Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Lost in Translation: How a Name Hid a Hero

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 127

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

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

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

Resources Referenced

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 127 of Flower in the River Podcast. I hope you're doing well. So today we're going to return to Dwight Boyer's book True Tales of the Great Lakes and specifically revisit Chapter Two. Who Speaks for the Little Feller? Just so you know, you're coming along with me in the middle of this research project, and this book is very new to me as well, and one of the things that I have found by studying this chapter in Dwight Boyer's book is that there are a slew of people whose names and whose biographies never made it into the 21st century in any website or publications that are supposed to be about the history of the Eastland disaster at least any that I have seen. If you've been with me for a while, you know that this is not exactly news in terms of the Eastland disaster history. As we've seen, so many biographies have been missing and there are so many people whose stories were never brought forward in the first place, and I've been able to find these by simply searching old newspapers for the most part. But here's what I found. The actual stories are much more interesting and considerably more diverse than the limited number of stories that I heard initially when I was first researching the Eastland disaster years ago. But here's the good news, and there's always good news with this the names and the stories of the people were there all along. They were just waiting to be found, be found. Although Dwight Boyer's book is new to me, it already has acted like a portal into that world. Today we're going to revisit one of the people that Dwight Boyer wrote about. It's a man and a hero who was hiding in plain sight. This is incredible. It was a matter of correcting a very simple error, the kind that could have been corrected with a little bit of research. But I'm guessing that, because the deeper research wasn't done, this initial error kept going forward in time and that error kept this man's life and his heroism in the shadows for more than a century and when I saw what had happened I thought enough of that. It's long past time to bring his history into light, not just for him but for his descendants, his relatives, who might not even know what their ancestor, what their relative, did on July 24, 1915. I am going to read from Boyer's book, and I'm going to specifically read the sections that are about this man. Here we go. This is the Morning of the Eastland Disaster.

Natalie Zett:

For Mike Jevenko, the day had begun much earlier, and for him it was just another working day. Begun much earlier, and for him it was just another working day. He had hitched his horse to his wagon at 3 am and shortly thereafter departed for the market district. On the fringe of the downtown area, mike peddled vegetables for a living, selling them on a neighborhood route that had produced many warm friends and satisfied customers. He purchased his vegetables wholesale at the markets, retailing them house to house after a modest markup to ensure a fair return for his time and labors.

Natalie Zett:

As the horse clip-clopped over the Clark Street Bridge, the empty wagon making quite a clatter, he noticed the sheer white bulk of the Eastland, only an hour home from a moonlight excursion, moored near the bridge, wisps of steam rose from her deck machinery. Empty beer barrels were being rolled out a gangway and a noisy group with a dray was unloading ice for her cold chests. Mike, with little time for the frivolity the preparations suggested, was unimpressed. Along the curb lane of the Clark Street Bridge, mike Jovanko, his wagon piled high with crated vegetables, was returning from market. Not familiar with any aspect of ships or their handling, he was instinctively alarmed at the sight of the Eastland leaning far over toward the river channel, of the Eastland leaning far over toward the river channel. Standing up and cupping his hands, he yelled to the crowd of young men on the bow get off. The boat's turning over. He was answered by a chorus of jeers and a shout by one loudmouthed lout go on, dago, you're crazy, you're crazy. The words of the rude rebuff his warning had received from those on the Eastland's bow were still ringing in his ears when Mike Jovanko saw the ship go over, with hundreds of people spilling off her upper deck, abandoning his wagon, he ran across the bridge and to the dock to join in the rescue work. Mike Jevenko was one of the many heroes that day.

Natalie Zett:

While Dwight Boyer, the author of this book, did a great job with documenting his sources in terms of the bibliography. For the most part he didn't footnote each story that he shared. However, so far I have been able to track down all of the sources for his stories, and mostly they originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 1915. So what jumped out the very first time I read this chapter was the surname Javenko, and it's spelled in this book J-A-V, like Victor A-N-C-O. It didn't sound like any Italian surname I'd ever heard and of course I could be wrong, but I needed to check that out. So I did start searching for the name Jovenko, the name that was given in Boyer's book.

