Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Blood Across the Ocean: When Chicago's Disaster Shook Poland

• Natalie Zett • Season 3 • Episode 108

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A breakthrough discovery reveals how news of the 1915 Eastland disaster reached across the Atlantic to Poland, unearthing voices unheard for over a century. While exploring the Silesian Digital Library—an extraordinary archive of Polish publications spanning from 1892 to 2011—I discovered several newspapers from Silesia that covered Chicago's tragic shipwreck with remarkable detail and emotional connection.

The Gazeta Opolska from September 1915 painted a vivid picture of the disaster, accurately describing how Western Electric pressured workers to attend the company picnic, how safety regulations were ignored, and how the ship capsized "before people realized what was happening." Most striking was their focus on the Polish immigrant experience, noting how "over the Polish, Russian and Czech communities in Chicago, especially in the Hawthorne area, a dark cloud of death hung." Their reporting directly blamed corporate negligence, observing how "company officials enthusiastically rubbed their hands seeing such a large crowd of guests and a great profit" shortly before tragedy struck.

These Polish-language newspapers demonstrate how deeply connected immigrant communities remained to their homelands despite ocean distances. What we witness through these century-old pages is something more profound than mere reporting—it's the revelation of heart connections that transcend borders, where communities separated by thousands of miles still mourned together. The Kuryer Śląski reported "more than 120 Poles also drowned," while the Posel Ewangelicki described funeral scenes where "towers of Polish churches' bells tolled mournfully" and "cries wrenching themselves from thousands of chests shook the air."

This discovery challenges us to reconsider how immigrant communities maintained their identities and connections across vast distances in an era before instant communication. These newspapers, untouched for generations, open new windows into understanding the global impact of what has often been considered a localized Chicago tragedy. 

Resource

SILEISIAN DIGITAL LIBRARY

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. Hey, this is Natalie and welcome to episode 108 of Flower in the River podcast. So if you've been with me for a long time, you know that I took the podcast in a different direction, more or less away from my book, though not completely, because the book is the foundation for all of this but I expanded the podcast to include other families, other communities who were involved with the Eastland disaster. I've seen the risks of focusing solely on one or two families and presenting that as the entire Eastland disaster story. It just isn't accurate. To truly understand any historical event, we have to be inclusive and consider the broader community and context in. In other words, we have to talk about the people who were actually there. That sounds so basic and you probably are saying, well, duh, of course, but as you can tell, history is frequently rewritten by people with other motivations than telling the truth of what happened in a situation. What happened in a situation I knew? The most effective way to build the world of Chicago 1915, was to do a dance back and forth between individuals and families and the communities they were part of, whether they were religious communities or ethnic communities, groups like this or ethnic communities, groups like this. And one of my earliest discoveries came when I was researching the University of Illinois newspaper archives. What I found there was something unexpected. There were a lot of Polish-language newspapers created by various Polish communities in Chicago, and what fascinated me was how differently these newspapers reported on the Eastland disaster compared to the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Daily News or other newspapers of that time. It was really eye-opening to see how the Polish immigrant community functioned in Chicago back in 1915 and how they told their own story. So one of the earliest episodes that I did was on the Polish community, because I was so amazed and inspired by what I was finding in these various newspapers. They were providing a gateway into the Chicago Polish community of that time. Who were these people? How were they affected? Who were these people? How were they affected. So that episode is called After the Eastland Shadow Over Polish Chicago and it was published November 11th 2023. So that was a while ago, but the Polish community was not to be trifled with. They were very powerful.

Natalie Zett:

So for the past few weeks, I've been working on a larger project, and that is translating and putting together the files of nearly 20 families who had purchased fraternal insurance through the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, which was and is based in Chicago, and all of those people died on the Eastland. That's the connection. That's why I'm interested in this and again, these insurance documents. I don't think they've been touched, probably since 1915 or so. They're another piece of history and as I get into this, I'm also learning that this requires a lot more deeper research and a lot more time on my part to make sure I'm covering all the bases. So that's why this insurance record research is taking a lot more time than I anticipated, but I think it will be worth it from a podcast point of view and from a genealogical point of view when it's all completed. But time to fast forward.

Natalie Zett:

A few weeks ago, I attended RootsTech 2025, which is the world's largest genealogical conference, and I checked out a presentation on Polish genealogy by Julie Szypankowicz, since I, too, have a lot of Polish ancestry from my mother's side and most of my ancestors were from what's known as the Poznan area. During that seminar, julie Szypankowicz mentioned a resource. It's something that I never heard of before, and it was called the Silesian Digital Library. Silesia is an area in Poland, and whatever I've learned about Silesia well, I've only learned about it in the last week, so I'm kind of a newbie, but what an interesting part of Polish history.

