Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

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Memory can vanish quietly—sometimes with a server shutdown. This week, we open the door to the Eastland disaster’s online past: from an early researcher’s dial-up “postcard pages” to an early Eastland website’s now-defunct archive. We trace how those pioneering digital efforts shaped what many of us think we know today.

Along the way, we revisit transportation historian George Hilton’s foundational work—his flexible approach to casualty counts and the permissions that seeded the first online lists. We also explain why numbers in mass tragedies should stay open to revision, not carved in stone.

Then we bring three family voices back into the light:

• Ole Nicholas Jensen, rescuer and survivor.
• Mary Vrba Lippert, whose resilience carried her from a Wisconsin farm to Western Electric.
• Frieda Emma Amelia Till, saved at 17 and determined to build a full life after that harrowing experience.

Their stories—once carefully attributed online—eventually lost their bylines or  disappeared from view.  We talk about how that happens, how to restore them, and why proper citations and links aren’t pedantry—they’re respect.

This is a story about historiography, ethics, and repair: using the Internet Archive, public history standards, and persistence to restore authorship, correct omissions, and make the record more trustworthy for descendants, educators, and curious listeners.

If you love genealogy, history, or digital preservation, you’ll find both practical guidance and renewed purpose—along with a cautionary tale.

Resources:

• Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Archived version of “Biographies” page, Eastland Memorial Society website. Captured October 9, 2015.
• Elizabeth Shown Mills, “QuickLesson 15: Plagiarism—Five ‘Copywrongs’ of Historical Writing,” Evidence Explained, n.d., accessed October 15, 2025

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A tug’s line goes taut, a mandolin stops mid-note, and a sleek steamer rolls onto its side in six minutes. That’s the scene an eight-year-old John Griggs never forgot—and the memory he later captured in a gripping article, “Excursion to Death,” lost for decades and now brought back to light. We trace the morning’s small warnings at the dock, the sudden tilt that turned joy into panic, and the eerie contrast of the Eastland disaster unfolding within sight of Chicago’s bridges and streetcars.

From that riverbank, the story widens. Griggs grew into a tireless radio actor—over 5,000 shows—and the calm, persuasive voice of Roger Elliot on House of Mystery. Under trailblazing producer Olga Druce, the program won praise for blending suspense with science, helping kids face fear with clear thinking rather than superstition. That mission resonates with the Eastland’s hard lessons: design matters, ballast and beam matter, and ignoring repeated warnings carries a human cost. We walk through the ship’s troubled history, the investigations that followed, and the strange afterlife of the Eastland as USS Wilmette, a training vessel that sailed safely for years once stripped and balanced.

Along the way, we reclaim Griggs not only as a witness and performer, but as a quiet guardian of culture. He assembled one of the largest private film collections in the country, later forming the foundation of Yale’s Film Studies Center. Memory survives because people choose to keep it: through writing, radio, archives, and stories we pass on. Join us as we connect a six-minute catastrophe to a lifetime of teaching courage, reason, and care in storytelling.

Resources

• John Griggs, “Excursion to Death,” American Heritage 16, no. 2 (February 1965).
• “Olga Druce,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
• From Eastland Witness to Radio Legend: John Griggs’ Journey (Flower in the River Podcast)

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A century after his birth, George W. Hilton is still guiding our footsteps. This episode honors the transportation historian whose book Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic became the cornerstone of Eastland disaster research. After discovering my own family connection to the Eastland Disaster, Hilton’s work became my north star.

What begins with grief — and a surprise manuscript from a relative — unfolds into a story about how scholarship, storytelling, and stubborn love for truth can rescue memory from the margins.

I share the early frustration of facing Hilton’s dense footnotes while craving a human arc, and how another Eastland researcher’s long-lost web essays built a bridge into the story.

Along the way, we unpack Hilton’s core thesis: how post-Titanic safety regulations, lifeboat mandates, and a top-heavy design converged with ballast flaws to create catastrophic instability. We revisit the numbers debate — death certificates, Coast Guard counts, Tribune tallies — and highlight the rare intellectual humility Hilton showed by documenting uncertainty rather than forcing false precision. It’s a masterclass in research methods, regulatory history, and ethical remembrance.