Natalie Zett:

When I looked at FamilySearch and tried to locate birth information, census records etc for a Mike Jovanko, there was nothing. The people that I did locate with that surname were primarily from Mexico, spain and the Philippines, no one from Italy. Also, I did not locate the name Mike Jovanko in any Eastland disaster-related website or database, and that's odd in and of itself, even though the name is incorrect. You would have thought somebody would have picked up on the fact that this guy warned people he was a hero. But no, and, as is often the case, it was an older newspaper clipping that provided the clue that I needed to unravel all of this. This was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle that had been hiding in plain sight for over a century.

Natalie Zett:

I'm going to read what I think might have been the resource that Dwight Boyer referred to. This is from the Chicago Sunday Tribune, july 25, 1915. So it's one day after the Eastland disaster, the Chicago Sunday Tribune, july 25, 1915. Warning was scorned. Drivers shouted to passengers on bow of steamer and they laughed. Quote get off, the boat's turning over. This was the warning shout of Mike Javenko of 1119 Larrabee Street as he drove his vegetable wagon across the Clark Street Bridge and saw the Eastland listing over on its side. Quote go on, dago, you're crazy end. Quote. That was the answer Mike received from those crowded in the bow of the ill-fated steamer, from those crowded in the bow of the ill-fated steamer. Then came the shouts of terror and Mike joined with scores of others in the work of rescue. Okay, genealogists, you know why this is gold. It's gold because the newspaper article gives us an address and we can do a search and find out who was living at the address. I'll get back to that, but before we do that, I also want to share a similar article from the Daily Pantograph in Bloomington, illinois, monday morning, july 26, 1915. Drivers shouted warning. Chicago, july 25th.

Natalie Zett:

Many lives might have been saved had the warning shouted from the Clark Street Bridge by a peddler been heeded. Mike Jevenko was driving across the bridge when he saw the Eastland begin to keel over. Hey, he yelled to the upper deck of the steamer almost beneath him Get off, the boat's tipping over. There was a burst of laughter. Go on, shouted an excursionist. You're crazy. Jovanko went on Before his wagon had cleared the structure. The Eastland was on her beam's end and the peddler went back to aid in the rescue.

Natalie Zett:

This article is slightly different from the one in the Chicago Tribune, but there are a lot of similarities and both articles corroborate that Mike tried to help. He was a witness, he tried to warn them. He got a lot of pushback, very rude pushback, and he was a hero. So here comes the good news. I did look up that address and I was able to find him. Let me introduce you to this man by his real name. His name is Mariano, aka Mike Giovenco. The surname is spelled G-I-O-V, like Victor, e-n, like Nancy C-O Giovenko. So you can see how somebody who was not acquainted with Italian or Italian surnames, could have made a valiant attempt to transcribe the name. And that's what it sounded like to this person Giovenko. And that's what it sounded like to this person, jovenko. So, according to Mike's 1918 draft registration card, he was born in 1875, and a little more research revealed that he was born in Altavia Milicia, sicily. He immigrated in 1895.

Natalie Zett:

So let's talk about where Mike was from and where he spent the rest of his days. So let's start with Alta via Milicia, which is famous to this day for its impressive production of honey. Of all things. Alta Militia is a tiny village located in the province of Palermo in Sicily. And here's another cool fact for you During an archaeological dig, they uncovered an interesting cavern where several objects dating back to the Paleolithic period were found. And they found ruins of an amazing necropolis that had been relatively well-preserved. And when I saw the present-day photos and they are gorgeous with the ocean and everything was blue and beautiful I thought if I had lived in a place like that, I would never leave. But, as you may know, it was a harsher world back in the late 1800s which drove people like Mike and, for that matter, so many of our ancestors, to take a risk. Leave it all, get on a boat and head for places like the United States where they might have a chance.

Natalie Zett:

Returning to Mike's draft registration card, it gives us a lot of information actually. So he was born in 1875, and that made him just 40 years old in 1915. Keep that in mind, because I'm emphasizing that for a reason. Keep that in mind because I'm emphasizing that for a reason. He was married to Antonia and the occupation he listed on his draft card was that of peddler. So he had been a peddler since 1915 at least. And here's an extra bit of information about Mike he describes himself as medium height and build and he had brown eyes and brown hair, and he indicated that he had a scar on his abdomen. That was the only thing that he said was unusual about him. So let's get back to what happened to this man's name. In the newspaper his name was misspelled as Javenko and later, when Dwight Boyer was doing his research for his book, most likely he found one or both of those articles and repeated the incorrect spelling. And when Dwight was doing his research in the 1960s, he might not have even thought to have questioned the surname.

