Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Alive & Anxious: Frank Escapes, Amelia Waits

• Natalie Zett • Season 2 • Episode 80

Share episode

Send us a text

Step into a time machine and find yourself on the misty banks of the Chicago River in 1915. The air is thick with anticipation as thousands of Western Electric employees and their families prepare for a day of fun. Little do they know, history is about to be made – not in triumph, but in tragedy.

Fast forward to 1976. One survivor and one daughter of a near-miss survivor-- their memories as clear as the day the Eastland capsized, sit before a microphone. Their voices, now preserved for eternity, paint a vivid picture of that fateful day.

Meet Frank Blaha, just 18 when disaster struck. Picture him, perched on the upper deck, oblivious to the doom that lurks beneath his feet. The ship lurches, and in a heartbeat, Frank's world turns upside down – literally. His tale of survival is a roller coaster of luck, quick thinking, and the cruel randomness of fate.

Then there's Amelia Kotas Stelton, whose father cheated death by mere minutes. Imagine the agonizing wait as her family clung to hope, not knowing if they were widowed or orphaned. Through Amelia's eyes, we see a community torn apart and stitched back together by tragedy.

But this isn't just about the disaster. It's about the ripples that spread through time:

  • The eerie premonitions that saved lives
  • Children, wide-eyed and curious, sneaking peeks at the aftermath

And just when you think the story ends in 1915, it leaps forward to today. As your guide through this time warp, I’m happy to share a startling twist: these long-forgotten voices are now reaching ears across approximately 42 countries. From Germany to Poland to Hong Kong and beyond, the people of the Eastland Disaster refuse to be silenced.

So, as you walk along your local river or board your next boat, remember Frank and Amelia. Their voices, once lost to time, now whisper a powerful message: every family has a story worth telling. What's yours?

LINKS:

 

Natalie Zett:

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. Hi, this is Natalie, and welcome to episode 80 of Flower in the River podcast. So, throughout this podcast series, my intention has always been to let you hear in people's own voices what the experience of the Eastland disaster was like. If, at this point, there is anyone who is still alive who remembers the Eastland disaster, that would be nothing short of a miracle, because that was over 100 years ago. Fortunately, there are some wonderful first-person accounts of what happened during that time, but this has always involved me reading those accounts. But this week I'm going to sit back well, just a little bit and I'm going to let a couple of extraordinary people who were there during the time of the Eastland disaster I'm going to have them tell you what this was like. Yes, you heard that. Right, you are going to hear their own voices, and I will explain how this all came about.

Natalie Zett:

In this episode, I'm sharing the audio from a remarkable 1976 recording that captures the stories of Frank Blaha, an Eastland disaster survivor, and Amelia Stelton, who didn't know if her dad was aboard the Eastland and whether he was alive or dead. It was recorded as part of a class at Chicago City Colleges and it offers intimate insights into this tragedy, from Frank Blaha's vivid memories of the moment to Amelia Stelton's reflection on her father narrowly escaping the tragedy. This recording bridges the gap between history and memory. As I was listening to this and I've listened to their interviews several times this week the emotional weight of their stories still was with them, probably until the end of their days, and it demonstrates how deeply the Eastland disaster impacted not just individuals but entire communities, and I will be posting a link to the full video on my website, so please take a look at it. It's really fun to watch them as they go back in time and retrieve those memories. So I want to introduce you to the first person that you'll hear in this recording Frank Blaha. At the time of the Eastland disaster, frank was just 18 years old, which meant he was probably born around 1897. He didn't work for Western Electric but he did work for Western Union and he ended up on the Eastland because of a friend who did work for Western Electric. But by 1920, frank himself started working for Western Electric and by 1941, he was living in Elmwood Park with his wife, marie, and he was working for Matt Miller Laundry Company. Frank passed away in 1980, and he was survived by his two children, including a daughter, in Madison, wisconsin, where he spent his final years. Now, the recording was wonderful to find, but I also want to let you know that Frank previously spoke about his experience on the Eastland as well, and I want to share a snippet of that article with you before you hear Frank talk about the experience himself. This is from the Chicago Tribune, the date is July 25th 1966. And I'm not going to read the entire article but I will post it, and the headline is Three Survivors Recall Day of Horror on Eastland. But this is the part of the Eastland. Who are unable to forget the chilling details of the disaster are Frank J Blaha, elmwood Park, and Joseph Kral, the Cicero tax collector. This is Blaha's story Quote.

