Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

From Eastland Witness to Radio Legend: John Griggs’ Journey

• Natalie Zett • Season 2 • Episode 84

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In this episode (84), I explore the intriguing life of John Griggs, a talented actor from the Golden Age of Radio and Television—and an important witness to the Eastland disaster. I share his vivid account of that tragic day in 1915, which he wrote for American Heritage Magazine just two years before his death. His story gives us a rare and personal perspective on the catastrophe.

John Griggs wasn’t just a familiar face and voice from radio and TV; he was also a passionate film preservationist. His extensive film collection became the foundation for the Yale Film Studies Center, and I talk about his lasting impact on preserving film history. 

Topics Covered:

  • John Griggs’ firsthand account as a witness to the Eastland Disaster.
  • His career during the Golden Age of Radio and Golden Age of Television.
  • His contributions to film preservation, including the donation of his collection to Yale University.
  • New details on African American workers involved in the Eastland rescue efforts.
  • The importance of using multiple historical sources to gain a richer understanding of past events.

Shout-out!

A huge shout-out to Coloma, Wisconsin! You make up 11% of my audience, and I appreciate every single one of you. Thank you so much!

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. Hello there. So before we get rolling, today I have to share some exciting news. I hit a major milestone with Flower in the River podcast on Buzzsprout. That would be 2,500 downloads. I mean wow. Thank you to everyone who's been listening, sharing and being part of this journey with me Totally unexpected, by the way, and it's truly because of all of you that this podcast keeps growing. And, as you can tell, I never run out of people who were somehow associated with the Eastland disaster whose stories have not been told. I would have to say at this point, the majority of the stories of these people have not been told. So I've been very busy.

Natalie Zett:

And, speaking of listeners, I was looking at my stats and noticed something fun Coloma Wisconsin, or do you pronounce it Coloma Wisconsin? I really couldn't find the definitive answer online. Anyway, coloma, wisconsin, population 450. You make up 11% of my audience. That's 266 downloads, which means over half the town might be tuning in. I doubt that's true, but that's what it looks like on the statistics.

Natalie Zett:

For those who don't know, coloma is a quaint little town in Washera County known for its peaceful rural charm. It's been around since the mid-1800s as a farming community and they've kept that small-town closeness. Oh, and Coloma is also famous for the annual Coloma Chicken Chew that's C-H-E-W, not S-H-O-E festival held at the end of June. Sounds like a clucking good time, right? Anyway, I'm no stranger to small towns myself. My second great-grandmother and many of her children immigrated to Fall Creek, which is on the western side of Wisconsin, and it's a town of about 1,000 people, so that's more than Coloma.

Natalie Zett:

While I've lived in larger cities my whole life, there is something about these smaller communities that has always fascinated me. So, coloma, wisconsin, whether you're relatives, whether you're connected to the Eastland disaster or just awesome, mysterious fans, I want to give a huge shout out to you. Thanks for being a part of this. You're small but mighty, stay mysterious and keep listening, and I made a video, thank you to you, and I just posted it on YouTube. I'll put a link in the show notes. Okay, let's do this.

John Griggs:

Post mak ers of Post Corn Toasting. Welcomes you to the House of Mystery. This is Roger Elliott, otherwise known as the Mystery man, inviting you to join us for another storytelling session here at the House of Mystery. And now I see it's time for today's mystery, the story I call A Gift from the Dead. It began in a hotel in San Francisco.

Natalie Zett:

How did you like that? I love old time radio and whenever I have an opportunity to get it into the podcast, I do. Well, the voice you heard in the episode Gift from the Dead was none other than John Griggs, also known as Roger Elliott. This was from the 1940s radio drama House of Mystery. John Griggs wasn't well known even during his lifetime, but he had a successful career during the golden age of radio and the golden age of television. Let's begin at the end. And the golden age of television. Let's begin at the end. Here is John Griggs' obit from February 27, a long illness. He was 58 years old.

Natalie Zett:

Mr Griggs, a resident of Inglewood, new Jersey, began his stage career in Detroit. His first Broadway experience was in the George Arliss production of Merchant of Venice. He was heard in over 5,000 network radio programs, notably as Roger Elliott in the House of Mystery. During World War II he broadcast for the Voice of America. As television grew, mr Griggs appeared on the Jackie Gleason program and the United States Steel Hour. Surviving are his widow, known on the stage as Mary Noonan Davis, a son, timothy, a graduate student at Yale University, and a sister, mrs Marion Breeze, of Minneapolis.

