Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Checklist History vs. a Life Remembered

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 153

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Our story opens with a puzzle: an independent researcher uncovers a sparse, single-source biography of an Eastland hero that reads more like a checklist than a life. They reach out to me and pose a challenge, “Surely, there is more to this person. Can you uncover it?”

Challenge accepted. Soon, I found Bernard Napolski, our hero who saved more than 40 lives during the Eastland Disaster. A 1916 announcement of his engagement in a Chicago Polish-language newspaper offered many threads I used to weave a richer portrait of his life.

The Setting: Bernard lived in the Crawford neighborhood near Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works. ChicagoAncestors.org further revealed that at least seventy-two Eastland victims lived within a mile of Bernard’s family’s home. This was a community that witnessed, grieved, and remembered together. 

As always, the truth is tangled. Some newspapers credit Bernard with saving 40 lives; others claim 200. Even the Eastland death toll itself drifts and changes with the years.

Census records, sports clippings, and a 1955 service milestone help fill in the gaps. Bernard was first a teenager fibbing about his age to join Western Electric, and later a punch press supervisor, a fisherman spinning Florida tales, a proud father cheering at Northwestern games. 

What takes shape is both straightforward and hard-earned: a way to tell true stories about everyday people who achieved the remarkable, and a reminder that place, language, and shared memory are as vital as any headline. In the end, honest uncertainty does not weaken a story; it gives it strength.

The work of research is never done—especially when the history in question stretches back more than a century. But when research gives way to marketing and branding, history doesn't just stall. It disappears.

