Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Tribute to the Pearl of Great Price

• Natalie Zett

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This episode introduces the “original storyteller,” my aunt, Pearl Donovan Cerny.

Have you ever wondered how the ripples of a historical event shape the lives of those who follow? Imagine the Eastland Disaster of 1915, one of the deadliest incidents in Chicago’s history, and the trajectory it set for my family.

Pearl’s family history document--which introduced me to the Eastland Disaster-- nearly died on the vine. It was initially met with silence by those she sent it to, and she was desperate. Desperate enough to send it to the person who was her last resort—that would be me! Neither of us knew how that decision would change both of our lives.

Now, how about you? Can you fathom the power of your own narrative? What if your story could touch someone else’s life profoundly? 


Please join me for Episode 18 of Flower in the River Podcast, where we’ll learn about the transformative power of storytelling.

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Christopher Galovan 

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Speaker 1:

Why Hello, I'm Natalie Zett and welcome to Flower in the River. Flower in the River is a podcast about a book I wrote of the same name, and that book is about the Eastland disaster that took place in 1915 in Chicago and how that long ago tragedy affected my family for generations. I'll talk about writing and family history and what to do when the supernatural comes into your life when you're innocently doing a family history research project. Come on and let's have some fun with this. Hello again and welcome to Episode 18 of Flower in the River podcast.

Speaker 1:

If you've been listening from the beginning, you know we're walking through my book of the same name, but what I'm going to do now is to go in a different direction for the next couple of episodes. So the last episode was a reading of Chapter 3, which is called Something's Coming, something Good, and that was all about deja vu and how that factors into family history. And this is when things certainly continue escalating for the protagonist, zara, as she tries to figure out what to do with everything all this information about her family history in the midst of living her life, and it only gets more complicated and convoluted as time goes by. But that is also how life happens, and I've said that many times and I'll say it many times more we need to realize that our stories don't have these neat tidy beginnings, middles and endings. They often are truly ongoing. But as I was getting ready to go on to the next chapter in this book, I realized, lo and behold, we are coming up on the 108th anniversary of the Eastland disaster on July 24th. And before moving on to the next chapter in my book, I want to pause and go down a different path for the next two episodes.

Speaker 1:

So in this episode I want to introduce you to the real person who is behind the making of this book. She lives on in memory. She also lives on in the fictionalized version that she is in my book. Her name is one you don't hear often Pearl. Do you know what a pearl is?

Speaker 1:

So I found out, thanks to my new friend chatGBT, that a pearl is made by an oyster. Very slowly over time it starts when something small like a grain of sand gets inside the oyster's shell. This irritates the oyster, just like when you have a small rock or little stone in your shoe, and to protect itself, the oyster covers this irritant with a substance that is called nacre. I know it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? It's spelled N-A-C-R-E nacre and nacre is the same substance that forms inside of the oyster's shell, and it's smooth and it's shiny. You've seen oysters and you've seen pearls, I'm sure. Over time, the oyster keeps adding more and more layers of nacre around the irritant. After several years, this buildup of nacre becomes a pearl.

Speaker 1:

Pearls are highly valued as gemstones and are therefore cultivated or harvested for use in jewelry. The rarity of natural pearls today is the result of overfishing in the 19th and 20th centuries. How about that? So, needless to say, a pearl is valuable, and it came to life and came to its strength via an irritant, something that invaded its space and caused it to create a protective yet beautiful shell. See, it's not a coincidence that my grandmother named her first daughter Pearl. Pearl would need all the strength that she could muster. So Pearl Donovan was born to my grandmother and my grandmother's first husband in 1916. That's about five or six months after the Eastland disaster in Chicago. She is my mother's older half-sister, pearl.

Speaker 1:

So I'll talk a little bit about my aunt Pearl, and I know if she were alive she would be totally embarrassed about this. But she was the reason that my grandmother, who was the Western Electric employee, did not go on the Western Electric company picnic. Actually, nobody went on the Western Electric company picnic, when you think about it. My grandmother was pregnant with Pearl and not feeling well, so she gave her tickets to her sister, martha, and we know what happened to Martha Pfeiffer. But what about the aftermath? What did that do to the family? Thanks to Pearl, I have a pretty good idea.

Speaker 1:

My grandmother's first marriage to Pearl's father did not work out and they were divorced. Pearl's dad died in 1920, when Pearl was just four and when she was a young teenager my grandmother left her and her brother to live with their grandmother and my grandmother relocated to Johnstown, pennsylvania, where she married my grandfather, and a few years after that my mother was born to grandmother's second marriage in Johnstown in 1931. I guess I'm grateful for all that, but I do feel bad that Pearl and her older brother were left. Wilbert was a bit older, so he was getting ready to get on his way to start his life, but Pearl was still a teenager and had to live in Chicago with her grandmother, my great-grandmother.