Natalie Zett:

John took his lack of recognition in stride. This will give you an insight into the type of person he was. This is from the Kennebic Journal in Augusta, maine. The date is Thursday, december 19th 1957. Headline the face is familiar. Tv stalwart John Griggs is the one who never gets the girl. Inglewood, new Jersey. A man of a hundred faces is John Griggs of Inglewood.

Natalie Zett:

On meeting Griggs, people invariably puzzle haven't I met you someplace before? The answer is yes, for his face has appeared on the television screen in innumerable capacities. Griggs is the doctor who holds up a bottle of medicine and tells you earnestly of its merits. Or he's a husband assuring his wife her scrubby hands have beautified with swonderful hand lotion. He may be the family man worried about sludge in his car, or the guy who seeks to sell you United States savings bonds. To confound the viewer more, griggs might appear during the evening as a dramatic actor appearing completely different, playing a pompous producer or a meanie you'd like to hiss the net. Result is you never remember quite who he is, but you're convinced he's the man down the street.

Natalie Zett:

Though a veteran of the stage for 30 years, john Griggs never got the girl. He has played any number of character parts, but never the hero. Any number of character parts, but never the hero. Just why? Is a moot question, for Griggs, who is a contemporary of Cary Grant, is a mighty, handsome man with genial, open-faced good looks and a sense of humor that persists in shining through. It may be that leading men are not supposed to have a sense of humor. This being so, mr Griggs will be playing character parts until the snow melts up a mountain.

Natalie Zett:

Griggs is an incurable romanticist. His big interest besides his English-born wife Mary and teenage son Timmy, is a penchant for collecting old movies. Timmy is a penchant for collecting old movies. He possibly maintains the oldest and most expansive privately owned collection in the United States John Barrymore's early endeavors, dolores Del Rio in Evangeline, the Scarlet Letter with the incomparable Lillian Gish, charlie Chaplin routines that today are still screamingly funny. Griggs has them.

Natalie Zett:

Movie Night at the Griggs Household is an event that conjures nostalgia. As guest you will watch many luminaries of old and both stage and screen. A descendant of Edward Eggleston, who wrote the Hoosier Schoolmaster, griggs recalls that in his family even the women, including his grandmother, were sturdy individualists who wrote books, were devout churchgoers and supported the WCTU movement of Francis E Willard, who was their next-door neighbor. He has a novel going himself and has published several articles. Perhaps Griggs seems so much like the man next door because he is just that a good neighbor, a likable, an actorish fellow. He is at home at the PTA, as a speaker at the women's club or exchanging jokes at a rotary luncheon.

Natalie Zett:

Griggs may never play hero, but it's quite likely he'll last another 30 years as a character actor when many current leading men long since have vanished. Current leading men long since have vanished. What in the heck does this have to do with the Eastland disaster? The answer is everything. So John Griggs, the character actor everyone recognizes but few can name, was not only talented on the screen but he was a gifted writer. In 1965, just two years before his death, he published an article in the American Heritage magazine sharing a deeply personal story.

Natalie Zett:

Born in Evanston in 1908, john was a child when he and his uncle, a Western Electric employee, headed to the Chicago River on July 24, 1915 to attend the company's annual picnic. This was published in the American Heritage Magazine in 1965. It appeared in Volume 16,. It appeared in Volume 16, issue 2, title Excursion to Death by John Griggs. Built for speed, with light hull and heavy superstructure, the tall Eastland was unstable. On a sunny Saturday in July, thousands crowded aboard what turned out to be an excursion to death. When Uncle Charles was given two tickets for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, I was excited days before the event. I was eight years old. But the picnic festivities themselves at Michigan City, indiana, meant little to me. The supreme thrill came from the anticipation of embarking on a steamer at Chicago for the trip across Lake Michigan to the picnic site. Lake Michigan to the picnic site.

Natalie Zett:

My earliest childhood was spent north of Chicago, at my grandmother's in Evanston, just 50 feet from the edge of the lake. There I passed many hours sitting on the shore, watching the lake ships through a pair of ancient opera glasses, through a pair of ancient opera glasses, identifying freighters, tugs, barges, tankers. Twice a day I ran out to the end of the breakwater to see the old whaleback Christopher Columbus pass on her way to and from Milwaukee. To me the lake was a living, fascinating creature of sometimes terrifying moods. A mile north was the Grosse Pointe Lighthouse and foghorn. On stormy nights, when the wind whistled and the foghorn mournfully sounded, my grandmother's house was pervaded by an eerie sense of the peril of the deep.

