Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Shoeless in Chicago: A Rusyn Teen Hero of the Eastland

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 131

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At just 17 years old, Peter Hardy stood on a Chicago bridge in 1915, watching the Eastland fill with happy Western Electric employees on their way to a summer picnic. Moments later, the ship rolled onto its side, plunging more than 800 people to their deaths.

Peter didn’t run. This Rusyn immigrant teenager dove straight into the polluted Chicago River and began hauling people out — families clinging together, strangers fighting for breath. He saved at least ten lives that morning before finally staggering away, shaken but alive. And in the chaos, looters stole the very shoes and jacket he had set aside before leaping in, leaving him to walk home barefoot.

In this episode, I share how I stumbled across Peter Hardy’s heroism — and why his story struck me so deeply. Like Peter, I am Rusyn. That shared identity made his presence in the Eastland story all the more astonishing, since our small, stateless people are rarely mentioned in Chicago’s history at all.

From Sanok, a small town in Poland, to Chicago and Connecticut — Peter Hardy’s story runs through all three. A Rusyn teenager who leapt into a river, walked away barefoot, and built a legacy that endures.

Resources:

Mills. Making Places of Connecticut

Bridgeport Sunday Post, Sept 5, 1965 — “Peter Hardy Was a Hero at Capsizing of Excursion Steamer 50 Years Ago,” by Andree Hickok.

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. Well, hello, this is Natalie and welcome to episode 131 of Flower in the River podcast. I hope you're doing well Today.

Natalie Zett:

I want to start with genealogy, because I usually do that anyway, but there's a specific reason. In genealogy we follow something called the genealogical proof standard. It's the benchmark for credible research. We always want to do something credible right and it has several parts. First part doing reasonably exhaustive research. Second part citing sources accurately. Third is weighing and interpreting reliable evidence, resolving conflicts and writing conclusions that are sound but open to revision when new information comes along, meaning we have to error check and we have to revisit our work from time to time to make sure that if there's new information available, it's included. If we made errors in the past, we have to acknowledge them and we have to correct them. It's similar to the labels on the older bottles of shampoo that say rinse, lather, repeat. All that is to say is that you are never done when it comes to this type of historical research. So what's inspiring me to talk about all this stuff?

Natalie Zett:

I do get academic every so often, and right now I'm very academic because I'm in the midst of this wonderful public biographies of anybody associated with the Eastland disaster that I have already covered on this podcast. The instructors and several of my classmates at the University of London are, I want to say, fascinated, but many of them are stunned at how much has been missing from the Eastland disaster history and how much I've been able to recover just by looking online. I'm right there with you guys because I feel the same. What I've been trying to do is fill in those gaps for the last couple of years here, taking the time to stop, assess and take an inventory of what I have done so far. That also has been somewhat overwhelming emotionally, but here's what I found Between January 2025 and September 2025, because that's where we are I have identified 40, that's four zero individuals who are not listed in any Eastland disaster-related historical accounts that have been created in the 21st century.

Natalie Zett:

Their story was told once or twice in a publication in the 20th century. The information has been online probably for years, and yet it never made its way into any discussions of current Eastland disaster history. And that's just 2025. I need to look at 2024 and 2023. And, to be clear, I'm talking about people who are not on the radar at all. It's not that they're listed and missing biographies. These people are the most at risk of being lost to Eastland disaster history.

Natalie Zett:

I'm going to talk about a few of these people that I have already featured in past podcasts. Why am I doing that? Why am I doing that? These are the at-risk people whose stories only appeared once and never made it into various Eastland websites and documentation in the 21st century and once is not enough in a podcast simply because you get a new audience literally every week. And as of 2025, thanks in no small part to my appearance on the wonderful Krista Cowan's Stories that Live In Us podcast I now have a lot of brand new people from all over the world who are listening to this podcast. There must be a lot of genealogy people in the world, more than I ever thought, and I'm so happy you're here, so I'll bring back the stories of these people of the Eastland who were only told once well, twice First time was in the original publication and the second time in my podcast, to make sure that they don't get lost and to make sure that you get acquainted with them, because every one of them is important, every one of them has a unique story and there's so much to learn from them and that will bridge the gap between you and what happened so long ago.

