Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

The Red Socks Historian: Peter Alter and the Chicago History Museum

• Natalie Zett • Season 3 • Episode 110

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Peter Alter—Chief Historian and Director of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History at the Chicago History Museum—joins me for this episode, and what a conversation it turned out to be.

We nearly had to cancel. A massive Zoom outage hit just before we were set to record. But like all good historians and podcasters, we adapted. Zoom came back to life minutes before our scheduled time, and we hit record.

What followed was a rich, wide-ranging conversation about Chicago’s history, its immigrant communities, and the people who work behind the scenes to keep those stories alive. 

Here are some highlights from our talk:

🧦 The Red Socks Connection

Peter wears red socks to work every day in honor of Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and broadcaster. He shared a great story about helping Studs with a FedEx package back in 1999—and getting a signed note in return.

🏛️ Museum History

Founded in 1856, the Chicago History Museum (still officially the Chicago Historical Society) is one of the city’s oldest cultural institutions—so old, Abraham Lincoln was one of its honorary members.

🖥️ Explore From Anywhere

Peter highlighted several ways to explore Chicago’s past without leaving home:

🌐 Chicago History Museum

📚 Encyclopedia of Chicago 

🌍 Immigrant Communities & Shared Heritage

Peter’s knowledge of Serbian immigrant history in Chicago added real depth to the conversation. It reminded me of how rich and varied the city’s immigrant stories are—like those I’ve uncovered while researching the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America and other Polish fraternal organizations.

We also discovered a shared connection to Carpatho-Rusyn heritage. I’m part Carpatho-Rusyn, and I didn’t expect Peter to know so much about that background. I mean, there are only about 1.5 million of us in the world! We ended up swapping family stories—including one about my aunt’s husband’s father, who worked as Al Capone’s upholsterer. And yes… there were blindfolds and mysterious car rides.


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 110 of Flower in the River podcast. And although it's usually just me behind the microphone on this podcast, today we have a very special guest, and that would be Peter Alter from the Chicago History Museum, an institution and organization you really should know about. Over the past few months, I've had the chance to get to know a lot of the folks who work at the Chicago History Museum, and all I have to say is they go above and beyond the call of duty to support researchers like me. There's something really special, I think, about connecting with people behind these grand institutions, and it reminds me that history isn't just about the buildings and the archives, but it's about the human connection yes, even virtually. As a researcher, I have to say I've been incredibly lucky to find support not only from the Chicago History Museum, but from other places like the Newberry Library, the Chicago Public Library and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to name a few. These are rich, vibrant hubs of knowledge and, the best part you don't have to live in Chicago to access Chicago's history or to feel its vibe. I'm living proof of that vibe. I'm living proof of that the spirit of Chicago is right there, in the stories and in the people who help you uncover them. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the Chicago History Museum, it is one of the city's oldest cultural institutions. It's not just a museum with artifacts behind glass. It's a living archive of the city's past and present, with galleries, exhibits and an ever-growing digital presence, which I have really appreciated.

Natalie Zett:

Peter Alter, today's guest, is the museum's chief historian, and he also directs the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History. If the name Studs Terkel rings a bell, well it should. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and broadcaster who spent decades documenting the stories of everyday people. His work was all about elevating the voices that often get overlooked in official history. Does that sound familiar? Yep, that is something we try to do here as well, and Peter will mention Studs Terkel's book the Good War an oral history of World War II, which was published in 1984 and again awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1985. The book is packed with firsthand accounts from people across the spectrum soldiers, civilians, resistors and survivors and it paints a deeply layered picture of World War II that goes beyond the standard narrative. Definitely a Studs-style masterpiece.

Natalie Zett:

And now just a quick note before we dive in. The day we recorded this was also the day of a major Zoom outage and yes, zoom is what I use to record these interviews and Zoom came back to life about 15 minutes before Peter and I started talking. But there were a few audio glitches. You may notice those. I've done my best to smooth them out and clean them out, but if you hear a few things that sound choppy in places, that's why that happened. I appreciate your patience because this conversation is worth hearing. Hello, peter.

Peter T. Alter:

Hello, Good afternoon, Natalie.

Natalie Zett:

Nice to meet you oh it's nice to meet you and it's a miracle to see you because, as you may know, zoom had an outage. Oh, it's nice to meet you and it's a miracle to see you because, as you may know, zoom had an outage.