Natalie Zett:

But the lake was to provide no storm-tossed high adventure. For me it prepared an experience far more fearsome. No thought of tragedy could have crossed the minds of the 7,000 who had passage booked for Saturday July 24, 1915, on chartered lake steamers from the Chicago River Piers to the Western Electric Picnic. And that Friday night I was too excited to sleep. Would we be out of sight of land, I wondered. Would I be permitted to see the engines and the steering mechanism? Would I be lucky enough see the engines and the steering mechanism? Would I be lucky enough to sail on the Eastland, or would it be one of the lesser boats?

Natalie Zett:

I knew all about the Eastland. She had a reputation of being the fastest boat on the lakes, with a speed of 23 miles an hour. With a speed of 23 miles an hour she was 260 feet long, 38 feet wide and weighed 1,961 tons. Newspaper ads heralded her as the twin-screw steel ship, eastland's largest, finest and fastest excursion steamship. The ads neglected to mention that the Eastland had a history of being an unstable ship.

Natalie Zett:

A thin mist drifted off the lake as Uncle Charles and I left for Chicago that Saturday morning about 6.30. When the elevated train crossed the Chicago River into the loop, I glimpsed the picnic steamers loading a block away and urged Uncle Charles to get off at the next station and walk a few blocks to the Eastlands dock. But my uncle had no taste for walking anywhere but on a golf course and we stayed on the L until it went around the loop and came back closer to the pier. The delay most likely saved our lives. Streams of people in a festive mood headed toward the docks, including, I noticed, many boys and girls my age, dressed for the occasion in sailor suits and midi blouses.

Natalie Zett:

I had my first good look at the Eastland when we arrived at her pier just west of the Clark Street Bridge and got in line. I remember a feeling of awe at her hugeness, her sleek lines and the twin funnels from which rose tall plumes of smoke. Two other steamers were in the immediate vicinity the Petoskey across the river and the Theodore Roosevelt to the east of the bridge. They seemed stumpy, small and ugly compared to the racy magnificence of the Eastland. We were soon caught in a jam of people struggling toward the Eastland, but Uncle Charles' attention centered on the ship's crowded upper deck. I hate to disappoint you, he said gently, but we may have to take the Roosevelt. The Eastland looks full, but the Eastland will be the first to go and she's the fastest, I argued, we'll try anyway, he replied. As we moved toward her, the side of the Eastland looked like an enormous gray wall pierced with portholes through which I could see happy faces. I also noticed electric light bulbs shining inside the ship, and the fact that she manufactured her own light greatly impressed me.

Natalie Zett:

The paper said later that the Eastlands crew was herding passengers aboard like cattle. If so, I wasn't tall enough to see it, though I do recall the press of the crowd. Somewhere on the top deck I heard, above the din of thousands of merry voices, a little mandolin and fiddle orchestra played rag time. When we got near the gangplank, uncle Charles spoke to a uniformed official. Isn't the boat packed? Oh, I don't think so, the man answered. There aren't so many people on board, but those that are are all on the upper deck. That's why it looks crowded. We looked up. People were indeed jammed across the rail cheek by jowl. At that moment, a ticket taker at the other end of the gangplank shouted get all on this boat, you can. The other boats will be overcrowded and we don't want to leave anybody. I relaxed, we'll make it after all.

Natalie Zett:

Then came the first hint of impending disaster, packed though it was with people going aboard. The gangplank slowly rose at least two feet from the dock. At the same time, the Eastland's cliff-like side fell back away from us. Uncle Charles grabbed my hand, pulling me out of line. We have to take the Roosevelt, he said abruptly. So near, yet so far. I almost cried. She's leaning, I shouted to my uncle. We pushed to the bridge, railing for a better view. She was leaning, tilting at what must have been an angle of at least 30 degrees, but the mandolin and fiddle orchestra still played and the laughter and shouts continued. Her deck, I remember, was a sea of white shirts, white duck trousers and fluttering white handkerchiefs.

Natalie Zett:

On the bridge, the captain calmly gave the routine orders to get underway as the tug Kenosha pulled alongside, preparing to pull the Eastland down the river and out into Lake Michigan. As the tug's lines were secured to the Eastland's prow, there were shouts of see you in Michigan City and save that dance for me. Then a launch sped down the middle of the river a movie camera cranking furiously on its foredeck. Cranking furiously on its foredeck and in 1915, a movie camera was a novelty, and this one inspired hijinks and imitations of Charlie Chaplin aboard the steamer. But it was later stated by some witnesses that the camera launch had caused a rush to the Eastlands port side. But as I remember it, the Eastlands deck was so crowded that no such mass movement could have been possible.