Natalie Zett:

Joe and I got on the Eastland about 7 am. The ship was supposed to sail at 7.30 am but we wanted to get there early to get on the top deck. I was only 18 years old and was working for Western Union and living on the west side. Everybody on the west side went on the excursion. After a while the gates closed on the dock and a bell clanged for the tugboat to pull us out into the lake. When the bell sounded for the tugboat, when the bell sounded for the tugboat, everybody ran over to the riverside of the ship to watch the tug. All of a sudden the boat lurched. Folding chairs started sliding to the riverside. We heard loud crashing from below decks and people started screaming, scrambled to rail. The ship slowly turned over and Joe and I started scrambling for the railing near the shore side. We got there and crawled over the railing onto the hull just as the boat settled in the water. Right behind us was a man who hooked a cane on the railing onto the hull just as the boat settled in the water. Right behind us was a man who hooked a cane on the railing. We helped him over the side and as we did, we could see people in the water. Men were holding women by the hair. The screaming was awful. People were calling out looking for loved ones when an ore boat came by. Joe and I jumped off the capsized ship to the ore boat. From there we got ashore.

Natalie Zett:

Now we're going to listen to Frank tell the story in his own words. This interview was recorded in 1976, and the quality is not what we're used to. I tried to clean some of it up, but it was difficult to do so without distorting the voices entirely, and I'll provide a transcript for you as well, just in case this is difficult for you to understand. But hearing him speak is really a privilege and an incredible find. So let's listen to Frank right now. Again, this interview was done in 1976, and it was conducted by Robert Stelton. That name will come up again.

Frank Blaha:

Mr Braha, could you give us some of the details of your experiences on the Eastland that day and the events that followed?

Frank Blaha:

Well, like I told you before, yes, it was a morning, kind of a drizzling morning, and my friend and I, joe Crawl, got onto the ship and we decided we were going to go to the upper deck, up to the top, and we did and we got up there it was still drizzling a little bit and soon after that why? The bell rang. That meant that the gates downstairs were closed and no more passengers were admitted. So he just sat a few minutes and well, soon the captain come out of his cabin there and the tugboat was then pulling in to tow this ship into Lake Michigan. To this affair that was held in Michigan City, this picnic or whatever they called it, and was shortly after that, before the tug even got its full connection to the ship, the captain come and he says well, I don't think we should leave yet, we've got the straight miss boat out. It was tilted. Then it was just a few minutes after he said that one big crash and the boat just capsized, went clearly over toward the port side, that is, the center of the river, and the screaming and the loose chairs that were in this ship and all the fancy glassware that was around, you could hear it crumbling underneath us. So this friend and I, we decided we were going to rush downstairs right away.

Frank Blaha:

Of course, we went down on flight flight and, like I stated, there was a fellow there was stuck with a cane. He couldn't get over and we pushed him over Once he got over onto the hull of the ship. Why? You were safe, like we too. We crawled over the rail then and we then slid down to the bottom of the boat and we waited Shortly after that, why the fire department was there and the people doing this was all along that Wacker Drive there and it was a marketplace there and they were throwing in chicken crates where people could hang onto these chicken crates and hang onto anything they could grasp.

Frank Blaha:

It was one scene straw hats were floating and suitcases on the river. It was a terrible sight. Well, we waited and then shortly, the ore boat come in and we jumped into the ore boat from the ship and then we were taken to the shore and, like I say, joe and myself went into one of the taverns there on Clark Street, and that's where I called my mother, that is, I called this tavern that I told you about and asked the tavern owner there if he would please go across the street and call my mother.

Frank Blaha:

Before we get to your mother. There are one or two points that I'd like to ask you about. Did you actually hear the captain of the tug saying that they can't go until they get out of the boat? Yes, yes, that's one of the things that, uh, now, this was the captain of the tug that you had, the captain of the ship?

Frank Blaha:

No, the captain of the ship. The tug was still operating, you know, to get in there to make the connection with the ship. Okay, and, like I say before, they never even loosened up the ropes that were attached to the ship. It was still tied to the dock and there was screaming. And then the people that were in the waters, you know, and women those days they wore long hair, you know had none of this bob hair stuff then.

Frank Blaha:

Well, some of the styles are along again now.

Frank Blaha:

Now, yeah, well, anyway. So you want me to go on with the? Well, that's okay.

Frank Blaha:

one other question I did want to ask, though, because some of the reports suggested that the boat had listed once, then righted itself just momentarily listing no no, because the captain didn't have time for any of that, you know.