Peter T. Alter:

Actually, I did not know that I was scheduled to have a Zoom call earlier today, but it got canceled, so oh my gosh.

Natalie Zett:

So I'm just so grateful you're here. I mean, what else could go wrong in 2025, right, Peter? Anyway?

Peter T. Alter:

Right, right For sure.

Natalie Zett:

I know I really appreciate the work, not just the museum. I mean the museum is, I experience it virtually. But you, chm has been one of those anchors for me as I do this, because what I've learned by researching the people of the Eastland disaster is that there is so much more going on there than what I ever realized.

Peter T. Alter:

Of course.

Natalie Zett:

And as a genealogist too, I tried to treat all the other families, the families who were affected by the Eastland disaster, like my family. So I just thought let's take it person by person, community by community, and that's where resources like you come in, because I don't live in Chicago, but I feel I mean Chicago lives in me. My family was part of that Central Poland immigrant group that moved to Chicago in the early 1900s. Most were ethnic Germans from Central Poland. My 19-year-old great aunt was killed on the Eastland and I wrote a book about it. My 19-year-old great aunt was killed on the Eastland and I wrote a book about it. And then, when I started to look at the other people and I wanted to tell the stories of the people whose stories were in danger of being lost. But that is my brief backstory. But on to you and on to the Chicago History Museum. Okay, great website, fantastic website. And since most of my listeners, the majority of them, are overseas, and a couple of weeks ago I did an episode where I read papers from Poland that were written in Poland, in the Silesia area During that time they covered the Eastland disaster in a way that I've never experienced in the Chicago Tribune or even the Day Book, and so now I have people from Poland that are listening to this and I think part of the intrigue is not just the Eastland disaster but it's Chicago, because there's a thing about Chicago, so I want to make sure that people have a bridge to Chicago, and I never wanted to do something like this and it feels like a tremendous amount of responsibility and I feel totally un do something like this and it feels like a tremendous amount of responsibility and I feel totally unqualified. But you know, that has never stopped me in the past and so I. That's why I'm really just thankful that you're here and able to talk to me and my primary interest and this is why I've gone to your website and I've gotten to know some of the people there too. They're really nice people, I have to say, like the nicest people ever I want to understand.

Natalie Zett:

When I approached the podcast, I started talking about the Polish community, the Lithuanian community. I even got a rock group from Lithuania to give me some of their songs so I could use it for the episode. I love George Hilton's book about the Eastland. If you're familiar with that, it's like this encyclopedia, but George didn't have time or access to everything in 1995 that we have access to now. I can't explain what happened since then. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing and for my listeners. Now, peter, I would like you to introduce yourself, and I also want to know what is a chief historian? I've had one or two people call themselves that, but what's a chief historian? Tell me your backstory if you're comfortable.

Peter T. Alter:

All right. Yes, so I'm Peter T Alter. I am the chief historian and the director of the Studs Circle Center for Oral History at the Chicago History Museum. So what is a chief historian? Honestly, the chief historian, at least in the context of Chicago History Museum. The primary function that I fulfill by being the chief historian is speaking on things like podcasts and to TV stations and journalists and NPR and so forth. It is more or less a bit of an honorific. The functional part of my title is actually director of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History.

Natalie Zett:

Yes, Red socks, peter red socks.

Peter T. Alter:

Yes, actually, I'm not wearing them now because I'm not at work, but I do have a sock drawer full of red socks that I wear every day to work in honor of Studs.

Natalie Zett:

Terkel.

Peter T. Alter:

Yes, who was a scholar in residence at the Chicago, then the Chicago, historical Society in the 1990s, which of course, is the same organization as the Chicago History Museum. I started there in 1999. And my famous Studs story is that he was looking one day for help sending a FedEx package. His assistant was not available and so I whatever I did in 1999, I did to get the FedEx package on its way. And he how can I thank you, young man? You know, 26 years ago, and I had a copy of the Good War, his Pulitzer Prize winner, handy and he signed that with a specific inscription mentioning you know me by name.