Natalie Zett:

Yet at this instance the Eastland heeled over so far that tragedy became inevitable. At her stern she was still moored to the dock, at her prow to the tug, but now only the stern lines were taught, and it is likely that they prolonged the breathless moment. All aboard suddenly realized that the ship was doomed to tip over into the river. The music stopped in the middle of a bar. There was a moment of uncanny silence. Then, as people began sliding, jumping, catapulting into the water, the screaming began. At that time I had never heard adults in a panic, and even today I think that the cries of those on the Eastland are the most terrifying thing I have ever heard. The screams were taken up in greater chorus by the crowds on the bridge around us and by those on the other boats and by those watching from a warehouse across the river. One minute silence, the next a gigantic roar, a cry of despair.

Natalie Zett:

As the Eastland leaned farther over, there came an explosion of wood as the taut stern lines pulled the mooring posts from their sockets. Slowly, the ship rolled over on her port side until her deck was submerged to the center. Men, women and children slid from her like ants brushed from a plank. Hundreds floated, struggling out into the river, some trying to swim, others helplessly opening their mouths to scream, only to be choked by dirty water as their terrified, imploring faces sank from sight. Etched in my young mind was the sight of women buoyed up, for a time by air, trapped under their billowing, voluminous skirts, and of babies momentarily floating like corks until the water soaked them. The entire surface of the river was black, with writhing, drowning humanity. Black workmen in the warehouse across the river began hurling boards, crates, anything that would float into the water to be clutched at by the drowning Men stripped to their underwear and dove to the rescue.

Natalie Zett:

Hundreds of life preservers were flung into the water from the Roosevelt. Many who had been on the starboard side of the vessel climbed up on her side as she careened. They didn't even get their feet wet. Others clung to the railings. Some were strong enough to pull themselves up to safety. Others were helped. Many dropped into the water as their grip weakened, the Kenosha backed slowly into the mass of humanity, her crew hauling people aboard as fast as they could. Hauling people aboard as fast as they could.

Natalie Zett:

If one had been able to discern all of the sounds of those minutes, he might have heard the muffled moaning of those trapped inside the Eastlands' hull. Portholes were smashed and people lifted out when they were too large to get through. Their clinging hands were removed to make way for those with smaller bodies. No sooner were my eyes fixed on one ghastly scene than they were attracted to another, equally terrible. When the police cleared the bridge, bodies were already being brought up. I remember particularly one slip of a girl, pale and lifeless, her long Alice in Wonderland hair, wet and stringy, her thin white dress with a velvet ribbon at the waist clinging to her slender form. It took us an hour to reach the elevated through the packed crowds, the screaming ambulances and the other official vehicles.

Natalie Zett:

When word of the Eastland reached Lockport, 34 miles away, the lock in the dam of the drainage canal was closed up to stop the Chicago River's current Fireboats and tugs clustered around the death ship and began the task of gathering in the bodies. The grief-stricken procession of relatives identifying loved ones commenced. Without a doubt, it was one of the worst disasters in maritime history. The count of the dead immediately after the accident came to 812 out of the 2,500 who were aboard. Subsequent deaths from injuries and other causes raised the toll to 835. On the Titanic three years before, 1,500 out of 2,200 had been lost. But the Titanic had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic while the Eastland was still lashed to her pier in the Chicago River, in the heart of a great city with elevated trains and streetcars rattling past within a few hundred feet. The Titanic took all night to sink. It was all over with the Eastland in six terrible minutes.

Natalie Zett:

The official inquiry disclosed that the Eastland had been known to sailors as quote the crank ship of the lakes. End quote. There had been panic aboard several times before. When cruising out on the lake, she had listed and her passengers had been ordered to shift from side to side until she stabilized so widespread that in 1910 her owners had run an ad in a newspaper offering $5,000 to any person who will bring forth a naval engineer, a marine architect, a shipbuilder or anyone qualified to pass on the merits of a ship. Who will say that the steamer Eastland is not a seaworthy ship. Who will say that the steamer Eastland is not a seaworthy ship?

Natalie Zett:

Two years before the catastrophe, a letter had been written to the harbormaster of the Port of Chicago by naval architect J Devereaux York. You are aware of the condition of the SS Eastland. The letter read and unless structural defects are remedied to prevent listing, there may be a serious accident. And nine years before this letter, only a year after she had been put in service, a local steamship inspector, in order to give the Eastland more stability, had ordered her top deck cut off and her ballast tanks filled at all times. The deck was removed, but the tanks were emptied going in and out of shallow harbors.