Natalie Zett:

This is this digital library. It's mind-blowing and I will put a link in the show notes for you to take a look at it. It's a collection of books and newspapers spanning from 1892 to 2011. And it continues by saying this project is co-financed by the European Union. Looks as if they got a grant to do all this digitization and preservation and they did a mighty great job, and naturally I was curious. So after this session ended and naturally I was curious, so after this session ended I hightailed it over to this digital library's website and I typed in Eastland. And then has not been covered in any book about the Eastland or in any digital space until now. So another world premiere, yeah.

Natalie Zett:

So this takes the international coverage of the Eastland disaster way beyond the usual disaster. Way beyond the usual. It's not as if I've not tried to find international coverage for the Eastland disaster. I have, but until this week I was only able to find coverage in countries and places that are English-speaking Canada, australia, the United Kingdom, new Zealand and I'm probably forgetting one or two but that basically has been what I have found to date. I figured that there had to be coverage in non-English-speaking countries, but I also realized that World War I was happening in those countries. At that point that made sense as to why I couldn't find anything. So these search results were a complete, wonderful finding and I can't wait to share them with you. So really good news.

Natalie Zett:

I found several newspapers in Poland that reported on the Eastland disaster. Specifically, there was one town or city called Opola. I think that's the correct pronunciation. This is a city in southwestern Poland located on the Oder River, and it is the capital of the Opola Wojewodzic, which is a province. Historically, opola was part of Upper Silesia. It's a region that has changed hands numerous times throughout history. So during the time these newspapers were published, and that would be 1915, opola was part of the German Empire. That said, this area had a significant Polish-speaking population, despite being under German rule. I'm not sure how that worked, but I have the feeling it was pretty tense, based on the history there, with everything that was going on in that area.

Natalie Zett:

In 1915, these newspapers reported on a tragedy in Chicago. Why, was my question, didn't they have more going on there? Of course they did, but Chicago had and has a huge, influential Polish immigrant population. Did many of these people immigrate from Upper Silesia? That was my first question.

Natalie Zett:

Also, I doubt that these are the only newspapers or publications in this area that covered the Eastland disaster. If other newspapers are still available, I don't know. Maybe they haven't been digitized or, sadly, maybe quite a few of them were lost. After all, that area lived through two world wars and all kinds of other stuff. But it also got me to thinking and wondering how to search for other newspapers during that time that may have covered the Eastland disaster beyond the English-speaking countries. I mean. After World War II, with the changing borders and the Potsdam Agreement, opola became part of Poland again and the German population was largely replaced by Poles from areas annexed by the Soviet Union, and a Pola is known today as a cultural and educational center and is famous for hosting the annual National Festival of Polish Song. But the question remains why did these newspapers take such an interest in a tragedy that was taking place in Chicago?

Natalie Zett:

I'm guessing that what happened with this Polish population in Chicago and Silesia was similar to what happened with my grandfather and his brothers when they immigrated. Even after immigration, they stayed in close contact with their family members who remained in Poland, and eventually many of these relatives moved to what is now Germany. My grandfather immigrated in 1900, while his brothers came a few years earlier, and they all settled in Johnstown, pennsylvania, and despite the distance they kept the lines of communication open. They couldn't afford phone calls and travel was not feasible, not just because it was expensive, but also they all had jobs to attend to. Instead, they relied on letters and occasionally telegraph messages to stay connected. And that's just one family. So now imagine an entire community of immigrants from the same area. It's likely that communication within that community, both official and personal, remained just as active and just as involved.

Natalie Zett:

And the other way that news was transmitted in 1915 was via news agencies such as Reuters, and Reuters did indeed supply some of the information for these newspaper articles. So the first article I'm going to quote from is from the Gazeta Opolska. Opola, tuesday, september 7, 1915, year 25, issue 140. Here's the tagline Education and work in rich nations. The future is earned by those who fight for it. No-transcript In America, 80 cents quarterly. So it was being sent to America as well and it also says forward with God for the national cause. Headline Terrible tragedy in America.