Natalie Zett:

So I'm going to revisit one of the most shocking discoveries from last year. I'll tell you why it was shocking. It's the story of one of our heroes. This person's name is Peter Hardy, and his heroic actions during the Eastland disaster went unnoticed for over 60 years until I uncovered the story, and I'll tell you why I was so surprised when I found somebody like him in Chicago. Peter Hardy and I share something, something I did not expect to find in doing this Eastland disaster research.

Natalie Zett:

So Peter Hardy and I share the same ethnic identity, and it's a rather unusual ethnic identity A really small group of people, actually, and ones that aren't typically found in Chicago. They were, but not typically. Peter Hardy was part of this ethnic group called Rusyns R-U-S-Y-N and I also am Rusyn, courtesy of my dad's father, who came from eastern Slovakia, and of course it's rather complicated because there are different subgroups of Rusyns and Peter Hardy was part of a group called Lemko Rusyns was part of a group called Lemco Rusins, talking about Rusins. Well, it's complicated for a simple reason Rusins are an ethnic identity, an ethnic group, and not associated with a country. Rusins are often described as stateless people without a state, and it's not a big group of people. This is also why I was shocked to find somebody associated with the Eastland disaster who was Rusin and who knows what the exact number are, but they estimate anywhere from 500,000 to 1.2 million Rusyns worldwide and maybe about 320,000 in the United States.

Natalie Zett:

So if you are that, you're kind of special in a strange way and despite our small numbers, you've probably heard of at least a handful of Rusyn people. But the most famous person of Rusyn background has to be Andy Warhol, mr Pop Art himself. Even if you don't know the name, you certainly have seen his influences in art. You've seen the Marilyn Monroe's, I'm sure you have. So that's one. And you might have heard of Steve Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man. He also had Rusyn background and I do believe Steve, like myself, like so many people with Rusyn backgrounds, came from Western Pennsylvania, from Johnstown specifically, huge Rusyn population, pittsburgh also, and northeast Ohio, like Cleveland, Youngstown and going east again, there were a lot of Rusyn people who settled around the Syracuse area, as well as various locations in the eastern part of the United States.

Natalie Zett:

And religion well, the Rusyns traditionally practiced the Byzantine Rite and that would be the eastern liturgical style. It's not well known in the United States but it's here. And most like my grandfather and I do believe Peter Hardy was also Greek Catholic and that doesn't mean they were Greek. It means they followed the Byzantine Rite but were still under Rome. Yes, it's confusing. And many Rusyns later shifted to Orthodoxy Christian Orthodoxy. That's a whole story in and of itself and a rabbit hole that I could go down and you might never see me again, but that's as easy as I can describe it for this podcast. Thanks for bearing with this one.

Natalie Zett:

Peter Hardy was born on June 6, 1897 in Sanok, what is now Poland, sanok, poland and he immigrated in 1913 when he was all of 16 years old. In 1900, the town had roughly 6,000 inhabitants, approximately 57% Polish, 30% Jewish and 13% various Rusyn ethnicities, including Lemkos, like Peter's family. This was the heart of the Lemko region. The economic conditions that Peter left behind were brutal and that's why so many of them left. By the 1890s, austrian Poland was overcrowded, with 80 people per square kilometer trying to make a living from agriculture, compared to just 36 in the rest of Austria. Industrial opportunities they were virtually non-existent. High taxes, poor transportation and bureaucratic obstacles prevented development. And for a young person like Peter, there were a few options beyond backbreaking agricultural work on increasingly divided plots of land. So, simply stated, people immigrated for all kinds of reasons, but the main reason was opportunity. They thought that they could do better in another country and maybe return to their home country someday. Much of the time they never returned. Peter made the extraordinary and brave decision to immigrate to America all by himself, at just 16 years of age. That is incredible, and I don't know how he ended up in Chicago or where he was working. Now I want you to hear Peter's own story as written by journalist Andrea Hickok in the Bridgeport Sunday Post on September 5, 1965. Headline Peter Hardy was a hero at capsizing of excursion steamer 50 years ago.