Frank Blaha:

But, like I say, it was a crash and we could hear all of that, and then people were jumping into the water, you know that, were able to get from the other side over like you know, you helped at some of the rescue. No, I didn't, no, we just were well, only like I say that fellow when you helped the one person with the cane.

Frank Blaha:

One person there was cane and then he couldn't get over. We put him over so he could slide down, see, and it was kind of blocking us off there too. We had to get to that rail so we could get over too, had to get to that rail so we could get over too.

Frank Blaha:

Earlier, though, you mentioned to me that this was a Western Electric cruise, a holiday cruise, but you weren't asked my superior at Western Union that I'd like to be off that Saturday, that I was going to go to an annual affair of Western Electric that has this affair out in Michigan City, and he says, oh sure, frank, you just go ahead, it's all right. So I did. But afterward, when this, when they heard about it at the Western Union, they were trying to get in touch with me, you know, because they know that I went to that picnic and they wanted to get some information from me, if I was alive, that I could give them that. Because you see those days what they had, they had these tickers out, if you remember. They used to give out all news reports and stock markets and grain markets and things like that, and then they had what they called a gossip ticker, used to give out all the information to all these brokerage houses. You know the information. So they wanted me so they could get some of that news.

Frank Blaha:

but they couldn't locate me. Did you think that you could have been a reporter in a big news story?

Frank Blaha:

Oh, I like when I told you when I had to come to the phone and I talked to my mother. She says, frank, this is hard to believe. You just come on home and then I'll believe what you're telling me. And I said to her Ma, remember, you'll get this news and I wanted to get that to you sooner than you would from the newspapers that will be out on the streets hollering extra paper, extra paper. That's the only communications people had. This was before radio and television.

Frank Blaha:

There were many unhappy aspects regarding the capsizing of the Eastland, mr Guaha, and perhaps one of the most unhappy parts of it were the events that took place at the Washington Armory.

Frank Blaha:

Yes, that was one of them. Absolutely grotesque People actually found out then, you know, when they discovered their relative or whoever it was, they were so despondent. You know that just they couldn't believe it. You know, just a short time ago they might have spoken to. Part of this was some parts of these families too. You know that was lost that way, but they just left home that same day and then something like this occurring. It's hard to believe. And then so many 812 that drowned in the Chicago River not in the lake, but in the river. It's hardly believable. You know that anything like that could happen in a river and the ship, still tied to the dock, never moved.

Frank Blaha:

At the armory itself, you personally identified the body of your friend.

Frank Blaha:

Yes, yes, we did yes, and then we notified his folks and then they would come to the armory to identify the body and then to tell them where they wanted that body to be sent, to which undertaker or establishment.

Frank Blaha:

What was the scene like at the armory? Was it one of almost hysteria for some people?

Frank Blaha:

Oh, yes, yes, it certainly was. There were people crying and just moaning and everything else when they seen all this that was there. And then when they especially when they found who they were looking for, there, it was, oh, it was. The sight was terrible.

Frank Blaha:

I've been told that, in addition to the drownings, that some of the bodies have been crushed and mangled as a result of the ship capsizing and like pianos and this type of thing falling against them.

Frank Blaha:

Well, that could be Now, of course, like I said, I haven't seen any of that, but there was a family across from me. They lost a fellow there and he was found underneath the piano in that rubble there, you know, or it slid down to that one side there. Many of these people, like I say, even that girl that I attended that funeral. She was a very good swimmer. If she just had any chance at all to get into the water she wouldn't have any trouble at all.

Frank Blaha:

But being caught down there, like I say, there was all these loose chairs throughout the place and that all crashed down to the bottom there, to the one side where everything went down to the bottom there, to the one side where everything went and glass they had a lot of fancy glass fi down there and everything that followed, like the chair slid, sliding down to the bottom there and people were clucked right down there. You had no chance, whatever. It was 2,500 that got on that ship and 812 down. So you can imagine well, some, like I we were, only a few of us were up on top, up there by the captain there, you know. But the rest of them were caught down there and the ones that were able to be on this side after she got down, you know, were able to scram out just like we did. We were able to get out.

Frank Blaha:

How did the tragedy affect the neighborhood in which you lived? Was it a topic of conversation Every day, every day?

Frank Blaha:

it certainly was A tragedy like that, after more and more newspapers come out with the facts you know of knowing how many were dead At first, you know they didn't know until, like I say, these newspapers got out and then they start saying hundreds and then afterwards, in the final, when they said it was 812, it actually drowned. They had the figures start at the end of the week.

