Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Excursion to Death — The Witness Who Finally Spoke

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 135

Share episode

Send us a text

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

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

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

Resources

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 135, A Flower in the River. Today, we are revisiting the story of John Griggs, an actor, radio star, and one of the forgotten witnesses to the 1915 Eastland disaster. When John Griggs was eight years old, he stood on the riverbank and saw the Eastland disaster unfold. Fifty years later, and just two years before his death, he wrote about it in an unforgettable article called Excursion to Death. Somehow this remarkable account was lost until now. Until last year, when I shared it on this podcast, Excursion to Death hadn't been widely circulated since it was published in 1965 in American Heritage Magazine. And today I want to bring it back again, partly because I uncovered a bit of updated information, and also because I don't want John Griggs or his testimony to be lost again. With light hull and heavy superstructure, the tall Eastland was unstable. On a summer Saturday in July, thousands crowded aboard for what turned out to be an excursion to death. When Uncle Charles was given two tickets for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, I was excited days before the event. I was eight years old, but the picnic festivities themselves at Michigan City, Indiana meant little to me. The supreme thrill came from the anticipation of embarking on a steamer in Chicago for the trip across Lake Michigan to the picnic site. My earliest childhood was spent north of Chicago, at my grandmother's in Evanston, just fifty feet from the edge of the lake. There I passed many hours sitting on the shore, watching the lake ships through a pair of ancient opera glasses, identifying freighters, tugs, barges, tankers. Twice a day I ran out to the end of the breakwater to see the old whaleback Christopher Columbus pass on her way to and from Milwaukee. To me, the lake was a living, fascinating creature of sometimes terrifying moods. A mile north was the Gross Point Lighthouse in Fawkhorn. On stormy nights, when the wind whistled and the Fawkhorn mournfully sounded, my grandmother's house was pervaded by an eerie sense of the peril of the deep, but the lake was to provide no storm-tossed high adventure for me. It prepared an experience far more fearsome. No thought of tragedy could have crossed the minds of the 7,000 who had passage booked for Saturday, july twenty fourth, nineteen fifteen, on chartered lake steamers from the Chicago River Piers to the Western Electric Picnic. On that Friday night, I was too excited to sleep. Would we be out of sight of land, I wondered. Would I be permitted to see the engines and the steering mechanism? Would I be lucky enough to sail on the Eastland or would it be one of the lesser boats? I knew all about the Eastland. She had a reputation of being the fastest boat on the lakes with a speed of twenty three miles an hour. She was two hundred and sixty five feet long, thirty eight feet wide, and weighed one thousand nine hundred sixty one tons. Newspaper ads heralded her as quote, the twin screw steel ship Eastland, largest, finest, and fastest excursion steamship. The ads neglected to mention that the Eastland had a history of being an unstable ship. A thin mist drifted off the lake as Uncle Charles and I left for Chicago that Saturday morning, about six thirty, when the elevated train crossed the Chicago River into the Loop, I glimpsed the picnic steamers loading a block away and urged Uncle Charles to get off at the next station and walk the few blocks to the Eastlands dock. But my uncle had no taste for walking anywhere, but on a golf course, and we stayed on the L until it went around the loop and came back closer to the pier. This delay most likely saved our lives. Streams of people in a festive mood headed toward the docks, including, I noticed, many boys and girls my age dressed for the occasion in sailor suits and midi blouses. I had my first good look at the Eastland when we arrived at her pier just west of the Clark Street Bridge and got in line. I remember a feeling of awe at her hugeness, her sleek lines, and the twin funnels from which rose tall plumes of smoke. Two other steamers were in the immediate vicinity, the Potoski across the river and the Theodore Roosevelt to the east of the bridge. They seemed stumpy, small and ugly compared to the racy magnificence of the eastland. We were soon caught in a jam of people struggling toward the eastland, but Uncle Charles' attention centered on the ship's crowded upper deck. I hate to disappoint you, he said gently. But we may have to take the Roosevelt. The Eastland looks full. But the Eastland will be first to go, and she's the fastest, I argued. We'll try anyway, he said. As we moved slowly toward her, the side of the Eastland looked like an enormous grey wall pierced with portholes through which I could see happy faces. I also noticed electric light bulbs shining inside the ship, and the fact that she manufactured her own light greatly impressed me. The papers later said that the Eastland's crew was herding passengers aboard like cattle. If so, I wasn't tall enough to see it, though I do recall the press of the crowd. Somewhere on the top deck heard above the din of thousands of merry voices, a little mandolin and fiddle orchestra played ragtime. When we got nearer the gangplank, Uncle Charles spoke to a uniformed official. Isn't the boat packed? Oh I don't think so, the man answered. There aren't so many people on board, but those that are are all on the upper deck. That's why it looks crowded. We looked up. People were indeed jammed along the rail, cheek by jowl. At that moment a ticket taker at the other end of the gangplank shouted, Get all on this boat you can. The other boats will be overcrowded and we don't want to leave anybody. I relaxed. We'd make it after all. Then came the first hint of impending disaster. Packed though it was with people going aboard, the gangplank slowly rose at least two feet from the dock. At the same time the Eastland's cliff like side fell back away from us. Uncle Charles grasped my hand, pulling me out of line. We'll have to take the Roosevelt, he said abruptly. So near, yet so far, I almost cried. She's leaning, I shouted to my uncle. We pushed to the bridge railing for a better view. She was leaning, tilting at what must have been an angle of at least thirty degrees, but the mandolin and fiddle orchestra still played, and the laughter and shouts continued. Her deck, I remember, was a sea of white shirts, white duck trousers, and fluttering white handkerchiefs. On the bridge, the captain calmly gave the routine orders to get underway as the tug Kenosha pushed alongside, preparing to pull the Eastland down the river and out into Lake Michigan. As the tug lines were secured to the Eastland's prow, there were shouts of See you in Michigan City and save that dance for me. Then a launch sped down the middle of the river, a movie camera cranking furiously on its foredeck. In 1915 a movie camera was a novelty, and this one inspired hijinks in imitations of Charlie Chaplin aboard the steamer. It was later stated by some witnesses that the camera launch had cost such a rush to the Eastland's port side, but as I remember it, the Eastland's deck was so