Natalie Zett:

Though it happened 50 years ago, peter S Hardy, the Bridgeport manufacturer, still cannot forget the capsizing of the excursion steamer Eastland, with 2,500 aboard, and his part in the rescue efforts. When the 2,200-ton vessel keeled over as it was leaving its mooring in the Chicago River, 812 men, women and children bound for a day-long outing to Michigan City four hours away were trapped below deck. All were drowned. The Eastland was one of five steamers chartered by the Western Electric Company for a July 24th picnic for the firm's 7,000 employees, 835 drowned altogether. Mr Hardy, who was to found the Peerless Aluminum Foundry Company 16 years later, was then a boy of 17 on his way to work. He had taken time out to watch the festive boarding scene as he crossed a nearby bridge. Quote one minute they were laughing and happy, he recalls, and in another minute they were screaming for mercy and help.

Natalie Zett:

Hundreds of victims bobbed helplessly in the polluted water. Many could not swim. The river was more than 20 feet deep. Employees of nearby warehouses threw chairs, lettuce crates, barrels and planks in the water to help the survivors to keep afloat. Some of the objects unfortunately hit the floundering swimmers, causing them to sink and drown. Causing them to sink and drown. River Filled with Bodies. The river was filled with the bodies of the dead, their picnic baskets and the objects thrown from the dock. Those aboard who had managed to crawl out of portholes clung to the sides of the tilted deck like grapes. Some hung from the legs of others like links in a chain. When one let go, they all dropped.

Natalie Zett:

Mr Hardy, now 68, and supposedly retired as the president of the foundry he is not is still haunted by the tragedy Saves 10. He remembers jumping into the water after removing his shoes and jacket. He saved at least ten, he says, and recalls four of the passengers in particular. Three he believes were a father, mother and son all clinging together. The father held on to a porthole, the wife hung from his legs and the boy dangled from his mother's foot. God help me. The woman screamed. Albert, do something. But the father, burdened with the weight of his family, could do nothing. After Mr Hardy persuaded the child to let go, he swam with him to the stern of the ship, sixty feet away, and handed him to a man standing on the side of the steamer which was above the water. By the time Hardy swam back, the father and mother were making it to shore.

Natalie Zett:

The manufacturer also remembers saving a panicky woman who fought him the whole way. Had to hit her. I had to hit her in the nose to make her come to her senses. He said he towed at least seven others to safety, but through the years only the family of three and the woman remained vivid. Hours passed while rescue efforts continued. Parents screamed the names of missing children from the shore. A horse-drawn ambulance and fire truck arrived more than 30 minutes after the boat turned over Looters. Active Looters meanwhile went through the pockets and purses of both the dead and the living. One of them stole Peter Hardy's shoes and jacket. That day he walked home barefoot.

Natalie Zett:

The young man left Chicago two days later. Quote I was a nervous wreck. He remembers I couldn't stay in that city. The boy, who had arrived in this country two years before, hitchhiked to New Britain where he worked briefly in a cabinet shop. But he was too upset to stay there too and continued to walk across the country working in various jobs as hole digger, track layer and cabinet maker. The cries of the dying and the horror of the day haunted him for several years, particularly at night. Many times I would have to get up and walk around the block. He recalls I couldn't sleep for a long time.

Natalie Zett:

Although Mr Hardy, who immigrated from Galicia in the Carpathian Mountains, has had a tough life. He has supported himself since he was 15, the Eastland tragedy is his worst nightmare. It is one of the most terrible. Everyone was a hero that day, he said. A half-century has passed since the Chicago tragedy and while he almost never speaks of his part in the rescue, he has a drawer full of clippings and pictures about the Eastland and its ill-fated excursion. His real pride and pleasure, however, is in the aluminum foundry he started on a shoestring in 1931, during the Depression. He's also proud of the Trumbull Hall Shopping Center, which he developed, and the Park City Hospital, in which he has been acting as president and chairman of the board and is now a trustee. All of these achievements, he says, were built on a foundation of hard work, honesty and thrift.

Natalie Zett:

He credits his success to his mother's advice and guidance from the parish priest. And guidance from the parish priest. His mother had urged him to work hard and be honest and always to ask for help when he needed it. Quote you will be refused by ten or fifteen, she told him, but there will always be someone who will help. She was right. Mr Hardy agreed. She had nothing else to give me, but she was right. Parents gave courage. My parents, the thankful manufacturer said, were not afraid to send me into the world. He does not regret leaving Galicia. It was beautiful, but you can't live on the climate, he said. As the youngest of seven brothers, it was felt that opportunities in America offered the best hope for his future. A magnificent testimony to the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches legend. Peter Hardy parlayed his shoestring into one of the biggest aluminum foundries in the East, on whose output many important customers rely.