Peter T. Alter:

So, yes, through the Stud Circle Center for Oral History we do collaborative, community-based oral history projects using tools of history and oral history for goals of social justice, and what we say is that we carry forward Stud's legacy. So we don't do projects in the style of Stud's because other fabulous people are doing that, but we carry forward his legacy. A lot of our projects are youth engaged. But along the way, working at the museum for 25 plus years, I have learned a lot of bits and pieces, of course, of Chicago and US history, including at least some information about the Eastland. My background also is in US immigration history. My PhD dissertation was about Serbian immigrants from the Balkans to Chicago during the late 19th and early 20th century, so maybe you found some Serbs on the Eastland, it happens but I'm going to look now.

Natalie Zett:

I'm going to look at it. Yeah, all right.

Peter T. Alter:

If you do, let me know. I'm not Serbian by descent, but I did spend some time in the former Yugoslavia in the late 80s. At any rate, you know a lot of the themes that were important in my dissertation research decades ago are some of the themes that you know you're talking about with your podcast and in your research and your book on the Eastland. So I'm excited to scratch the deep recesses of my brain as it relates to especially Southern Eastern European immigrants and their offspring in Chicago in that late 19th and early 20th century time period.

Natalie Zett:

Why do you think you were drawn to that? I mean, I'm trying to get like the Serbian why we're pulled toward different things. Why, right, I'm looking at it from a genealogy point of view, but why did that call you?

Peter T. Alter:

Sure, I was a junior in college when I was a guest student with other US students at the University of Zagreb in Croatia, which was still part of Yugoslavia at the time. So I really enjoyed that experience, learned a little bit of the language. Enjoyed that experience. Learned a little bit of the language was already taking German in high school and college. And so, you know, coming back to finish up my undergraduate degree and then going into my master's and PhD, I thought you know I have this great interest in Southeastern Europe or the Balkans, but I still want to focus on US history, so why don't I bring those two together?

Peter T. Alter:

Another semester while I was an undergrad, I spent at the Newberry Library and it has great genealogical resources. Yes, it does. Yeah, so, and actually I met my wife there as well in 1989. That was an opportunity, starting in 1989 as an undergrad, to kind of bring together my interest in Southeastern Europe and US history. And I thought, well, what connects them most logically is immigration, and I think I've always been interested in different languages, different cultures, food, and so you know I was not very easy on myself. I had to learn two languages, one alphabet, to do my research. But I did enough learning of languages at least to be able to do that research. And you mentioned your Polish background. Most recently we had an exhibition called Back Home Polish Chicago. I saw that oh my God, yeah, and I did study some Polish, based on my Serbian and Croatian, to do some of that research.

Peter T. Alter:

So I'm excited to engage in some of that as well, if you're interested.

Natalie Zett:

I wanted to ask you, though, about Chicago History Museum. Is it the oldest museum devoted to history in Chicago? I mean Chicago with the museums For people who don't know, chicago, I swear, has a museum every block and they're gorgeous, I mean.

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah, we do have some wonderful museums in Chicago. So our oldest tagline for us is that we're the oldest. We're considered to be at least the oldest cultural institution in Chicago, having been founded in 1856. So, yeah, there are other local historical organizations, city neighborhoods and suburban organizations, and we have a great DuSable Museum in Washington Park, which is all kinds of things, including African American History Museum, Founded in 1856, burned down in the Great Chicago Fire. Abraham Lincoln was a member or an honorary member. We've moved a few times. We moved to our current location in the 1930s and then we've had multiple additions and we became. We went through a major renovation, rebranding and name change in 2005 and 2006. So we're still officially the Chicago Historical Society. Oh, you are Okay. Yes, and if any of the listeners actually visit us, you'll see it emblazoned on the front of the building on Clark Street in the stone. But we are doing business as the Chicago History Museum since about 2006, which was the sesquicentennial of our founding.

Natalie Zett:

So let me ask you this Now you've been there long enough to make the transition from. I mean, it's obviously a physical space. Obviously it's your very community involved. You've got programs for students interviewing elders. I've seen that that was fantastic. It was East Garfield Park, is that what I saw? Yeah, okay, but what I wanted to ask you was what about? You're also a marvelous digital space and I know you don't experience yourself in the digital realm, but was that intentional to build that bridge or did that just happen organically? I mean, most of us don't know how a museum it's like a mystical place. How did that happen and was it intentional and how, since most of my listeners are across the pond someplace if they want to access, what's the best way to come in? And do you intend to even make it bigger? Do you intend to balance it out with the physical space and the community interactions in Chicago? Does that question make any sense?