Speaker 1:

So after the Eastland disaster and after so many other losses that preceded that, my great-grandmother was having trouble coping with life. For example, for a long time after the Eastland disaster, my great-grandmother would go to the streetcar or trolley stop where Martha got on to go to the picnic, and she would wait for Martha to come back. I don't know how long she did this, but I did put it in the book. And what I didn't put in the book is that my great-grandmother's physical health was also breaking down too. Those were parts of the stories that Pearl shared with me, and I can take a pretty good guess at what was going on with my great-grandmother, but I cannot and will not ever diagnose her or anybody else that I've never met and who lived years before I was even born. When I talk about these people, whenever I write about anybody for that matter and I've not met them all I can do is report on behaviors or conversations. But that's what I did, indeed, with the book, and that's what Pearl actually did as well.

Speaker 1:

So that's what was going on in Pearl's life. Again, she would need to develop some strength within to endure what was going on before she even hit age 18. And then it only gets worse for Pearl because her mother, my grandmother Annie, who was living in Johnstown in 1934, annie died In the book, although I have Pearl's grandmother, my great grandmother, dying after that. She actually died one year before my grandmother. So Pearl had loss after loss after loss, and what she ended up doing is living with a couple of her aunts who were already married and had their own families, and I think that they were loving and caring enough to her and she didn't feel totally abandoned. But certainly it's not the same thing as having your own parents and, according to her brother, as Pearl got older she was a looker, even though Pearl didn't think so. Pearl was actually very humble. She did look somewhat like a movie star, I have to say, and she had lots of according to her brother, gentlemen callers.

Speaker 1:

Before Pearl got married she was working as a typist and also doing some reporting and writing for several Chicago newspapers. Unfortunately I don't have any of her clips or anything like that, at least not yet. So I don't honestly know how extensive her work was with these papers, but she did a fair amount of writing and, as I can see by her later writing, she was a very good writer. And I found something interesting. I'm looking at it right now. It's a news clip. So in 1938, pearl got engaged to one of the gentlemen callers. His name was Miles Cerny. But I want to read this announcement, this engagement announcement, because I've never seen anything quite like it. It is from a newspaper called the Life, dated Friday August 19th 1938, and the Life was from Burwin, illinois, which is near Chicago. Quote provoking no little interest among local lights in the announcement being made by Pearl Donovan's aunt and uncle, mr and Mrs Frank Wallin of Chicago, mr and Mrs Frank Wallin are announcing Pearl's engagement to Miles Cerny, end quote, and they give Miles address. I haven't a clue about how to interpret that announcement but believe me, I'll be doing some research.

Speaker 1:

And after Pearl got married she and her husband lived in different places such as Downers Grove. I think they even lived in Wheaton and they finally settled into a place called Hometown, illinois, which is a little suburb just outside of Chicago. And later, I think in the late 1940s, they adopted a baby whose name was Tom and they had what looked like on the surface, a typical, fairly typical post-World War II family life. What was going on inside Pearl that time I don't know, but Pearl was and is very intelligent and she was intellectually curious and growing up. Her family was not necessarily poor, but they were definitely not wealthy either. So she really didn't have the means to further her education back then, even if she had wanted to. Nonetheless, something was going on inside Pearl. She had a story well, actually a lot of stories inside of her. On the surface she probably didn't seem unusual or special, but as time passed, things changed for her.

Speaker 1:

She was widowed in 1990. And she told me shortly after that she began picking up bits and pieces of her life that she had left on the shelf of her memory bank I suppose the best way to say it. And she had kind of a religious experience too. Actually, before that time she was brought up Lutheran, as most of the people were on my mother's side of the family. But she became a born-again Christian and then later became part of some church community around that time, and I think that this provided her with a sense of extended family. I think they were nice people and she was zealous, but not in a cruel, obnoxious way. She was just very committed to her faith and very sincere and faithful to her beliefs. So she told me much later that she felt God wanted her to create this family history. There was so much that was painful for her in that history that she didn't want to do it. But again, she felt she must write down all those memories, and so she did.