Natalie Zett:

The giant Western Electric Company in Chicago planned to organize a massive excursion for its workers on Saturday July 24th to the eastern foremen were pressing tickets for the ship journey on. All workers, particularly targeting Slavs. Workers fearing they might lose their jobs if they did not comply with the company's wishes purchased tickets for 75 cents each, despite the wages being meager due to the current slowdown in transportation. Here's a comment from me. This paper understood exactly what was going on. Yeah, and how did they get that information? I don't know. But let's continue. The company contracted the Indiana Transportation Company for Transport, which had its port on Chicago's River Street in Perrin Clark Street. One of the company's ships was the Eastland, which sailed regularly between Cleveland and other cities on the lake. The Port Commission had found many defects on the ship, prohibiting it from carrying passengers. The company later acquired the mentioned vessel In Chicago. They obtained permission from the port authorities to transport a maximum of 1,200 people at one time, as otherwise it risked capsizing.

Natalie Zett:

On the day of the excursion, people, festively dressed, gathered in large numbers at the dock. Some boarded the ship while others stood on the pier seeing off relatives and friends. Company officials collected tickets without counting the number of men, women and children crowding onto the ship, whether in the ship's cabins or on the deck in the surrounding galleries. Soon there were about 2,500 people on the ship twice the allowed number. Company officials enthusiastically rubbed their hands seeing such a large crowd of guests and a great profit. People were chatting happily, friends on the pier were wishing their loved ones a pleasant trip and fun. Everyone was in the best mood.

Natalie Zett:

Suddenly, a terrible thing happened. The overloaded ship lost its balance. It began to sway and before people realized what was happening, it leaned to one side and then capsized bottom up. No pen can describe the horrific scenes that took place in those brief moments and in the subsequent minutes. In a matter of seconds, around one and a half thousand people who were just moments earlier cheerful and happy, found themselves in the dirty depths of the deep and wide river. Terrible groans, screams and calls for help echoed from the ship's hull and from the river. Women fainted on the pier while men in despair pulled their hair in agony.

Natalie Zett:

Soon fire brigades arrived and police units rushed to the rescue. While rescue boats were launched, they began to rescue the drowning and thanks to quick action, about a thousand people were saved. But the rest, pulled from the river, were just corpses. Cars of the rescue service raced through the city streets transporting the drowned to nearby hospitals to try to save the unfortunate victims. Doctors from all sides of the vast city gathered and thanks to their efforts some lives were saved. But hundreds were laid out in the cold halls of one of the city's enormous armories, which suddenly turned into a vast morgue. Over the Polish, russian and Czech communities in Chicago, especially in the Hawthorne area, a dark cloud of death hung. Groans and cries resounded in Polish homes. Thousands of people headed to the armory on Saturday, the following night and Sunday, in a sad and endless march of parents, husbands, wives searching among the lined-up bodies of their loved ones. And when they recognized them, terrible scenes unfolded. Even the police ensuring order in the vast hall could not hold back tears.

Natalie Zett:

That is the end of that article. Now let me summarize, because that was a lot to take in. I was reading again from the Gazeta Polska. This article was originally published in Opola, poland in Polish, and I was using ChatGBT and Google Translate to get this translation for you, but it's always best to look at a publication in its original language. In the light of what you heard in the coroner's inquest in the last two episodes of this podcast, isn't it interesting that in September granted, some time had gone by since the disaster, but not that long, just about a month and this Polish newspaper in Upper Silesia pretty much had the whole thing down as to what happened here. They definitely held the company responsible for its irresponsibility and they were none too happy as to how their people were affected.

Natalie Zett:

It's fascinating how the bond between immigrants and their homeland endures, no matter the distance. Even an ocean cannot break that heart connection. There's something deeper at play and I can't claim to understand it, and it's more than just sentimentality. It's a visceral, almost primal connection, like something encoded in the DNA. Community isn't just about living in the same place or even the same country. It's about the heart connection that transcends borders and remains powerful across time, across space and across oceans and across oceans. So in the last decade or so, as I've immersed myself in my own family history, I have connected with many people from both my maternal and paternal sides of the family, meaning the family members who live in Europe and Russia who I've been in contact with in the last decade or so are people who are descendants of relatives who never left the home country, as they called it, the old country, and equally compelling are their firsthand accounts of how historical events affected those family members whose ancestors chose not to immigrate, what they experienced during World War I and World War II and how their lives were upended when communism took over. Outcomes are rarely good or pleasant or life-giving.

Natalie Zett:

With this context now discovering these newspapers from Poland in 1915, it reveals how they viewed what was happening in Chicago. These papers document how they perceived their relatives in America, how they saw their compatriots being affected by this place that promised so much freedom, prosperity and forms of liberation they could only dream about. I wonder what they thought about when they learned about the Eastland disaster. Maybe those streets of gold weren't all that after all. So our next article is from the Courier-Selassie. Date is September 8, 1915.