Frank Blaha:

You served as a pallbearer at one funeral. Did you go to any other funerals?

Frank Blaha:

No, that was the only one I attended was to this girl. She was three-quarter alert and I gave her the name Lillian Burts and, like I say, she was a good swimmer but she had no jack. She was found at the bottom there with the rest of those bodies. It was terrible. Just think that a thing like that could happen with a ship that wasn't even on the move. I mean, you tell people they say I can't believe it that that many people were drowned in the Chicago River.

Natalie Zett:

Now we're going to move on to our next interviewee. Her name is Amelia Kotas Stelton. She was born in 1907 to Czech immigrants in Chicago. Her dad was a laborer and by the time the 1920 census rolled around, the family had settled in Berwyn with Amelia and her younger sister. Now Amelia went on to marry, raise three kids and live a full life in the Chicago area until her passing in 2001.

Natalie Zett:

And during the interview I think you're going to enjoy Amelia no-transcript, and he's the one behind the mic and doing the interviews. Oh, and a quick heads up If you watch the video, you'll see that Amelia had a poodle on her lap, and during the interview, the poodle was a perfect angel. So about halfway through her discussion, amelia's cuckoo clock decided that it was time to have its own star moment, that it was time to have its own star moment. And what I did is I tried to get rid of that sound. I think some of it is still in there, but if you hear something odd that's coming through, that's what it is. However, if you watch the video, you will hear the cuckoo clock in all of its glory. So I just wanted to warn you in case you hear some weird distortion. That's what that is, okay.

Amelia Stelton:

Mrs Felton has some unique memories of that fateful event.

Amelia Stelton:

My father had to get an early start because he was, with two of his buddies that he worked with, was assigned to some job in the engine room on the Eastland, and the day before the event they had their gauntlets rubber gauntlets elbow length issued to to them, and so he left bright and early and we weren't going, so we were to meet him at an aunt's house later that day, after the excursion, after the picnic was over. He was to pick us up over there and then we would all return home together. Well, we were on our way to board the streetcar to take us into the inner city where an aunt lived, and the news broke that the Eastland had sunk. And of course we were sure that my father was on it because he left early enough and he had a job to do, so we were just positive that he was on it. Well, the whole day was a day of misery and, as I recall, I never saw such tragedy and excitement before that, because everybody in the entire neighborhood was involved in one way or another.

Amelia Stelton:

Everyone in the whole area, either the entire family went to the picnic, or a brother or an uncle, or a father, and when the news broke there was an extra issue, a newspaper extra, and we waited to hear. Of course we didn't leave Berwyn then because we waited to get news, to find out whether or not my father was one of the victims. Well, we didn't know until the end of the day. In the meantime, the calls were coming in. There were about two telephones in the area within about two blocks, and they were getting the messages and delivering them. As fast as the telephone calls were coming in, the owners of the phone were scurrying up and down the street delivering the messages that your father or brother or uncle is safe or they drowned. And well, it was a terrible day and I remember my mother's distress. It must have been a terrible thing not knowing all that day whether or not she was a widow with a baby about to be born.

Amelia Stelton:

We go back to your father once again Now. He was supposed to have been on the Eastland, but he wasn't. How did that happen?

Amelia Stelton:

Well, he and the two men that were assigned to this job and they were from the same department stopped for a last last beer I don't know just where that was on shore and when the final whistle blew, meant that they were all to be on board and the gates were to be closed, the gangplank taken up or whatever it is that they do, but the whistle blew and they were all to be on at the last call. And he said to his two friends up or whatever it is that they do, but the whistle blew and they were all to be on at the last call. And he said to his two friends you go ahead, I'll see you there in a few minutes. I'm going into the washroom. And while in the washroom, within a matter of minutes it seemed after his friends left and did board the ship, he heard the screams and the noise and he looked out the window and he saw the Eastland shifting and slowly going down on its side and in minutes it was Bedlam, the screams of the people in the water, and he was petrified.

Amelia Stelton:

He said he just stood there looking out the window. He saw the women in the water pulling off their corsets and throwing them away and screaming for help and doing everything they thought might help them to save their lives or help to be saved by somebody. And he saw them clinging to the side of the ship, standing on the side of the boat. And well, that was the only reason that he wasn't on and it was because he just stopped for a few more minutes. But his two friends were on and they both drowned, stopped for a few more minutes but his two friends were out and they both drowned.