Natalie Zett:

It was a different time then and access to information is not what we have now, and now it's time to go on another slight detour. Let's fast forward 21st century. We have all this technology, all kinds of capabilities are available at our fingertips have to be researching a lot. So, along those lines, what I decided to do was check Google Books several times and search on both versions of Mike's surname. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything, because so much information is being digitized and uploaded to places like Google Books every day. When you think about it, it is just incredible. Today, you and I have research tools that people like the writers at the Chicago newspapers in 1915, as well as Dwight Boyer or even George Hilton, who wrote the definitive book about the Eastland, which was published in 1995, these people didn't have access to this type of information. We have tools that they could only dream of, and we have the ability to fact-check in a matter of minutes.

Natalie Zett:

I also came across a more recent book, one that was published in the 21st century, that repeated Mike's name incorrectly and presented details about him that don't appear in any historical resources that I found. In this version, mike is transformed into an older man with a disability, and his actions are framed by imagined religious and emotional motivations. While these additions may have been intended to add color, they create a familiar, ready-made character rather than portraying the real human being that we can glimpse in the records. And, unfortunately, in reshaping him this way, the author left out the most important fact Mike was a hero that day. That day.

Natalie Zett:

Let's get back to Mike Javenko and let's get to know him. I should mention that I created a publicly searchable family tree for him and as part of his title, I include not just his name but Eastland Disaster Hero, and in the detail of his profile I included the incorrect name so whoever's looking for him will understand what happened. And I attached the original 1915 newspaper articles to validate what I was saying. I wanted them as part of his history and I also added his draft card and census records that I found. Why did I do all that? Well, I'm a genealogist and that's what we do. More importantly, I wanted to honor him by remembering and honoring his history, and the other thing is that, as I was doing my initial search after I found his real name, I saw that Mike has many relatives or people who are interested in his family, and these individuals have all built family trees, and of the family trees that I reviewed, none of them mentioned his involvement with the Eastland disaster. Because how would they know? He was given the wrong name and then the wrong name was perpetuated 100 plus years later.

Natalie Zett:

As mentioned, mike Mariano Giovenco was born in 1875 in Alta Via, melicia. He was one of the many children of Loretto Giovenco and Angela Mule. The Giovencos endured repeated loss, with several of Mike's siblings dying young, and by 1895, mike had left Sicily for Chicago. Mike had married Antonia, or Nina, or Lena Scafidi as she's known, and between 1903 and 1911, approximately, they had around five children, at least according to the census record, and the family lived in Chicago's Little Sicily neighborhood on Larrabee Street, as you heard, and let's talk about this neighborhood because this will give us a lot of background, the information that I'm sharing with you is from a blog post called A Brief History of Chicago's Little Sicily Neighborhood and the St Philip Benici Parish by Cologero Lombardo, chicago, 2013., and I will link to this article in the show notes.

Natalie Zett:

Mike lived in Little Sicily, which was an energetic Italian immigrant enclave on Chicago's near north side during the 1900s. His address on Larrabee Street put him right in the heart of a tight-knit network of families, most of whom seem to have come from Alta Via Militia. You could walk down the street and hear your own dialect, smell familiar food drifting from open windows and run into neighbors who you knew or who knew your family. Back in the old country, and at the center of it all, stood St Philip Benici Church, founded in 1904 to serve Italian Catholics north of Chicago Avenue. This wasn't just a place for Sunday Mass, it was an anchor of community life. Baptisms, weddings, feast day processions with music and banners all started here, and in the summer, kids played 16-inch baseball in the streets and the city would open fire hydrants so they could splash and cool off. The neighborhood thrived on small businesses candy shops, bakeries, fishmongers, shoemakers, blackberries, fishmongers, shoemakers, butchers and barbers. Street peddlers like Mike Jovenko sold fruits, vegetables, peanuts or hot dogs from carts calling out to passersby. Many residents worked grueling jobs in factories, rail yards and construction sites. Near Goose Island, women often found work in the garment industry, sometimes taking part in strikes for better working conditions.