Speaker 1:

She wrote about everything that she could remember, including the Eastland disaster, and a big part of her writing, as well as her conversations with me, it was about the Eastland disaster, or rather, I should say the stories that she heard from the other relatives who lived through the Eastland disaster and who knew Martha, and from the quality of her stories I can assume that these other family members that I never met were terrific storytellers as well. Again, she kept most of that locked up inside of her for decades and I guess the time had to be right, and so the time was right for her to write write the story, that is. And one day she dusted off her old typewriter. She used one of those old fashion typewriters that you see Wednesday, used in the Netflix series Wednesday, and it has the black and red ribbon, and it was the kind of device where the keys would jam frequently, especially if you were a fast typist. I know that from personal experience because I learned on one of those as well. And again, as a child, pearl listened to all the stories of the people who had lived through all these good and bad times of their lives her aunts, her uncles, her grandmother and her neighbors. So she knew so much and I don't think she realized how much she knew until she sat down to write that thing and 38 pages later she had a thing she had quite the document.

Speaker 1:

Now, you have probably heard this phrase before Don't die with your story inside of you. But what does that mean? We, like my Aunt Pearl, carry all kinds of history, history with us all. We are walking history books, no matter how old or how young we are. We have the story of our life through our own perspective. Right, and I think a lot of us, myself included, take that for granted. We think, well, everyone knows this. Why should I share this? This is not true, by the way. Even if one person can relate to your story, that's one person who can relate to your story and who knows what they'll go on and do as the result of listening to your story. And so don't ever dismiss what you think of as mundane, as unimportant. That is not the case, and so your story, if it doesn't literally save someone's life, it might give someone comfort, and I've shared this before and I'll share it again because, again, not everybody listens to each episode of this podcast.

Speaker 1:

When I published my book, rushed it Out the Door and got it published, one of my best friends shared it with her dad, who was dying, and I never thought of this story as something that would bring comfort and assurance and hope to someone who was on their way out of this world. But my book brought comfort and to me, that's worth it all Just that one person I wanted to reach. So you don't know. You don't know what your story might do to someone else's life, and you'll never know until you share your story. And fortunately, now there are so many ways to share stories All the social media platforms in the world, and there are always new ones, and all sorts of things are going on constantly. It's a very lively field where technology is just. It's incredible. So we have so many opportunities right now, and so I would encourage you to share your story, if only to yourself or to your immediate family, because you never really know what's going to happen Again.

Speaker 1:

Your story might literally save someone's life or save them from making destructive choices. Your story might teach someone to forgive themselves, because you are carrying around a lot of treasures inside of you and I think for my aunt Pearl, as time passed she finally realized what kind of treasures she was carrying around and she decided, she made a decision again, that she was not going to let that die. We had to, number one, sit down because that was the only way you could write at that point and write the story of the family with all those stories she remembered. And I don't know how long it took. The document that she sent to me was dated 1996, but I have the feeling this probably took months, if not maybe a few years, to complete. But she did finish it all 38 pages of it and then she put it together, hopped on a bus because Pearl did not drive and probably went to some copy center like Kinko's to create copies of this document and this was her magnum opus.

Speaker 1:

She printed out the copies and she was so excited and she sent them out to nearly every relative except for me that she could think of and couldn't wait to hear their reactions to this, her finest work, her life's work. All she heard were crickets. According to her, no one replied, at least right away. No one said thank you. She was so sad until my mother her half sister called her from Cleveland to thank her. My mother was always about you say thank you to people and even if we didn't want to, we had to write thank you cards. And I'm really glad my mother instilled that behavior inside me, because lots of people didn't have my mother and lots of people didn't get that lesson, but we did so. My mother called her sister and during that phone call my mom mentioned that I was a published writer and she gave Pearl my address.

Speaker 1:

Now I wasn't in contact with my Aunt Pearl. I even thought she was dead at that point. So when I received the document, which turned out to be a portal to another realm, it literally changed my life. Pearl attached a note to the document where she asked me to do something with this, and she explained that time was running out. First of all, I had no knowledge of my mother's maternal family's history, so I was just gobsmacked and stunned to learn that many ancestors had immigrated near to the very place where I was now living. And then, as I read the piece about my great-on-steath aboard the Eastland, I thought who are these people and, furthermore, who am I? I thought I knew. But now I've got this whole other bunch of people that are related to me, and how do they affect my life, even if I've never met them? Do I need to start my life over? I mean, I was in a tizzy.

Speaker 1:

I called Pearl not too long after, and after our initial conversation I began to go to Chicago regularly to visit her. So during that time I was working pretty much a high-pressure job as a consultant and I traveled a lot, and so I had a lot of frequent flyer miles. So when I had time I would use those frequent flyer miles to fly down to Chicago. Sometimes I would drive, but it was about seven hours from St Paul where I was living. But I was spending a lot of time with her and I found out that, even though I was a little reluctant to meet with her I wasn't sure how she would receive me or if she would even be nice to me After we got to know each other I thought, wow, we were so much alike in terms of our approach to learning.