Natalie Zett:

The Trumbull resident of Hardy Lane it was named after him is sure that the kind of success he had is within the grasp of today's youth if he acquires a skill Quote. The trouble with too many today is feeling they must have luxury goods they do not need and consequently live from paycheck to paycheck. His advice Learn the value of a dollar, he counseled. Work hard and don't feel sorry for yourself. The economic climate is more favorable to today's young people than it was in his time. He feels Industry and consumers' need for new luxuries has created a tremendous demand for new products and for himself. I don't look for the riches. Look at my dirty hands and he displays grease-stained palms.

Natalie Zett:

Mr Hardy still works in the shop helping to train pattern makers. This is my retirement, he smiles. His son, myron, is president of the foundry. A great source of pleasure seems to be the factory, which now, quote, feeds close to 2,000 mouths. He says he is proud of his workers and enjoys seeing their children well-dressed and healthy Work benefits. He was one of the first manufacturers in the area to give his plant workers insurance, pensions, hospitalization and death benefits. He says, quote, a good worker is entitled to consideration. He is a spoke in the wheel. He derives satisfaction from the knowledge that his plant will continue to provide employment and goods after his death. We must leave something behind, he said quietly. We must enrich our country. In short, the stalwart industrialist said we must pay our debt for the space we occupy. Mr Hardy's favorite maxim is that, despite the language barrier and his pitiful capital of $2.75 when he arrived in America, I learned to paddle my own canoe. I want to clear up something that probably was confusing.

Natalie Zett:

In the article they mentioned Galicia as Peter's birthplace. Peter was actually born in an area called Sanok, poland, which today sits in the foothills of the Carpathians. But from 1722 until the end of World War I, it wasn't Poland at all. It was part of Austria-Hungary's province of Galicia, of Austria-Hungary's province of Galicia. That's why so many immigrant records list Galicia-Austria as a birthplace, even though many of those towns are now in what is now Poland or Ukraine. So we just heard a very compelling account from Peter Hardy, who was a Lemko Rusyn who experienced the Eastland disaster. Peter is one of the many long-lost heroes of the Eastland disaster, as well as one of those long-lost witnesses.

Natalie Zett:

Peter Hardy was born June 6, 1897, in Sanok, poland. He married Anastasia, another Rusyn immigrant, and they had two children. He died on April 24, 1989, in Bridgeport, fairfield, connecticut, and Peter left the world a better place. What he didn't tell you is that in 1946, he founded the Lemko Relief Committee in the United States to aid Lemko Rusyns who, after their forced deportation in 1947 to various parts of communist-ruled Poland, wanted to return to their Carpathian villages. After 1957, the Polish government allowed Hardy to visit the area and to distribute some funds that were used mainly to purchase food and clothing and to reconstruct damaged churches. The following year, through Hardy's personal intervention, the Polish government signed a 15-point document agreeing to continue the aid program. This was an unprecedented act for a communist government at the height of the Cold War, and it was not without controversy either. Some did not agree with what Peter had done. Peter also wanted to make sure that Lemko Rusyn history was preserved and in 1970, he founded the Carpatho Literary Association and financed the reprinting of four older scholarly books. The first time I shared Peter's story was a year ago and it still astounds me to think that this story would have probably remained hidden and, as a result, it would have been left out of the history of the people of the Eastland disaster. And here is Peter Hardy's obituary from the Bridgeport Post telegram, wednesday April 26, 1989.

