Flower in the River

Martha Pfeiffer, age 19, was one of 844 persons who perished when a ship chartered for the Western Electric annual picnic capsized in Chicago in 1915. Martha's surviving family members never recovered from their grief. The Eastland Disaster has been mostly overlooked in recent years.

In 1997, Pearl Pospisil, a retired Chicago writer, and third-generation Pfeiffer, composed a family history and delivered it to her niece, Zara Vrabel, in St. Paul, who was completely unfamiliar with its content...