Peter T. Alter:

I think so. If I boil it down to, if you don't live in the immediate vicinity and it's harder to get here, and maybe you live across the Atlantic Ocean, how would you experience our resources? The first place to go would be our website, chicagohistoryorg, which, of course, is a portal to everything else. The other two places that I would mention are the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

Natalie Zett:

Well, that's huge. Okay, all right, I love that thing, yeah.

Peter T. Alter:

Yes, which is encyclopediachicagohistoryorg. So it is aging a bit, but it is still a fabulous repository of information, knowledge and images, including some encyclopedic information about the Eastland disaster, for example. We also have a fabulous online digital database of images yes, you do yeah about and which you can access through our website. About 10 or so years ago, we purchased most of the Chicago Sun-Times photo archive. Didn't know that. Okay, most of the Chicago Sun Times photo archive.

Peter T. Alter:

Didn't know that. Okay, yeah, and so you'll see thousands of images from that archive and that's been helpful, especially in building out our photographic documentation for like the mid-20th century to the late 20th century. For example, you know you mentioned the East Garfield Park project, which is on the west side of the city. Many people don't know that Dr Martin Luther King Jr lived in and his family living on basically Hamlin and 16th Street in a three-flat building to advocate for better housing, more jobs, better schooling for all communities, but a focus on African-American communities, especially on the West and South sides of the city in the late 1960s. Lots of wonderful ways to access our content. We have a great blog which covers kind of everything we had today some postings on social media. We're most active, I think, on Facebook and Instagram about tornadoes in Chicago. Part of my job as chief historian occasionally is to review some of that content and I did review the tornado information. I've been interviewed maybe once or twice about tornadoes that have hit or come near the city. And your question, natalie, about you know sort of is it intentional, is it organic, is it unintentional? I think yes to all of those things.

Peter T. Alter:

I think we've become especially intentional since the pandemic, the start of the pandemic, you know, which, we just marked the fifth year, you know, since it started, and we received grant funding, for example, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as did many other museums to.

Peter T. Alter:

At that time it was called, I think, chicago History at Home. So our social media, our blogs, a lot of things became, you know, more robust, as they say these days at that time, and we're really kind of continuing that these days at that time, and we're really kind of continuing that. There's also potential plans, kind of in their infancy, to revise, remake the Encyclopedia of Chicago, update it with new information, add more images in. That would be a multi-multi-year, expensive project, but those kinds of things, you know, are underway and, for example, like our digital database of images, images are being scanned from negatives and, yes, those of you out there who are listening, who don't know what negatives are, please look them up. I have to explain when I give my young college interns tours. I just did it last Friday. Now, what's a negative, peter? Well, this is how this is what it is, this is how it differs from that cool image that's on your, on your phone. So there are lots of ways to access our content wherever you are in this great, big, wide world.

Natalie Zett:

Well, and you have something very unusual at your museum and that your people are just so engaged. But the engagement has been incredible and there's this energy that goes back and forth because I would think you know the work you do. You don't generally. Maybe you get feedback, I know. When I get feedback I'm quite shocked. It's like you actually listen to this thing. But they do.

Natalie Zett:

And it's an odd topic and I was never playing to market, I was just doing it because it seemed the right thing to do to these people and history of these people, these lost voices. They will get lost if somebody doesn't do something. But it's like, well, okay, you got me until somebody else comes along. But for you, you're out in the community. I saw your interaction with the kids and the stuff you were doing in those various videos. You obviously love it. But here's an observation and I wanted to know what you thought of this. Through my years of knowing folks in the genealogical community, as well as some historians, I would say basically, we're introverted people who are very happy to be alone in a room, researching online or researching in a library, etc. Would you describe yourself that way and, if so, what's that like? How do you balance that?

Peter T. Alter:

I'm definitely an introvert at heart. I'm sure that's what drew me to like learning languages and spending days and weeks in archives. But I also teach in DePaul University's public history program. Public history is a variety of historical study that is very much akin to museum studies, and public history is the thing that you study. You know. You go off to college and you come home and you tell mom and dad, I'm going to be a history major and they kind of slap their heads and go I'm going to be a history major and they kind of slap their heads and go how are you going to get a job?