crowded that no such mass movement could have been possible. Yet at this instance, the Eastland healed over so far that tragedy became inevitable. At her stern she was still moored to the dock, at her prow to the tug, but now only the stern lines were taught, and it is likely that they prolonged the breathless moment. All aboard suddenly realized that the ship was doomed to tip over into the river. The music stopped in the middle of a bar. There was a moment of uncanny silence. Then as people began sliding, jumping, catapulting into the water, the screaming began. At that time I had never heard adults in a panic, and even today I think that the cries of those on the eastland are the most terrifying thing I have ever heard. The screams were taken up in greater chorus by the crowds on the bridge around us, by those on the other boats, and by those watching from a warehouse across the river. One minute's silence, the next a gigantic roar, a cry of despair. As the eastland leaned farther over, there came an explosion of wood as the taut stern lines pulled the mooring posts from their sockets. Slowly the ship rolled over on her port side until her deck was submerged to the center. Men, women, and children slid from her like ants brushed from a plank. Hundreds floated struggling out into the river, some trying to swim, others helplessly opening their mouths to scream, only to be choked by dirty water as their terrified, imploring faces sank from sight. Etched in my young mind was the sight of women buoyed up for a time by air trapped under their billowing, voluminous skirts, and of babies momentarily floating like corks until the water soaked them. The entire surface of the river was black with writhing, drowning humanity. Negro workmen in the warehouse across the river began hurling boards, crates, anything that would float into the water to be clutched at by the drowning. Men stripped to their underwear and dove to the rescue. Hundreds of life preservers were flung into the water from the Roosevelt. Many who had been on the starboard side of the vessel climbed up on her side as she careened. They didn't even get their feet wet. Others clung to the railings. Some were strong enough to pull themselves up to safety. Some were helped. Many dropped into the water as their grip weakened. The Kenosha backed slowly into the mass of humanity, her crew hauling people aboard as fast as they could. If one had been able to discern all the sounds of those minutes, he might have heard the muffled moaning of those trapped inside the Eastland's hull. Portholes were smashed and people lifted out. When they were too large to get through, their clinging hands were removed to make way for those with smaller bodies. No sooner were my eyes fixed on one ghastly scene than they were attracted to another equally terrible. When the police cleared the bridge, bodies were already being brought up. I remember particularly one slip of a girl, pale and lifeless, her long Alice in Wonderland hair wet and stringy, her thin white dress with a velvet ribbon at the waist clinging to her slender form. It took us an hour to reach the elevated, through the packed crowds, the screaming ambulances, and other official vehicles. When word of the disaster reached Lockport, thirty four miles away, the lock in the dam of the drainage canal was closed to stop the Chicago River's current. Fireboats and tugs clustered around the death ship and began the task of gathering in the bodies. The grief stricken procession of relatives identifying loved ones commenced. Without a doubt, it was one of the worst disasters in maritime history. The count of the dead immediately after the accident came to 812 out of the 2,500 who were aboard. Subsequent deaths from injuries and other causes raised the toll to eight thirty five. On the Titanic three years before, one thousand five hundred out of two thousand two hundred had been lost, but the Titanic had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. While the Eastland was still lashed to her pier in the Chicago River, in the heart of a great city with elevated trains and streetcars rattling past within a few hundred feet. The Titanic took all night to sink. It was over with the Eastland in six terrible minutes. The official inquiry disclosed that the Eastland had been known to sailors as the crank ship of the lakes. There had been panic aboard several times before, when, cruising out on the lake, she had listed and her passengers had been ordered to shift from side to side until she stabilized. The reports of the Eastland's instability had become so widespread that in 1910 her owners had run an ad in a newspaper offering five thousand dollars to any person who will bring forth a naval engineer, a marine architect, a shipbuilder, or anyone qualified to pass on the merits of a ship who will say that the steamer Eastland is not a seaworthy ship. Two years before the catastrophe, a letter had been written to the harbormaster of the port of Chicago by a naval architect, J. Devereux York. Quote, You are aware of the condition of the SS Eastland, the letter said, and unless structural defects are remedied to prevent listing, there may be a serious accident. And nine years before this letter, only a year before she had been put into service, a local steamboat inspector, in order to give the Eastland more stability, had ordered her top deck cut off and her ballast tanks filled at all times. The deck was removed, but the tanks were emptied going in and out of shallow harbors. All of this evidence pointed to the fact that the Port Huron Michigan firm that built the Eastland in 1903 had one goal in mind a ship fast enough to make the one hundred and seventy mile round trip between Chicago and Grand Haven, Michigan twice in twenty-four hours. The Eastland's hull was light, her superstructure was heavy, and she was narrow for her height. None of the men indicted in the case, the president and vice president of the steamship line that owned the Eastland, her captain, the chief engineer, and the two inspectors who certified her seaworthy was ever proved guilty of charges of negligence and conspiracy. One of the most persistent accusations was that the chief engineer had contributed to the disaster by not properly filling the ballast tanks. As late as 1935, suits were still being brought in the courts by survivors of the Eastland's victims. In my teens, sailing out of Chicago aboard the old Christopher Columbus, I saw the Eastland once more. She had been bought by the Navy and with a deck cut off was transformed into the training ship Will Met. I recall that she still had the smartest lines of any vessel in sight. I learned later that she served as a gunnery practice ship in the Second World War. And finally, in 1948, after sailing more than 150,000 accident-free miles for the Navy, the beautiful but deadly Eastland was broken up for scrap. Who was John Griggs? Wait until you hear about him. John Griggs was born in Evanston, Illinois, that's just north of Chicago. He was born in 1908, and he grew up fascinated by the ships and the waterfront. And he went on to become a versatile actor, best known for his work on radio during the golden age of broadcasting. From the 1940s through the 1960s, John appeared in more than 5,000 radio programs. He was especially remembered for his role as Roger Elliott, the narrator and host of House of Mystery on the Mutual Network from 1945 to 1949. This episode is from the nineteen forties radio show House of Mystery, and you're about to hear John Griggs as Roger Elliot.