We also sketch Hilton’s life: Chicago-born, Dartmouth- and University of Chicago-trained, UCLA professor, prolific author on railroads, cable cars, and night boats. Hilton literally went the extra mile, visiting the graves of Eastland victims to verify names and pay respect. He never tried to control the narrative, but instead invited others to complete the record and join the research.

That spirit propels our push to make his work more accessible through digital and audio editions — because discoverability is the lifeline of public history and genealogy.

Resources:

• The Eastland Disaster. Documentary. Southport Video Productions, 1999. Accessed via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Featuring George Hilton.
• George W. Hilton. Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic. Stanford University Press, April 1995

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This week we take a deeper dive into the Claims and Libels files (In the Matter of the Petition of St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, Owner of the Steamer Eastland, For Limitation of Liability) preserved in the National Archives Catalog. The research revealed a startling omission — a victim missing from the original compilation of Eastland victims and from most later derivative lists (with one exception!)

By cross-checking court filings, obituaries, and family connections, I was able to restore a missing piece of the Eastland story.

This episode is also a tribute to George Hilton, whose Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic remains the cornerstone of Eastland research. His scholarship was unmatched, and like all historians (and genealogists), he knew the work was not complete and invited future scholars to review, correct, and expand on it. By leaving the door open for discoveries like this one, Hilton reminded us that history is never finished — it is a shared effort across generations.

Resources:

• Claims and Libels files, In the Matter of the Petition of St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, Owner of the Steamer Eastland, for Limitation of Liability, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. Records preserved in the National Archives Catalog.
• George Woodman Hilton, Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), Internet Archive
• Eastland Disaster Victims: A Virtual Cemetery. Find a Grave.

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Admiral Hyman Rickover—father of the nuclear navy and one of the most influential military figures of the 20th century—had a connection to the 1915 Eastland disaster that’s been virtually forgotten. As a 15-year-old Western Union messenger in Chicago, young Rickover delivered telegrams to grieving families throughout the night following the tragedy. What haunted him most? The undertakers who swarmed the scene, exploiting grief-stricken families for profit. “Where money is involved,” Rickover later wrote, “some people will stop at nothing to get it.”

This discovery emerged from a 1979 newspaper article—one of many overlooked historical threads I’ve been pulling while researching the human stories behind the Eastland Disaster. The revelation pairs perfectly with another significant find—court documents from the National Archives containing detailed personal injury claims filed by survivors against the steamship company.

These legal records give voice to survivors whose experiences have remained buried for over a century. Frank Brady described being “violently thrown” into the Chicago River, leaving his “nervous system greatly injured, shocked and shattered.” Harold Durkee detailed broken ankle bones and lost wages totaling what would be thousands in today’s dollars. Mrs. Abby Wiley recounted being trapped in the water, suffering injuries that prevented her from working while medical bills mounted.

These documents are invaluable primary sources—actual testimony rather than newspaper accounts or later retellings. They reveal not just the physical and emotional trauma of survivors, but the financial devastation many faced. A $10,000 claim in 1915 represents roughly $320,000 today, showing the magnitude of what these working-class families lost.

These stories were never truly hidden—they’ve been waiting here all along. Join me as we uncover the forgotten voices of the Eastland Disaster, stories that have lingered in plain sight, just waiting to be seen and heard.

Resources:

• Hyman G. Rickover, “Eastland Disaster,” Union Leader (Manchester, NH), May 28, 1979.
• National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Folder 14: Claims and libels (Record Group 21, Records of District Courts of the United States, Law Case Files, In the matter of the petition of St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company, owner of the Steamer Eastland, for limitation of liability) [Court records]. National Archives Catalog. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/485300049?objectPage=83

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At just 17 years old, Peter Hardy stood on a Chicago bridge in 1915, watching the Eastland fill with happy Western Electric employees on their way to a summer picnic. Moments later, the ship rolled onto its side, plunging more than 800 people to their deaths.

Peter didn’t run. This Rusyn immigrant teenager dove straight into the polluted Chicago River and began hauling people out — families clinging together, strangers fighting for breath. He saved at least ten lives that morning before finally staggering away, shaken but alive. And in the chaos, looters stole the very shoes and jacket he had set aside before leaping in, leaving him to walk home barefoot.