Natalie Zett:

in that.

Peter T. Alter:

And the answer, hopefully, is well, there's this thing called public history. So I actually talk to my public history students about that and I say you know what? A lot of us in here are going to be introverts. We're interested in history and self-introspection, writing, cogitating about big questions, but you can still do this publicly engaged work. You can be an extrovert by day and an introvert the rest of the time.

Peter T. Alter:

And I definitely, after community engaged projects, I definitely need time to sort of recharge the batteries through, you know, archival research online, through photo research, through taking notes and thinking about the next steps. So there's even a little bit of literature around this. Don't just hide in the archives. If you want to do public history, you should be out engaged, and I talk to my students a lot about that how to engage, why to engage? How to be equal, collaborative partners, how to honor, respect and collaborate when we are outside organizations. We're not from the West Side, we haven't lived this history, we're historians. So it's a very important part of what we do and, natalie, I'm sure if you could imagine traveling back in time, trying, to talk to the families of Eastland survivors how you would be.

Peter T. Alter:

And you, I could imagine, just having talked to you for like 30 minutes, that you would be very respectful and engaging folks despite your you know your introverted side and wanting to be neck deep in genealogical records and census and so forth.

Natalie Zett:

Oh, absolutely. I can act normal for hours at a time, but then I have to take a nap, like you. But you talked about that with your students too the high school students, about the introverted ones and the extroverted ones, the gifts that they bring. That was incredible insight too, and I think that that's super important. And I don't know about you, but when I started doing this Eastland research and saw how many lives were not chronicled, I thought, oh my gosh. And then seeing what's happening with history once again how you know what I'm talking about it's like if it were not powerful, people wouldn't keep trying to rewrite it or remove it or act as a gatekeeper or whatever. That's what I run into. It's one of those types of things. So there's that thing that we're doing, not trying to be revolutionary. When I saw what hadn't been done, I thought, well, I've got to get those stories out to get those stories out?

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah, and I'm actually experiencing that now. Is that like the daily acts of being a historian, of being a good historian and occlusive historian and a thorough historian, which you know I've been, methods have been taught to me maybe going back to my great high school teachers, history teachers that suddenly it does feel like a revolutionary act to you know uncover research and privilege. You know the voices that are typically left out of the historical narrative and it seems like there are efforts to do that again.

Natalie Zett:

Now, did you grow up in the Chicago area at all?

Peter T. Alter:

I did not. I grew up in the Midwest. I was born in Iowa. I grew up a little bit in northern Indiana, the youngest of six kids. My mom was a single mother. She was really the driving force. Interested in history, started college at the age of 19,. Then had six kids, then finished her English and history double major in her 40s and brought us my brother the next youngest, the number five in the order to places like the Chicago Historical Society in the 1970s. She was a big fan of Abraham Lincoln, also Carl Sandburg. We have Carl Sandburg's home in Galesburg, illinois, not far from where I grew up in Western Illinois. So I didn't grow up here. Sometimes people think I did, but I will never claim that status because that's a very specific and special status, so you had a mom similar to my mom.

Natalie Zett:

It's interesting, though, how those types of people in our lives. It's like we continue their legacy.

Peter T. Alter:

We're sure, for sure, and yes, that's we. My mother would bring us in Chicago Historical Society Museum of Science and Industry. We'd see the submarine and the coal mine and then, no matter what the temperature was, we would go to Lake Michigan and usually freeze our butts off in the cold water, but we would go swimming. You know, and I was younger than nine at the time, but I still remember that she toughened you up didn't she?

Natalie Zett:

She made sure yeah she did toughen me up?

Natalie Zett:

Yeah, for sure, that's good. That's a good thing. Now, this is really interesting and I can I get to my use case, because I'm just dying to ask you Please. Okay, peter, let me just throw you here. So right now I'm in the midst. You mentioned Polish. This is good Right now.

Natalie Zett:

So each week for my people of the Eastland, when I realized so much hadn't been documented, I just kept going after stories and I found a slew of insurance records on the FamilySearchorg labs section and they were from the make sure you get the acronym right. The Polish Roman Catholic Union of America had all of these insurance records for about 20 Eastland victims, maybe more, and my challenge is so there are letters from Peter Hoffman verified that how they died. There are other standard certificates and things. However, in some of these families' virtual folders, there are some arguments going back and forth in Polish about who should get what and whatever, and some of it's in English, some of it's in Polish. I do have relatives in Poland. They offered to translate, but it's not the translation, it's the context.