Natalie Zett:

All of this evidence pointed to the fact that the Port Huron Michigan firm that built the Eastland in 1903 had one thing in mind a ship fast enough to make the 170-mile round trip between Chicago and Grand Haven, michigan, twice in 24 hours. The Eastland's hull was light, but her superstructure was heavy and she was narrow for her height. None of the men indicted in the case the president and the vice president of the steamship line that owned the Eastland, her captain and chief engineer and the two inspectors who certified her seaworthy, were ever proved guilty of charges of negligence and conspiracy. One of the most persistent accusations was that the chief engineer had contributed to the disaster by not properly filling the ballast tanks. As late as 1935, suits were being brought in by the courts by survivors of the Eastland's victims.

Natalie Zett:

In my teens, sailing out of Chicago aboard the old Christopher Columbus, I saw the Eastland once more. She had been bought by the Navy and, with a deck cut off, was transformed into the training ship Wilmette. I recall that she still had the smartest lines of any vessel in sight. I learned later that she served as a gunnery practice ship in the Second World War. And finally, in 1948, after sailing more than 150,000 accident-free miles for the Navy, the beautiful but deadly Eastland was broken up for scrap. End of article.

Natalie Zett:

Well, this is another long-lost story of the Eastland that I did not expect to find. But what a find this was, and I hope you enjoyed listening to John Griggs' account of what happened on that day. John Griggs went on to have an interesting life as an actor, and not just an actor. I want to tell you about the contributions that he made to the preservation of film, made to the preservation of film. But first I want to say that he might not have spoken about the Eastland during his lifetime, but two years before he died he felt compelled to write about it and if you think, a child might not have that kind of recall, this guy was extraordinarily intelligent and I think his attention to details, his love of ships, where he was raised, his imagination was just stoked by the whole experience.

Natalie Zett:

There's something else that John Griggs mentioned that I haven't seen in any of the resources that I've reviewed to date. Now it might be out there and I could have missed it, but this really stood out. John talked about his observations during the Eastland disaster and noted that several Black laborers on the docks were throwing crates and whatever they could find to try to save people. I've not seen that documented anywhere else. I'm going to dig deeper and search for more stories about this, because my hunch is that if it was reported at all, it probably wasn't reported in the main papers of that time period. There were African-American newspapers back then and I'm going to explore those just to see what I can uncover. There might be more information about these individuals and this brings home a point brings home a point. This is why it is so important to explore a variety of sources, not just rely on one or two Primary sources like John's story give us a fuller, deeper, richer picture of what happened. And in this case it's especially significant because the Eastland disaster reflects all of Chicago at that time, not just one or two groups. Chicago is, and certainly was at the turn of the century, an extremely diverse and dynamic place to be and that should be reflected in the stories of the people of the Eastland. And I think when we can see ourselves reflected in history it makes it more relatable. History comes alive when we connect with the emotions and the stories, not just names, dates or numbers. But I want to read an excerpt from a book called Nitrate Won't Wait A History of Film Preservation in the United States by Anthony Slide, published in 1992.

Natalie Zett:

John Griggs was never a well-known actor, but his voice was heard on more than 5,000 radio programs, notably as Roger Elliott on Mutual's the House of Mystery from 1945 to 1949. Not only did Griggs collect films, but he also copied many of the rare items in his collection, selling prints of them under the company name of Griggs Movie Drome. At the time of his death, on February 25, 1967, john Griggs had a son in the graduate program at Yale University, a group the Friends of Film at Yale was created by Chester LaRoche with support from Frederick Beinecke and Richard Fuller, and it raised the necessary funds for the university to acquire the bulk of Griggs' 16-millimeter film collection. The John Griggs Collection became the basis for the Yale Film Studies Center. The price tag for the collection was determined independently by the film historian Herman W Weinberg and Griggs fellow film collector, robert E Lee. End of article.

Natalie Zett:

As I reflect on John Griggs' life, it's clear that he was more than just a character actor. He was a man with a deep sense of history, a love for storytelling and an innate drive to preserve the past. He might not have been a household name, but his contributions to film preservation and his role in radio left a lasting legacy. Through his recollections of the Eastland disaster, we see someone who never forgot the fragility of life, who understood the weight of history and who used his own experiences to tell stories that might otherwise have been lost. John's life reminds us that we don't have to be front and center to make a meaningful impact. His quiet dedication to his craft and his passion for preserving the stories and films of the past are what truly stand out for me. He might not have gotten the recognition he deserved in his lifetime, but through his work and his memories, he continues to inspire. Memories. He continues to inspire.

Natalie Zett:

So, john Griggs, thank you for your devotion to storytelling, for your preservation of film history and, mostly, I thank you for sharing your memory of the Eastland disaster. Your life was a gift to all of us and we honor it today. Rest in peace. 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. 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.

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