In this episode, I share how I stumbled across Peter Hardy’s heroism — and why his story struck me so deeply. Like Peter, I am Rusyn. That shared identity made his presence in the Eastland story all the more astonishing, since our small, stateless people are rarely mentioned in Chicago’s history at all.

From Sanok, a small town in Poland, to Chicago and Connecticut — Peter Hardy’s story runs through all three. A Rusyn teenager who leapt into a river, walked away barefoot, and built a legacy that endures.

Resources:

Mills. Making Places of Connecticut

Bridgeport Sunday Post, Sept 5, 1965 — “Peter Hardy Was a Hero at Capsizing of Excursion Steamer 50 Years Ago,” by Andree Hickok.

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In this episode, I return to Dwight Boyer’s "True Tales of the Great Lakes" and discuss two forgotten heroes of the 1915 Eastland disaster—one remembered correctly, the other erased for more than a century by a newspaper typo that turned my fact-check into a full-blown genealogical detective story.

The Mystery Begins

While researching Boyer's account of the disaster, I encountered two names that appeared nowhere else in most modern Eastland documentation: N.W. LeVally,  and J.H. “Rista,”  who reportedly saved 40 lives. Both men had crucial roles in the rescue efforts, yet their stories seemed to vanish as time passed.

Norman LeVally: The Yale Man

My search for LeVally led me through Yale Alumni records and Chicago Tribune obituaries, revealing a successful businessperson who worked for the Oxweld Acetylene Company for nearly two decades. But his connection to one of Chicago's greatest tragedies was missing from his biographical record.

The Case of the Missing Hero

J.H. Rista proved elusive--putting it mildly. Though credited with saving 40 lives and defying Captain Pedersen’s orders to halt rescue efforts, he seemed to exist only in a single 1915 newspaper account, Boyer's book and the Chicagology website. Searches across multiple genealogical databases turned up nothing.

Breaking the Code

The breakthrough came in the November 1915 proceedings of the International Order of Odd Fellows. Where the account of Brother J.H. Ripstra and his heroic actions during the Eastland disaster was mentioned. 

The Real John Henri Ripstra

John Henri Ripstra wasn’t just a hero of the Eastland disaster. He became a nationally recognized sculptor, numismatist, and Lincoln scholar. He founded the Lincoln Group of Chicago in 1931, led the American Numismatic Association as president, and was later inducted into its Hall of Fame. His art and scholarship helped shape how we remember Abraham Lincoln.

Yet because of one misspelling, none of his extensive biographies seem to link him to the day he helped save lives during the Eastland Disaster.

The Larger Truth

This episode exposes an ongoing and troubling pattern: the lives of so many tied to the Eastland are too often overlooked—sometimes erased by something as simple as a typo.

Resources:

• Journal of Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the State of Illinois, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Seventy-Eighth Annual Session, November 16, 1915.
• Ripstra, J. Henri, ed. Lincoln Group Papers: Twelve Addresses Delivered before the Lincoln Group of Chicago on Varied Aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s Life and Interests. 2nd series. Chicago: Lincoln Group of Chicago, 1945.
• Boyer, Dwight. True Tales of the Great Lakes. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1971.
• Chicagology

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Hidden stories have a way of finding the light. In this fascinating deep dive, we uncover two previously unknown documents that reshape our understanding of the 1915 Eastland disaster that claimed over 800 lives in the Chicago River.

The first discovery reveals how the tragedy transformed American journalism. Through a December 1915 Associated Press Service Bulletin, we glimpse the behind-the-scenes response of the nation's leading news agency and hear the voices of newspaper editors across the Midwest praising the AP's "remarkable" coverage for its "promptness and accuracy." These testimonials from Kentucky to South Dakota demonstrate how thoroughly this Chicago disaster reverberated nationwide.

Even more compelling is the eyewitness account of the Burns brothers - Luke, an attorney visiting Chicago on his honeymoon, and his physician brother Peter who responded to the disaster scene. Their harrowing story, published in a small Minnesota newspaper but never incorporated into mainstream Eastland narratives, provides chilling details: a woman swimmer killed by a barrel thrown from the overturned ship, a Polish survivor who saved 25 people through a porthole, and grieving mothers who lost multiple children. Luke Burns minced no words, calling it "criminal negligence" and describing the Eastland as "not seaworthy" and "top-heavy."