Natalie Zett:

That's the part when I do my podcast to try to get a feel for what was going on back then in Chicago. It's not like a checklist. It's this dynamic back and forth type of thing. So what was that? The Polish Roman Catholic Union Insurance? That thing is still going on today. That still exists as an entity. I wanted to know its role then, in 1915 as opposed to now. I wanted to know the context. It seems like it was a big player in the community, in the Polish immigrant community, somebody I could talk to if I wanted to do a deeper dive. But I want to get the color, the dynamism, the fighting, everything else that went on in this thing, because once, once everybody's dead, then you have to deal with the aftermath of that, and sometimes it comes down to money.

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah, sure, so a great question. And yes, so I am. I would say, you know, one of your questions being kind of Peter, what is chief historian? What does that even mean? So we have one, one person at the museum who could kind of help with that, and that's that is I? Lucky you, yes, but lucky you.

Natalie Zett:

Yes.

Peter T. Alter:

In part based on working on our Back Home Polish Chicago exhibition. You know I could definitely help in terms of the historical context. The Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, which is known as the PRCUA yes, which is actually still in existence. It's based in Chicago, has always been based in Chicago, and its building also houses the Polish Museum of America, which was one of our important collaborators on the Back Home Polish Chicago exhibition.

Peter T. Alter:

So the kind of records that you're describing, natalie, were across, like all Southern Eastern European immigrant groups as well as, often, migrant groups, for example, african-americans coming to places like Chicago during the Great Migration. So, you know, in an era before things like health insurance or life insurance that you could purchase separately, you needed a fraternal organization like the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, to which you would pay dues and then, in the event, unfortunately, of something like the Eastland disaster, hopefully your family could have something. Oftentimes it was only things like death benefits which would just pay for your funeral, or it could be something more akin to what we would think of in the 21st century as like a life insurance payout or something similar. So the Polish Roman Catholic Union, you know, was founded in Chicago in the late 19th century. It also there was another organization still in existence, also still based in Chicago, called the Polish National Alliance.

Natalie Zett:

Oh, yes, of course.

Peter T. Alter:

Polish Roman Catholic Union obviously was for Polish Catholics. Polish National Alliance included both Catholics and Jews who considered themselves to be Polish, and then there's also a very small contingent of Polish Protestants, so they could be members of the PNA as well. For a while, for a long while, those were kind of rival organizations, especially in the desire to see Poland resurrected. You know, it went out of existence and came back into existence as a result of the end of World War I went out of existence and came back into existence as a result of the end of World War I.

Peter T. Alter:

And for my own research, I've actually spent hours in microfilm going through the Serbian organizations and just setting the microfilm so it would scroll slowly. So whenever the Chicago went by I could stop the microfilm and then look at exactly what you're talking about Correspondence, you know, between family members and the organization, sometimes in English, sometimes in Serbian, sometimes in Croatian, sometimes in German and, yeah, just trying to like pull that apart and and see what that means for that particular history I was trying to tell. So yeah, I would be the person to help you at the Chicago History Museum.

Natalie Zett:

I promise I won't bug you, but it's fascinating to listen to you talk about this, because I am. This is what I've been able to do, virtually. I mean, I've done all this online, but I also well know as a genealogist. There's more there. So that's where I always say this is my research project.

Natalie Zett:

Folks, it's new to me too, but I wanted to get through as many of these people as possible because so many of them have been not talked about, and so I just decided to just go faster than I've ever gone in my life and it's been actually really transformative and really wonderful, because I feel like I know them.

Natalie Zett:

But I also what's happening now, especially with this return of all the Polish stuff the Polish newspapers and now these records from the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America got it that it's like, okay, now it's time to go deeper and give the audience more nuance and more knowledge than I have.

Natalie Zett:

But I always say, okay, now it's time to go deeper and give the audience more nuance and more knowledge than I have.