Natalie Zett:

But Little Sicily, it also had a darker side. In the 1910s, the neighborhood was plagued by blackhand extortion. According to Lombardo, the blackhand was not one unified mob, but a method used by various criminals, often from Calabria and Sicily. Used by various criminals, often from Calabria and Sicily, they sent letters marked with a crude black hand symbol, sometimes alongside daggers, skulls or crosses, demanding payment under threat of death, arson or bombing. In Chicago, fear was widespread. Out of roughly 100,000 Italians in the city, an estimated 25,000 had paid blackhand tribute and about 5,000 were under regular payment demands. The violence was staggering. At Oak Street and Milton Avenue, known as Death Corner, more than 20 murders were linked to blackhand activity between 1910 and 1915. Chicago saw nearly 150 murders and a dozen bombings tied to these extortionists.

Natalie Zett:

To protect children from the violence, father Luigi Giambastiani, st Philip Benizzi, spent his early years as a pastor, patrolling the streets and the alleys, rounding up kids for Sunday school, in a place where danger could only be a block away. So the church was more than a spiritual refuge. Sometimes it was a shield. Life in Little Sicily was also hard in practical ways. Housing was crowded, heat came from a coal-burning stove in the kitchen and many homes had no bathtubs, forcing families to use public baths or galvanized tubs on the kitchen floor. By 1920, the neighborhood was the most densely populated Italian district in Chicago, home to 20,000 people packed into a few city blocks.

Natalie Zett:

That was the world Mike Giovenco lived in, but he had a foundation of strong family and neighborhood ties, deep cultural traditions and hard and dangerous work. It was also a world where, despite what we just heard, people would step in when someone needed help. The convictions and values that Mike brought with him are the same ones he carried onto the Clark Street Bridge on the morning of July 24, 1915. And his job that kept him on the streets was the very one that put him at the right place at the right time on the morning of July 24, 1915. That day, the newspapers misnamed him as Mike Javenko, but the story was real. He saw the Eastland begin to list, shouted a warning, was laughed at, called a slur, and then Mike helped. The ship capsized. After that time, mike continued to work and he raised his family in Chicago where they lived. For decades. He showed up in the census with different professions First of all peddler, of course, then laborer and later a porter. He lived to be 78 years old, passing away on February 28, 1954. And here's what's interesting too he was initially buried at St Joseph's Cemetery in River Grove and then, in 1956, his remains were moved to Queen of Heaven Cemetery, most likely to be with other family members buried in the same location.

Natalie Zett:

In terms of the Eastland disaster history, mike Jovenko was not a missing person and just this last week I was writing to one of my genealogy mentor people and I was telling her about all of this research stuff and I probably gave her a headache and after I finished my email I thought when you take on a project like this, telling stories of people of the Eastland disaster, for me this is one of the most sacred tasks I've ever taken on and, of course, it's just my opinion, but what's not an opinion is the truth of the situation. The people of the Eastland, all of our people who lived in the past, they were real people. They were people's children, parents, friends, sweethearts, siblings, grandchildren, grandparents. Have I covered it all? You get the picture and, as far as I'm concerned, they continue to guide those of us who want to honor them and their stories. As I've said, I've had too many coincidences in this journey for them to be coincidences. There is something else going on here and they will help us, provided that we do the best we can and make it about them and not about us. These stories are not ours to distort. They are on loan from the people who live them and it's our job to try to get them right with as much accuracy, empathy and humility as we can. And with these histories it has to be a constant state of course correction.

Natalie Zett:

And finally I want to read Mike's obituary from the Chicago Tribune, sunday, february 28, 1954. Michael Giovenco, beloved husband of Lena nay Scalfidi, loving father of Angela, Mary, leo and Paul, devoted brother of Peter, fond father-in-law of Angeline and Elizabeth. Funeral Monday, 9.30 am from Funeral Home, 4905 Lincoln Avenue, to St Matthias Church for Solemn Requiem. High Mass at 10 am, interment St Joseph's Cemetery. So this obituary tells us that Mike had a lot of family and my hope is that somehow, either via this podcast or that public family tree I created for them, that if they go looking they'll find the real person. They'll find out that they have a relative who was a hero. That can be a really cool find for somebody. So thank you for joining me on this journey.

Natalie Zett:

It has been an honor to share this story of Mariano Mike Giovenco, and next week I will bring you another story that came about as a result of White Boyer's book, aka the Magical Portal. This is another one of those stories that really should have never been lost, but we'll bring it back. Have a good week and take care of yourselves and each other. Arrivederci e buona settimana. 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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