This pattern of finding crucial historical evidence in overlooked sources raises profound questions about historical preservation. As with many neglected chapters of history, it's often independent researchers, genealogists, podcasters, and dedicated volunteers who step up to document stories that might otherwise vanish forever. The truth, as they say, has a way of surfacing - even if it takes a century and everyday citizens to bring it to light.

Want to help preserve these important stories? Subscribe to the podcast, visit flowerintheriver.com, and consider picking up the book that started this journey of historical recovery.

Resources:

• Boyer, Dwight. True Tales of the Great Lakes. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1971.
• Associated Press Service Bulletin, December 17, 1915
• The Virginia Enterprise, Virginia, Minnesota, July 30, 1915
• Minnesota Historical Society
• Eastland Disaster Victims (Find a Grave).  Looking for Eastland Disaster victims’ photos and bios? As of 2025, this is a great place to start. It’s a crowd-sourced initiative, created and maintained by people who genuinely care about those who died on the Eastland. You can also contribute!

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Three young engineers fresh out of Cornell University were running late to the Western Electric company picnic on July 24, 1915. One had overslept, making the trio miss their train and arrive at the Chicago River docks just as their coworkers were boarding the SS Eastland. Redirected to a secondary boat due to overcrowding, they stood on a bridge and watched in horror as the Eastland slowly tilted, then capsized in the shallow water, trapping hundreds inside. Their tardiness had saved their lives.

This remarkable eyewitness account of the Eastland disaster might have been lost forever if not for Jake Fry, who decades later told the story to his friend's son. The friend, Ira Cole, had never spoken of that day to his own family—a silence that mirrored many survivors' responses to trauma. What makes this account particularly valuable is how it captures not just the immediate catastrophe but its aftermath: the desperate rescue attempts continuing into the night, the train ride home with grief-stricken survivors, and the sleepless night that followed.

Both Ira Cole and Jake Fry went on to have distinguished careers in engineering—Cole becoming a pioneering electrical engineer with Lockhead Electronics and Fry developing the relay system for long-distance direct dialing at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Their contributions to technology and their communities illustrate the profound ripple effects of survival. Had they boarded the Eastland that day, not only would they have likely perished along with over 800 others, but their innovations and family legacies would never have existed.

This story, published in Thousand Islands Life magazine in 2011 yet overlooked by many Eastland researchers until now, reminds us how easily historical memory can fade without deliberate preservation. 

Too often, disasters like the Eastland are sensationalized, packaged, and sold. But in that process, the real people disappear. Each disaster holds countless individual stories—voices silenced, memories carried forward quietly. Recovering those narratives isn’t just history; it’s resistance against forgetting. What parts of your family’s story are still unspoken, waiting for someone to ask the right questions?

Resources:

• Cole, Rachel. “The Eastland Disaster.” Thousand Islands Life Magazine, 13 Nov. 2011, Note: The comments on the original 2011 article add an interesting layer to this story. They’re worth a look if you’d like to see how the narrative was being shaped at the time.
• Boyer, Dwight. True Tales of the Great Lakes. Chapter 2, “Who Speaks for the Little Feller?”

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One shout could have saved lives.
On the morning of the Eastland Disaster, a lone street peddler saw the danger before anyone else. His warning was met with laughter and scorn, and while his experience was recounted in the papers, it was under the wrong name.

In this episode, we return to Dwight Boyer’s True Tales of the Great Lakes and follow one story back in time—stepping onto Chicago’s Clark Street Bridge on July 24, 1915, and tracing the trail from century-old newspapers—first to the real name, and then to his origins in Sicily and finally to the heart of Little Sicily (Chicago), along with the life he built before and after that pivotal morning.

This is the story of how a simple error—repeated for more than a century instead of being researched—can bury a legacy… and how setting it right can bring a hero back into the light.

Resources Referenced

• Boyer, Dwight. True Tales of the Great Lakes. Chapter 2, “Who Speaks for the Little Feller?”
• Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1915.
• Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), July 26, 1915.
• Lombardo, Calogero. “A Brief History of Chicago’s Little Sicily Neighborhood and the Saint Philip Benizi Parish.” 2013.
• Additional Music: Multiple tracks sourced from Pixabay. Licensed for free use under the Pixabay Content License.

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