Natalie Zett:

But I always say, folks, this is what I do at a distance. So but think of what's already out there, and, thankfully to the folks in Salt Lake City, we have so much information, but there's nothing like being able to go through the microfilm, microfiche, and you have definite advantage to that. So I think it would be really interesting to show you what I've come up with and then you can just say whoa, you know, I missed a few things, but I expect that though, too. I mean as a genealogist too. I mean I've had to reconstruct entire lines of my family, that I from Poland, ironically, that my Polish relative says you got it wrong, but that's part of it, and I always say it's course correction. So yeah, so I would love to share that with you and just error check me or whatever. But I do do diligence with this stuff as much as I can get in whatever information, corroborating information I can get of work that I do.

Peter T. Alter:

You also meet a lot of experts because I'm you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a specialist in all styles. So you know, one day it may be the Polish Roman Catholic Union, tomorrow it's baseball history, that's cool. You know, the next day it's anti-fascist movements in Chicago. So there's a lot of different stuff going on. But for example, to support your research, there's a great book called American Warsaw by Dominic Apicica. Yeah, and he's a close friend and he was our research historian for our Back Home Polish Chicago exhibition. So typically, when we don't know, we might know a local expert who could help out, or we can tap into them to pass that knowledge on to researchers. You know, depending on the scenario.

Natalie Zett:

Oh sweet, that's really good. I've started constructing a wiki based on a lot of these people whose names were never mentioned originally in the Eastland experience, including one of my own, a Carpatho-Rusin person. There was one. It was one of us that was there. It was accidentally there in Chicago. Usually we end up in the coal mines in Johnstown, where my grandfather ended up, but yeah, and so the story of this one Carpatho-Rusyn man needed to be told. And I also found one immigrant from Greece. His story needed to be told and I shared as much as I could find about him. But there are a number of these one-off stories about people of the Eastland that have never been told, such as Serbs. You brought them up, so what cemetery would Serbians normally be buried in of that era, do you know? I could probably find them if they're there.

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah, they're like the highest concentration of a Serbian cemetery would be at the. There's a Serbian Orthodox monastery in suburban Libertyville, Illinois. Oh yeah, oh yeah, OK, and so that would be the highest concentration. You know, otherwise I think Serbian folks would be sort of buried throughout the city in in neighborhoods.

Natalie Zett:

I'll take a look because that would fascinate me. I haven't found too many. I actually was looking for Orthodox Christian people and I haven't run into too many Too many yeah.

Peter T. Alter:

I mean you have your Greek guy and you know the.

Natalie Zett:

Carpatho-Rusyn guy.

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah, they're like the Carpatho-Rusyns are kind of that cross between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church which comes out as the Uniate or the Greek Catholics.

Natalie Zett:

Yeah, we were Greek Catholic and we are related to Michael Strank, you know one of the flag-raising. Oh, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of endogamy in Rusyns because they tended to intermarry and my bunch came from Olsavica, slovakia, and that that was a village that actually saved the Jewish population during World War Two. When Slovakia went, they saved everybody, and the Greek Catholic priest and the bishop, yeah. So I'm proud of certain other things in the family, but that one I am, but I was shocked to see another Rusyn, of course.

Peter T. Alter:

Yeah yeah. My master's thesis was at the University of Washington in Seattle and I did a study of a tiny coal mining community in western Washington and there was a Carpatho-Rusyn you know Greek, catholic or Uniate church in this tiny town and so I learned, also studying a lot of Eastern European history I learned about that church and your ancestors essentially.

Natalie Zett:

Well, you're the first person I think I've talked to outside of the professional genealogist that even know what that is, so that's very cool, all right, is there anything I've not asked you or not commented on that you would like to share with the audience? Hopefully they feel you know great warmth and interest in what you know the work that you personally are doing, but also the work of the museum. What else haven't I asked you that you'd like to share with people?

Peter T. Alter:

Haven't I asked you that you'd like to share with people what else you?

Natalie Zett:

know, I think we.

Peter T. Alter:

You have done a wonderful job in this conversation. So, you know, I don't I don't think I have, you know maybe anything super significant to ask. I would just encourage all your listeners and it sounds like they're perhaps already doing this is yes, you can go for years and many letters after your name. But I think, especially in the 21st century, we have such wide and wonderful access to the primary sources of history that we can be our own historians. We can dive into our own family's history, our own community's history, our own country or locality's history. So I would encourage people to do that because, although you know, my dream always would be to go like literally door to door in the city of Chicago and the significant suburbs and just talk to everyone and encourage them to visit us either online or in person and to learn about each individual's history, but I can't do that, and so I think we all need to be sort of the bearers of our own history, because there aren't enough chief historians and oral historians out there to do that work.