John Griggs:

Welcoming you to another storytelling session. Here is the House of Mystery.

Natalie Zett:

What's unique about House of Mystery is that it was produced by a woman, which was kind of unusual back then, and her name was Olga Drews, and she was the daughter of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, and she has quite the history as well. But back to John Griggs. Oh no. He performed on Broadway, contributed his voice to the Voice of America broadcasts during World War II, and later appeared on television shows like the Jackie Gleason Program and The United States Steel Hour. He even voiced animated characters such as Fearless Fosdick. He died in Inglewood, New Jersey in 1967 at the age of 58. Never a household name, but always an actor whose voice and presence helped shape Mid-America entertainment. Now let's talk about House of Mystery. This was no ordinary children's program. Under the direction of Olga Drews, the show blended suspense, drama, and science in a way that critics at the time said outshone most other popular radio shows for children. Griggs, as Roger Elliot, didn't just narrate spooky tales, he often debunked superstitions, using rational explanations to help children confront fear through logic and storytelling. Reviews of the show praised it as top drawer entertainment, definitely not to be missed. And in 1946, the Ohio State Institute for Education by Radio awarded House of Mystery first prize in children's programming. So here's what is so ironic or fascinating about all of this. John Griggs, who witnessed one of the most terrifying and real life disasters as a child, went on to devote part of his career to teaching children how to face fear with courage and reason. John Griggs, like so many others, has been left out of the broader Eastland narrative until now. Yet his article, Excursion to Death, and his radio, stage, and television work reminds us that history isn't just about what happened. It's about how we carry those memories, those events forward through writing, through performance, and through stories passed down. By remembering Griggs, we're not only revisiting a forgotten witness, we're connecting the Eastland disaster to the world of mid-20th century media, to the art of storytelling, and to the importance of preserving voices that otherwise risk being lost. The press once called John Griggs the man who never gets the girl. He was always the doctor in a commercial, the neighbor on a sitcom, or the villain in a drama, but rarely the hero. Despite that, he was beloved in his profession and deeply respected for his talent and humor. And beyond acting, he quietly preserved film history, creating one of the largest private collections of rare movies in the country. And when he died in 1967, Yale University acquired his collection, and it became the foundation of the Yale Film Studies Center. How about that? Well, I hope you enjoyed getting acquainted with or reacquainted with John Griggs. I'll continue bringing back some of these stories that were only shared once or twice, just to make sure they stay on the radar. But otherwise, I'll have some more stories for you next week. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other in the meantime. 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 www.flowerinthher.com. 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 nineteen fifteen. Goodbye for now.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Natalie Zett

Host