Speaker 1:

She had this intellectual curiosity which I also have and which I have found is I have gone on in life that many people don't have it. She was interested in everything interested in life and she was really a kindred spirit. And although I'd grown up with so many older relatives, it had been years since I'd spent time with older people. And being able to spend time with her well, that too was a privilege. And once I finally learned to be quiet and listen to her, I learned a lot, not just about our family history but about life. I learned about what aging would be like and it was kind of scary. But she told me things to what I could expect and initially, again, she told me often how heartbroken she was that no one other than my mom initially responded.

Speaker 1:

One thing I should say I've learned in the ensuing years is that we who are interested in family history it is kind of an unusual thing and I wouldn't be too hard on people who aren't interested in family history we who work in genealogy and who are family historians, we talk a lot to each other and we kind of live in a bit of a bubble, I could say sometimes. And we have to remember that not everyone is interested in this. And, as I used to say in the old days when I would go to parties and get kind of burned out on small talk. I knew that as soon as I would start talking about family history, I could clear out a room really quickly. But there's some really good news in the midst of all of this. The ones who are interested are so passionate about family history and indeed there are different flavors of people who are interested. Some are authentically interested in people's stories and they want to connect with those they came from, and I would put myself in that category.

Speaker 1:

And that's definitely how I would categorize Pearl, because I think, as she was putting this family history together, she was also trying to make sense out of her life, just as I've tried to do when I wrote my own version of this in my book. I was trying to make sense out of what in the heck happened here. But back to Pearl. When we would talk about her grief at people's lack of gratitude, I asked her okay, pearl, I know this hurts you. I said would you do it again, knowing that you might not get any responses other than some schmuck in St Paul? And she said well, of course. She told me she wrote this down because she was called to do so. She said she sent this thing out in faith, believing in things unseen. Have you heard that one before? Overall, stepping out in faith for her was about her acting with conviction, courage, and she was trusting in something larger than herself, even when the outcome may have seemed uncertain or unknown. This was a mighty good example for me and is a mighty good example for any creative.

Speaker 1:

Pearl wrote this document, this history, because it was the right thing for her to do, and she did not do it for attention, but she did want acknowledgement. She did want some gratitude. She would have settled for a thank you, aunt Pearl. I bless her forever and ever. She gave me the roadmap that would actually be the roadmap for the rest of my life, and I didn't know it at the time. Through that document, she connected me to a history that I never knew I had. She connected me to a grandmother who died when my own mother was three years old. She connected me to my family in nearby Wisconsin and Minnesota, and she certainly connected me to that disaster called the Eastland and created a forever bond between myself and my dear departed great Aunt Martha, who lived to be 19 years old.

Speaker 1:

And what she did, what Pearl did, was she gave me a section of my life, as I said in the book. She gave me one quarter of the ancestral pie that I was missing and now things were complete. I had a whole unit of understanding of who I came from. And I have a very diverse family. I have a very diverse religious history and I'm starting to write about some of that on social media because I have to kind of slow drip my family's history, including their religions, because they are so diverse and for me it's really interesting. But when I go to explain to people all the different tributaries that feed into this big body of water that is my history, they get really confused. So I'm just doing this step by step.

Speaker 1:

Pearl and her document definitely set me on a course and it was wonderful, but it was also difficult and I never want to idealize what this journey was all about. It required a lot of sacrifice of time, of attitude and of my life force to bring this to pass. But was it worth it? Yes, and I often felt like I was Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road heading toward the Emerald City, with a lot of helpers and a lot of detractors. So at the end I'm very glad I took this journey and ever forever grateful for the guidebook that my aunt Pearl gave me. She thought she was writing a family history.

Speaker 1:

With that document she created, I was able to get into my family's past while staying in my present and while making decisions about my own future. This week I was looking at Pearl's document and I was just amazed at how much of her story I did absorb, because everything that is inside of Flower in the River, especially the first part, is the result of Pearl's memories and the document she created For the next episode of Flower in the River podcast for the 108th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster. I will share that section from the forthcoming audiobook that tells of the days leading up to the Eastland Disaster, the day of the Eastland Disaster and its aftermath, and that is entirely based while mostly based on my aunt Pearl's document and her recollections, and of course, I added my own bits to fill in the gaps. And when you think about it, writing with the dead is also a form of artificial intelligence. Right Well, until next time, take care, and I'll talk to you soon.

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Natalie Zett

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