Natalie Zett:

Retired businessman Peter S Hardy, 91. Peter S Hardy, 91, of Trumbull, founder and chairman of the board of Peerless Aluminum Foundry Company at 55 Andover Street, died Monday in his home. A native of Austria-Hungary, he immigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in Bridgeport two years later. Trained in cabinetmaking in Europe, he learned metal patternmaking and founded the Aluminum Foundry in 1933. Mr Hardy served as president of Peerless Aluminum for many years. During World War II he was a consultant for the Aluminum Casting Division of the War Production Board. Active in several civic organizations, mr Hardy was a former president of Park City Hospital's Board of Trustees and chairman of the hospital's initial expansion committee. He was honored at the hospital auxiliaries annual spring dance this year. Mr Hardy also served as a board member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Bridgeport and was named Citizen of the Year by the International Institute of Greater Bridgeport in 1966. He was a member of Fidelity Lodge no 134, af&am, the Lafayette Consistory, sprs, 32nd Degree, and Pyramid-M-A in Shelton. Mr Hardy was the widower of Anastasia Hardy. He is survived by his daughter, nadine H Penkoff and his son Myron P Hardy, both of Trumbull, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews in the Soviet Union. Funeral services will be held Saturday afternoon at Holy Ghost Russian Orthodox Church, 1520 East Main Street, bridgeport. Interment will be at St John's Greek Catholic Cemetery in Stratford in Stratford.

Natalie Zett:

Before we close, I have some late breaking news and it is such good news. Wait till you hear this. So last year when I was researching Peter Hardy, I wanted to make a family tree. I made a family tree for him. I always do that and I could not get past basic brick walls, for Peter Couldn't find his parents, I couldn't find his immigration record, I couldn't find any listings of siblings etc. And I thought okay, with the passage of a year. Maybe there are more records available online. I will find him. I did not Until last night.

Natalie Zett:

I went to Genetica, which is a Polish genealogy site. Genetica has really helped me research my own family on my mother's side and I thought I wonder if I could find him there. Sure enough, genetica has a subcarpathian area on their site where they have records from that area, which is where Peter was from. And I saw Peter's name on the list of search results. His name was indeed Hardy, which was interesting. I thought maybe it was some kind of an Americanization of a surname, but it seems to be that's his surname. So what I'm seeing now I'm taking you through this name Peter Hardy. Father's name Simon. Mother's name Catherine Stabrilia.

Natalie Zett:

The parish is Juroce, j-u-r-o-w-c-e and it says in paren Greek Catholic. So if you look at records like this that are marked Greek Catholic and they're dated in the late 1800s, it's a strong signal that you're looking at a Rusyn community. There are always exceptions, but usually this is the case. It gets better. Next to Peter Hardy's name there was a scan button, which means a volunteer scanned the original document and I couldn't believe it. I clicked on the scan button, of course, and where does it take me.

Natalie Zett:

But to FamilySearch, where I have spent so much time looking for Peter's records and having no luck, and I thought what gives here? What is going on? My best guess is that this is part of the Ukrainian archives that is hosted by FamilySearch but is housed in Ukraine. So we have the Cyrillic alphabet heading in Ukrainian, we've got Polish and the record itself is written in Latin. However, this seems to be a restricted area of FamilySearch. How did I know that? Easy, I could not download the document. What I did was expand it and do a screenshot. So this is fascinating. I entered another portal of FamilySe search that I did not know existed. I so enjoy it when I accidentally stumble into something like this. However, I need to get more information for you and for me, and when I do, I will share that with you.

Natalie Zett:

But now back to Peter Hardy. Now that I have his early family records, I can start putting those together and adding them to his family tree. And the other thing I am hoping for perhaps I can find some of the family's descendants. Not only can they hear about their relatives' successes in business, but they can know that their relative was a teenage hero of the Eastland disaster. It doesn't get better than that, and it gives me so much joy to be able to share information with these families. Why do I do this type of work? For this very reason. These people of the Eastland. They should be acknowledged, but they also should be connected to their family members who are looking for them, and that can't happen without their stories being told. Right Sounds so simple, and in many ways it is. It's just a matter of finding them, writing and sharing the story and getting it out there, covering the globe with these stories.

Natalie Zett:

And I want to leave you with a quote from Dr Hannah Elias, who's one of the people that I've had the privilege of listening to during this class that I'm taking at the University of London on public history. Dr Elias said the past and the present are always in dialogue with each other, and so history of the present means let's look to the past in historical research to understand and make sense of things that are happening in present-day politics and present-day. That's it for now, and I want to thank you again for joining me on this journey. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Talk to you next week.

Natalie Zett:

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 as audio book, 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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