[The following is took place following the rescue efforts following the sinking of the SS Eastland. Context for the disaster, courtesy of Wikipedia: “The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915, the ship rolled over onto her side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.”]
Through it all, the bodies kept arriving from the east, in Black Marias, funeral carriages, and drays, as if off an assembly line. A collective anguish drew down on the community like a black shade. Many of the men repressed their sorrow, refusing to talk about what had happened. One of these men was a janitor at the Hawthorne works named John Salak.
Salak and his wife had been on the Eastland, but as was the case with so many, they had been separated during the capsizing. Salak’s wife had not survived. The janitor kept his grief bottled up. His brother had tried to help, but Salak rebuffed all acts of kindness.
”Let me alone,” Salak kept saying to anyone attempting to connect with him.
Two days later, police found the janitor dead in his bungalow on Kildare Avenue, a gas tube in his mouth.
Source:
Bonansinga, Jay R. “Chapter Seventeen – Coffins in Every Mirror.” The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy. Citadel Press, 2005. 195. Print.
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