The Rose Keeper
Clara Janacek travels from the nearby suburb of Cicero to the Clark Street Bridge over the Chicago River in July 1944. Accompanied by her friend Jerry Stevenson, Clara unwraps a single rose she has clipped from one of her rose bushes and folded in a water-soaked cloth, then drops it into the cold, black water. She is reminiscing and mourning the loss of her sister in 1915, drowned with many others when the ferryboat Eastland capsized.
The SS Eastland was a passenger liner that regularly ferried workers from Western Electric Company to a retreat across Lake Michigan in Michigan City, Indiana. On July 24, 1915, the ship listed and eventually rolled over on its side, trapping many of its 2,500 passengers under water. Despite efforts to retrieve passengers and crew, 844 individuals died.
Considered one of the deadliest shipwrecks in American history, the Eastland is largely forgotten; according to some historians because the ship capsized in only 20 feet of water. According to others, it’s been ignored because, unlike the Titanic, the dead were not among the wealthy class.
The Rose Keeper acquaints readers with the Eastland incident but does little to capture the terror of the passengers trapped within the walls of the vessel with water rising around them.
The novel focuses on Clara’s path from grief to resolution and acceptance by means of Operation Red Rose, a plan by new neighbors Laurie Lucas and her daughter Rosalie to be extra kind and bombard Clara “with blessings” as well as the pressures faced by new-to-the-workplace women like Laurie who staffed war-time assembly lines. It is warm, inspirational, and romantic.