Amelia Stelton:

Were any relatives or other close friends of your family victims of the tragedy.

Amelia Stelton:

Close friends, yes, and no other relative, but close friends, because Berwyn at that time was really considered a very small town and everybody within block of one another.

Amelia Stelton:

All knew each other and and we're all close friends, and I think that the tragedy affected almost every household in one way or another either, and in some cases the whole families were wiped out. And in the case of his two friends, the one tried to escape through the porthole and as the boat was shifting, an upright piano slid across the room and wedged him between the piano and the wall. And when they finally were able to remove him, they had to first dislodge someone who was clutching his hair on the outside. They were pulling his hair, trying to hang on. They hung on to anything, everybody, in any way they could, hoping that this would be the means of hanging on until help came and the other friend of his managed to get out. He doesn't know how he got out, but he drowned. He wasn't saved, but he was in the water. He was one of those that was taken out of the water.

Amelia Stelton:

Was this an annual event that was sponsored by the Western Electric?

Amelia Stelton:

That I don't know. I only know that after it happened, that was being that I was only eight I didn't follow it up to know whether it was a customary thing. It up to know whether it was a customary thing and what the feelings were. Everybody agreed that it was a terrible tragedy and an accident. But the Western Electric never planned another excursion. There never was anything like it after that. But the things that happened, everyone had an intimate tragedy to talk about, because it seemed like anyone you talked to in Berwyn knew someone or was related to somebody that had something to do.

Amelia Stelton:

Another friend of ours who was a spinster was a forelady in one of the departments of the Western Electric Company and she was to issue the badges and ribbons to the members of their department when she got on the boat. Well, hers was a case similar to ours. Because they were late in boarding the boat, she and her relatives were saved, and boarding the boat, she and her relatives were saved. Her sister and nieces and nephews were late in coming and they too had to.

Amelia Stelton:

Everybody had to use public transportation. We didn't know anyone who owned an automobile, they all went by whatever public transportation was available in their area. And she lived in Cicero and her relatives lived in Berwyn. Well, by the time they got to her house, she just knew they were going to be late and she was pretty upset and angry about that. But as it happened there too, it was a lucky break for them, because that's the only reason two families, two entire families, were saved in that instant. Because they were late and by the time they got there they said no more allowed to board the boat and they boarded the Roosevelt instead of the Eastland.

Amelia Stelton:

That's interesting. Did the Roosevelt instead of the Eastland? That's interesting. Did the Roosevelt leave for the?

Amelia Stelton:

excursion. No, there was no picnic after that. No, that was the end of it. There was no picnic. I don't know who came to the rescue or anything like that, because the only first-hand, or almost first hand, information we had was of what my father was able to see that day from the window. And then he went out and he realized there was nothing he could do, since he himself was not a swimmer winter and it helped seem to come from all over immediately. But, um, I guess, uh, maybe it isn't a puzzle to everybody. It was a puzzle to me why more of them weren't saved, since they were so close to the shore. They never left, they never left. The boat never moved, except to think.

Amelia Stelton:

That, incidentally, of the Titanic, so it was a major catastrophe. Usually associated with an event of this sort are stories of premonitions or warnings.

Amelia Stelton:

For warning In the instance of the two families I just mentioned. The poor lady that worked at the Western Electric another one of the families that was supposed to go the head of the household also was a Western Electric employee. He a pretty good job there too and he wanted his whole family to go. Well as it happened, his wife had a great-grandmother, grandmother or spiritualist, and she gave her a warning and this is the way they tell it, and one of the grandchildren are still living and she's a woman my age, so I know that this can still be verified by her. This this was her great-grandmother and she claims that her mother said she heard a knock on the back door and went to the door and nobody was there. And then there was a knock on the front door. She went to answer and nobody was there. And she heard a third knock on the back door or front door and nobody was there.

Amelia Stelton:

So when her husband came home with all the preparations made for the following morning we were going to get an early start she said I'm not going. I got word and a warning and we're not to go, and he was very angry about it. He went and he did board the ship, but he was one of the survivors and she wouldn't go with her family. Now there was another instance, something like ours, for a different reason, but because the family didn't go, because they're two, they were a family that, had they gotten there, had she decided to go with the family, they would have been there early. Had she decided to go with the family, they would have been there early. But she refused to go. So he went alone, but he was one of the survivors.

Amelia Stelton:

For the next few days after the Evelyn had baptized. What was life like in the small town?

