow assumed a normal course. As her children married she became the grandmother of 12. She lived most of her adult life in Chicago, Elmwood Park, Melrose Park, and the balance of her elderly life in a retirement home in Elgin Ill. If she were alive today she would be the great grandmother of 9, and Great great grandmother of 2.

ELSA IDA FRIEDA NEUMANN Submitted by Karl J. Sup 1999

Elsie Neumann was born to Ernst Neumann and Adeline Kosbab Neumann on September 13th, 1898 in the small Indiana farming community of Denham. The Neumann's arrived in Chicago from Pomerania in early 1872, however, Chicago was still recovering from the devestating fire the previous October, and they settled in Indiana. In 1905, Ernst and Adeline moved their family back to Chicago. Elsie, her older sister Hattie and younger sister Emily worked for Western Electric. Elsie worked on the winding benches while her sister Emily worked at the main switchboards. Elsie and Hattie boarded the Eastland early that morning, anticipating a day of relief from the factory floor. Emily had to work the switchboards that Saturday. When the ship capsized, Hattie and Elsie were standing at the starboard railing waving goodbye to friends and were thrown into the water. Elsie couldn't swim and was struggling to stay afloat when someone beneath her grabbed her ankles and high-laced boots and began to pull her under. Just as she finally resigned her struggle and began to sink, a rescuer grabbed her long waist-length hair and pulled her into a boat. The mass of humanity was so thick on the water that whoever had held her ankles never surfaced, and pulled off her boots. Hattie also survived. Emily was busy through the day, answering calls from distraught relatives of the passengers. Some years later, Elsie met Herman Krause through her church and they married on June 4th, 1921. Herman ironically was also a survivor of the Eastland catastrophe. Elsie never went swimming again and only took shallow baths. She always thought that everyone ran to wave goodbye (because of the crowd at the starboard rail) and tipped the ship over. She never understood that it capsized to port, away from the wharf. This tells you how confusing and quick the ship went in. Elsie passed away on July 19th, 1992 and is buried in Concordia Cemetery. (In the picture, left to right: Hattie, Emily and Elsie)

GABRIELLA 'ELLA' SCHLENTZ Submitted by Colleen Ringel 1999

Gabriella Schlentz (or Ella as she was known to her family and friends) was the eldest child of Gabriele and Peter Schlentz. Peter was a bailiff for the either the Cook County or Chicago courts. Both of her the parents were immigrants to the United States, arriving as children from Luxembourg. They lived on the west side of Chicago in a suburb called Cicero. This was a neighborhood of primarily immigrant families from Germany, Poland, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), and other eastern European countries of the late 1800s. The biggest employer of the area was Western Electric at their Hawthorne plant, which made telephone parts. This was an area of people who were relatively new to the US and tended to be very close friends and family. A type of neighborhood that we do not see much of any more, where everyone knew everyone else, kids played in the streets together and families had many connections to each other, either as family or as immigrants to a new land. Ella and her brother Harry both worked at Western Electric. The day of the disaster, the two of them had made arrangements to go to the picnic together. Ella left first with her fiancée, John. She was 20 years old and worked as an accountant at the plant. I am not sure what her fiancée did. Ella and John got to the dock and boarded the boat. Harry was late, as usual. It was a joke in the family that Harry was born too late for Christmas (12/26) and he was late for everything ever since. Harry arrived at the dock at the exact moment that the Eastland capsized. He immediately started to help in the rescue but also was frantically trying to find his sister, Ella. In the meantime, word was going out to the city of the disaster, I imagine by radio and word of mouth as survivors and witnesses slowly made their way home in shock so my great-great grandparents heard the news and immediately thought that they had lost two children, their two oldest. Peter, because of his connections with the court system, was able to get updates easier than others but did not get word of his children. My mother recalls her mother (my grandmother) telling her that the family was devastated and in chaos. Finally, several hours later, Harry arrived home to tell his parents that his sister had drowned but that her fiancée had survived. From what I recall being told, Ella drowned because she was pinned by one of the smoke stacks or a column but I cannot confirm that fact. Because of the vast number of casualties, it caused a problem in the neighborhood. Again, remember most of the victims came from the same neighborhood, same churches, etc. The stress on the facilities must have been staggering. There are only so many funeral homes, and only so many funerals a church can perform in a day. Ella was not buried until July 29th, 5 days after the disaster. On the list of victims from the disaster, you will find names such as Jungwirth, Meyer, Turek and Immel, names that show up on my family tree as having married into the family. We are pretty sure that they are somehow related to us as shirttail relatives (relatives of people who are relatives by marriage). It was a very sad time. A lasting remnant of the disaster did prove to be a happy one. Peter Schlentz was convinced that if his daughter had known how to swim, she might have been about to help herself. Starting the following summer, he started taking the family to Cedar Lake, Indiana so that the children could begin to learn how to swim and at least get comfortable with water, even if they only learned how to tread water. Several years later, on advice from the judge he was a bailiff for, he started taking the family to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin instead of Indiana. Because of this disaster in 1915, my grandmother met my grandfather when they started going to Lake Geneva. So there is sometimes a silver lining in a disaster.

FRIEDA EMMA AMALIA TILL Submitted by Lorraine D. Robinson 1999

Frieda was born on June 20th, 1897 in Chicago, the daughter of Carl and Augusta Klatt Till. Carl Till came to America from Prussia at the age of ten months in 1873 and settled on the north side of Chicago. He later moved to Belmont, IL in DuPage County. She was an employee of Western Electric Company and was looking forward to the annual company picnic. When the Eastland capsized, Freida was dangling in the water, hanging by her clothing that had caught on the railing. After she was saved by a Chicago fireman, she saw the firemen spread ashes on the side of the Eastland, trying to make it possible for people to hand over hand on a rope from boat to land, but she could not do this. There were others near her who she felt did not make it through the accident, but she knew no names. It was a harrowing experience for her as she was approximately 17 years of age when this happened. She often related her fear of water and how she had survived the sinking of the Eastland. Her thought on the cause of the turnover was the result of a City of Chicago fireboat that went along side of the Eastland, making passengers run to one side of the boat for a better sight, thus upsetting the ballast. Freida married Peter F. Helder on March 29th, 1919. They had two daughters, Lorraine Dorothy (Robinson) and Doris Ann (Thomas). Freida and Peter lived in Chicago until 1932 then moved to the small town suburb of Chicago, Oak Lawn. Frieda then went back into the work force and was the manager of the childrens shoe department of Sears at 63rd and Halstead Streets in Chicago. She worked there long enough to be invested in their retirement program. The family then moved further south to live where Lorraine had located in Frankfort, IL. Freida lived there after the death of Peter and moved to an apartment in the center of town. She occupied her time by joining the German Evangelical Lutheran Church and becoming a member of their Ladies Aid Society. She involved herself in church work, often setting up the Sunday services needed for communion. Freida had three grandchildren: Sherry Lynn Thomas (Seizega); David Lee and Richard Lee Robinson. Freida passed away March 28th, 1977 and is buried in Fairmount Cemetery. (Picture dates from late 1915 to 1919)