Natalie Zett:

That's, that's incredible. The other thing I want to add to about you all you and everybody I've come in contact with is, as I've gone through this journey and done the really deep research and investigation and done the really deep research and investigation, it's really nice, encouraging and uplifting to run into a group of people like you all and to hear about your enterprise, the museum and what you are doing. It's really re-encouraged me because it's like, okay, it wasn't my intent to become the Lone Ranger historian, but sometimes you have to do that and it's nice to walk with good companions on this road. I'm happy to do it, but glad to find you and glad to will heartily recommend you in the museum and personally that's meant a lot to me as well. So, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Peter T. Alter:

Yes, thank you, I've really enjoyed the conversation. I rarely come across someone who's familiar with the Greek Catholic Church or Carpatho-Rusyns.

Natalie Zett:

So it was good to kind of use that. I was Bruce Peter, just like what you know what we are Russian, right? No, yes, no, no, all right, slavish. That's what they said we were.

Peter T. Alter:

Slavish right, exactly, yes, for sure, slavish.

Natalie Zett:

New word. Grandpa was Slavish One year. He was Serbian too, by the way I don't know what the census are, just like they couldn't understand. And the surname is actually Zid, which means it points to our Jewish ancestry. Zidova would be my name would actually be Natalia Zidova. So it's isn't that funny. It is, but we Americanize because, you know, we want to make sure we have those names. But it's interesting. So thank you for knowing about my folks on that side. The other folks in Chicago were basically, again, polish ethnic Germans from Poland. They came for a better life. Things didn't work out so well, so yeah, and they're still there. I'll tell you this, peter, you'll like this. My aunt's husband's dad was the upholsterer for Al Capone. He lived in Cicero. She said they would blindfold him, put him in the trunk of a car because Al had a lot of needs on 24 seven. So they drive him someplace. Upholstery work done, blindfolded, taken back. So they drive him someplace. Upholstery work done, blindfolded, taken back.

Peter T. Alter:

So that's my Al story. Yeah, as I kind of point out, the door to my home office, Cicero, is just like a five-minute walk from where we live in the western suburbs, I keep hearing the music. Yes, yes, yes, and a neighborhood across the street in Chicago. Supposedly his brother lived in that neighborhood. It's called the Island, yeah yeah, which is very close to Cicero, so at any rate, you know, it's like six degrees of separation.

Natalie Zett:

Oh yeah, I mean everybody. Al is kind of the great uniter when you think about it. Everybody has an Al story. Who family has never lived in Chicago? Absolutely, absolutely, natalie. Yeah, I know, peter, this has been a delight. It's wonderful to meet you. I will be in contact as soon as I get, hopefully, everything recorded well, because again Zoom was going goofy and I will get this out and give you a copy and edit out any of the weird stuff like this. And you're great and it's a pleasure to know you and I feel like, wow, I'm astonished how much you know. So it's just, it's just awesome. Thanks, thanks for the work you do and thanks for this I do think it is a calling and thank you for what you bring into the world. I really appreciate that.

Peter T. Alter:

Well, thank you, that's very kind, of course. I've very much enjoyed our conversation and please keep up the great social history work that you're doing. You know so many, so many lost lives at a time. That's the best and only way to do it, so good luck in your future historical endeavors.

Natalie Zett:

Will do. I'll be in touch and ask you about Polish insurance really soon. I'm here. P-r-c-u-a. Here we go.

Peter T. Alter:

I got you, I got you, all right Great.

Natalie Zett:

Thanks a lot, peter. You take care, appreciate it Bye-bye.

Peter T. Alter:

Bye-bye, natalie, bye.

Natalie Zett:

So I want to say thank you again to Peter Alter for Thank you. Chicago History Museum. Big shout out to Sierra Wolf, who is the communications manager at the Chicago History Museum. She arranged everything and put me in contact with all of these interesting folks and set up the interview with Peter. So thank you, sierra, take care and I will talk to you all next week. 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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