Amelia Stelton:

How did it affect the town. It was sad for everybody. There was emotion, but in a very unnatural kind of way because, as I learned later, undertakers from Chicago, from all over, anybody that could help, from any place, came to Berlin and Cicero and Chicago to help take care of the dead. And there were some, it seemed like at that time, as I call now it seemed that there was not a house that didn't have a place on it. There were a group of children I don't know what grade I was in at that time, but there were four, five or six of us same group that decided we would fall and everybody else was going in and out these houses. We decided we would do it too. I don't know how much is natural curiosity. I don't think that we were morbid to the extent of it being an unnatural thing for kids to do. That was the first time anything like that had ever happened in Berwyn and within a radius of, say, four or five.

Amelia Stelton:

Block square was, oh, a big territory as far as we were concerned, and we went into every house that had a crepe on the outside and some of the houses didn't have front porches and front stairs, so we'd go around the back and going around the back meant you went through and came out through the kitchen again and some of the kids that were gutsier than I was would snitch a donut or aookie or something as they went out, because it was the time when, if any family had a tragedy or a death in the family, the neighbors all did their part and came in with all the baked and cooked dishes and helped out in every way they could.

Amelia Stelton:

And many of the people in Berlin at that time were of Czech extraction and I always felt, looking back at it now, that I had an advantage over some of the kids because I could understand what the older people were saying in Bohemian and some of the kids didn't understand it and of course it made it all the more terrible as each one described this gruesome thing that happened to their particular family, to these individuals in that house and one of the things I think that was the scariest to all of us.

Amelia Stelton:

We discussed it after our tour, so to speak. We would talk about it and we were not convinced that they were all dead, because in one particular instance it happened to be one of the men that was to be on the job with my father. We stood at his casket and watched intently and we would have sworn that he was still breathing, because from time to time his chest would heave and his sister stood at the head of the casket and, with a white handkerchief bordered in black, would dab the water that would trickle down from the corner of his mouth and sometimes run out the nose. And so, looking back now, I wonder how much of an embalming job, or whatever they did. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances being so that there were so many people that had to be taken care of.

Natalie Zett:

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to Frank Blaha and Amelia Stelton.

Natalie Zett:

It's fascinating that, despite the historical significance of the Eastland disaster voices like Amelia's, for example they've been overlooked, and these stories are invaluable and I'm honored to share them with you here. It's also bittersweet to note that, while some stories have been somewhat buried, they are resurfacing now. Why I don't know, but I'm really grateful for that, and I think that that's the beauty of persistence and passion. These narratives can't stay hidden forever. And also, I could be missing somebody. But other than Libby Ruby, who was about four years old at the time, frank Blaha is the only other survivor of the Eastland disaster whose voice I've ever heard Now. Libby was four years old, and a four-year-old experience is very different than an adult Still very valid but Frank, of course, was able to articulate exactly what was going on. He had an incredible memory, but he also had an eye for detail, so that was also very compelling. And how about Amelia's description of visiting the departed? That's a fascinating part of history, where funerals or laying out the bodies takes place in the show notes and on my website, and I hope you will watch the video because it really is fun to see both of them in action and, if nothing else, you got to see Amelia's poodle. So these people lived through this history and somebody had the wherewithal to record that back in 1976. And for both of our interviewees, as well as the people who made the video Robert Stelton and there's also a Matt Stelton mentioned never in their imagination could they envision what the future would hold for this. I think that that's really exciting, that a message like this from the past can come to us nearly 50 years later.

Natalie Zett:

But this time it's going global. I was just looking at my statistics from Buzzsprout. That's the platform I use to publish the podcast and I also publish on YouTube, by the way, but on Buzzsprout, flower in the River podcast has listeners in 42 countries. To me that is astonishing because something like this podcast isn't exactly playing to market. I'm doing this because so much of this history has been neglected and it's part of my family and so many other families that I think well, their stories need to be told. The fact that it goes all over the place and I get emails from people in Germany, poland, russia, I have listeners in Hong Kong and China it blows my mind that something that happened in Chicago in 1915 that has been largely forgotten has a reach. It still has a reach.

Natalie Zett:

So to you, don't assume that your own history, your family's history, is not that interesting, not that important, because really you and I don't know that, you don't know who someday somewhere way down the road is going to need those stories, need your words. So hold on to that and I hope that motivates you to take care of your own history, just as these folks did. Well, I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you next week. Take it easy. 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 wwwflowerintherivercom. Wwwflowerintherivercom. 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.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Natalie Zett

Host