Natalie Zett:

The tagline is A newspaper devoted to the affairs of the Polish people in Silesia. It is a brief article, not as extensive as the first one, and the headline is Over 120 Poles Drowned on the Steamship Eastland. During the well-known catastrophe of the Steamship Eastland, which, as it is known, capsized on the river near Chicago, resulting in the loss of life of over 800 people, more than 120 Poles also drowned. Currently, compatriots in America are busy forming committees and collecting donations for the remaining families of the unfortunate victims. Polish-american newspapers are filled with long articles and reports on the activities of these committees. This article describes what happened, highlighting the number of Polish victims and the community's response to support the families affected by this tragedy.

Natalie Zett:

Did this newspaper also report earlier on the Eastland disaster? I have the feeling that they probably did, based on well, I'll show you some of the evidence, but we don't have access to that information. They probably had some inside scoop talking to people in Chicago who were part of the Polish community, and there was probably a lot of exchange of letters, maybe telegraphs, going back and forth between people. That is my guess and that is an interesting part of history that I hope somebody goes into and explores. Okay, so our next article is from another area in Silesia. It's called Sechen I think that's how you pronounce it C-I-E-C-Z-Y-N. It is located in the southern part of Silesia, right on the border between Poland and Czech Republic, and this area was a little bit different than Opola in that it had a huge evangelical meaning Lutheran or Reformed, aka Protestant population, and the newspaper is called the Pozol Evangeliki, which means evangelical messenger, and the slogan is God give a good day. And it is a publication dedicated to the affairs of the evangelical people and it is published in Session and the date of this article was 1915. Hard to actually read the month. I'm assuming it was around the same time. Now it is ostensibly the same article as the original one that you heard from the Gazeta Opolska. That was the first one I read to you, but the ending is slightly different and I want to share that with you.

Natalie Zett:

On Tuesday, the towers of Polish churches' bells tolled mournfully. Huge funeral processions set off with coffins from mourning houses. Coffins were placed in churches and in front of churches. Cries wrenching themselves from thousands of chests shook the air. Priests, with moved voices, bid farewell to sons and daughters, fathers and mothers so suddenly torn from their family. The blame lies with the ship's company's manager who allowed such a mass of people to board the vessel. Our final newspaper is called Novini and it's from Apolla and its date is 29th July 1915. In fairness, there might have been earlier editions of the other newspapers that just were not available, were not digitized, so who knows what else was going on here? Available, we're not digitized, so who knows what else was going on here? But this is a clue that the Eastland disaster might have been reported a lot sooner than we realize. So the publication is Novini, which translates as news, and the tagline is For the People, let Jesus Christ Be Praised. And here's the thing. It may not have necessarily been a religious publication itself, but since the overall culture in Poland was very religious, that might be what's going on here. This is one of those things that needs further investigation.

Natalie Zett:

Shipwreck disaster From Chicago reports to the Reuters office. The excursion steamer Eastland has sunk. The number of drowned passengers is estimated at 1,200. Number of drowned passengers is estimated at 1,200. So far 500 bodies have been recovered, mostly from the ship's hull, which remains underwater. Holes had to be drilled to extract the drown from the vessel. The captain, officers and helmsmen have been detained. The cause of the disaster is attributed to the ship capsizing during its departure because it was stationary at the dock. According to another version, the disaster was caused by passengers crowding on one side of the ship. Those who were on deck survived by holding onto the ship's edge. Desperate scenes took place inside, where a struggle for survival ensued. The bodies of women with scratched faces were found. The steamer had already tilted during a previous trip. The investigation revealed that water ballast had been pumped out to create more space for passengers.

Natalie Zett:

From Chicago. They report that out of the 2,572 people on the Eastland steamer, only 762 were saved, 1,810 drowned. So far, 885 bodies have been recovered, mostly women and children. Based on the investigations, 30 people have been recovered, mostly women and children. Based on the investigations, 30 people have been arrested. That's the end of this article and of course, we know that the numbers well, they fluctuate depending on who is reporting, but, safe to say, there were over 800 people who died that day. The exact number will probably never be known, so I'm sure that a lot has been lost in translation because the original documents were in Polish. However, I still think it was a valuable journey and an incredible discovery to find these newspapers and to read how they saw the Eastland disaster from Poland. They saw their community being affected in Chicago, and goodness knows if they lost people that they were related to or knew or loved, or all of the above. More research is needed to really understand the Eastland disaster.

Natalie Zett:

I'll talk to you next week. Thank you for joining me on this journey and take care of yourselves. Okay, goodbye for now. Okay, goodbye for now. 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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