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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 153 of Flower in the River. And I hope you're doing okay. We are going to get back on track and return to some of the overlooked or neglected histories and biographies of people who were very much a part of the Eastland disaster. During the past nearly three years of doing this now, I have located so many people whose stories are not covered in any book, website, etc., but who were very much a part of the Eastland disaster story. I haven't tallied up the count in a while, but I think there are close to 100 people whose stories had never been shared in any coverage about the Eastland disaster. And then there are some that do have biographies, but sometimes the biographies are so incomplete. There's no source citations or they're just relying on one source. Well, we will talk about one of those today. This week, I want to start off by telling you about a challenge that I received. The individual doesn't want to come forward and talk about it. That's fine. They wanted to keep it between us. But they're not a family member. They have another interest in the Eastland disaster from a scholarly point of view. And why I accepted this challenge is because of the insight that they shared with me. They did find a biography for the person that they asked me to research. They also shared an observation that honestly is haunting me just a bit. They said this and some of the other biographies that they were seeing on this particular platform felt less like stories and more like checklists strung together. In the example that they wanted me to research, they pointed out that this biography for this individual was a paraphrase of a single newspaper clip. And there was no additional information, no other articles to corroborate this newspaper article. And as we've learned throughout the course of this podcast, newspapers don't always get it right. And it helps to look at different approaches, different newspapers, and so on. Having worked as a newspaper reporter, I know that we do the best we can, but we don't always get it right. And in those odd instances where we don't get it right, we have to issue some kind of statement, or the editor would issue a statement acknowledging the error and also adding the correction. When it comes to presenting the history of the Eastland disaster, which is almost 111 years old, we have to take even more precautions to make sure we have it as complete as possible. And if we only have a handful of items to reference, we need to say that as well. As I often do, I'll say this is what I have found so far, and it's subject to updates and corrections. That's the most ethical thing. I have to pause here and say this is what I have loved about working with various academics, especially since last summer when I was taking classes at the University of London, online by the way, and they started asking questions, and it really helped formulate my own framework as I approach this. What I have seen, and what many other people are now noticing, is that the majority of the stories of the people of the Eastland disaster, if they're covered at all, oftentimes the coverage can be very superficial, not always accurate, and the other issue is of course the lack of sourcing. Now, I'm excluding from that the people who are doing a good job documenting the Eastland disaster, the folks from Find a Grave, individual bloggers, and so on. So this researcher, this academic who contacted me pointed out that in the cases where sources were listed, it was often just one citation presented as confirmation instead of a starting point for further research and verification. But enough of this for now. Let's get to the challenge that I was presented with. So this individual, this researcher, wanted to know what other information is available for this Eastland person. They wanted to corroborate the story. So I said, okay, I'll take it on. I'm sure that I can probably find additional information to fill in this very flat biography. In fact, redo the biography so it has life in it. And I'll tell you exactly what I did. So I will introduce you to our person who survived the Eastland disaster. His name was Bernard Napolsky. And according to this smaller biography that was posted, he was a hero of the Eastland disaster as well as a survivor. So we can't rely on just one resource. We need to check out to see if there are other resources that confirm that Bernard Napolski was a hero of the Eastland disaster. When I saw that surname Napolsky, the first place I researched was the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. This is part of the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Library. So I'm not in Illinois, I am in Minnesota, and although I try to solve all of my research problems myself, occasionally I have had to reach out to people who work at museums or libraries in Chicago or in Illinois for assistance, and I have so appreciated their expertise, professionalism, and kindness and generosity. Thank you again. While researching Bernard Napolski in the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections, I got an immediate wonderful search result. I landed upon an article in the Polish language publication Zenik Szchikagowski. The date of the article is June 5th, 1916, so not quite a year after the Eastland disaster. And I should mention that Zenik Szchikagowski translates into the Chicago Daily News. And it was a publication of Chicago's Polish community during that time period. So in this issue, I found an article obviously written in Polish. It featured Bernard Napolsky. I can read Polish a little bit, but I did have to rely on Google Translate as well as Pod AI to help me with the translation. Headline Hero of the Eastland Quietly Got Engaged. Bernard Napolski, a sub reporter of Jenik Chikagoski in the Crawford District, also called Krakal, next to Cicero, uncovered a secret news item. Mr Bernard Napolsky got engaged in secret to Miss Katrozina Lizvik, and the wedding will probably take place at the end of the month. The fiance has a reputation as a hero among Poles and Czechs on the southwest side of the city, having rescued about forty people himself from the sinking steamer Eastland. He has been working for over eleven years for Western Electric Company in Hawthorne and currently holds the position of foreman. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Tomas and Antonia Napolski, 2724 South Colon Avenue, K-O-L-I-N, by the way. The fiance lives with her parents at 2811 South Cullen Avenue. She is counted among the beautiful Polish ladies in the Krakow district. This article, written in 1916, attests to Bernard's heroism. For example, if it had not been true, there would have been others in the neighborhood who would have disputed it because remember, the Eastland disaster happened in their backyard, and many of these people also worked for Western Electric. Next, based on that article, I have enough information to create family trees for both Bernard and Katrazina. Also, we have the addresses for both Bernard and Catrazina. I entered those addresses into a website called Chicagoancestors.org. Chicago Ancestors is a Newberry Library online resource devoted to helping people find and share historical information about Chicago. I've used it so many times. I was able to locate the homes for Bernard and his fiancee. Now, this area, they called it Krakoff. It was actually the Crawford neighborhood in Chicago. So it showed me the context, the place in which they were living. And that is so critical to understanding the biography of a person. Particularly in a situation like the history of the Eastland disaster, it gives you a sense for who these people were, who they interacted with. In other words, we're going back to Elizabeth Schoen Mills fan club. So Elizabeth Schoen Mills, I think most people who know genealogy know that Elizabeth Schoen Mills is the genealogist's genealogist. She is incredible. She's done so much for this field, for this profession. And Elizabeth Schoen Mills points out the significance of not only searching records for an ancestor's surname or for a date and thinking you're done, but she also brings home the point that you have to pay attention to the ancestor's fan club. That would be friends and sometimes family, associates, and neighbors. And that broadens the scope of research beyond an individual to the community and even the nation where she or he lived. And learning more about an ancestor's fan club is a great way to discover new information, new connections about their person and the people they interacted with. And it helps you build not just a relationship understanding, but a more complete, respectful biography for your subject. Here's a bit of history about Chicago's Crawford or Krakow neighborhood as it was sometimes known. From the late 1800s through 1920, it was a bit of a rural outlier, eventually transforming into an industrial immigrant stronghold. While the name Crawford is most associated with the avenue, now Pulaski Road, during this period it was a distinct community identity, often hyphenated as Lawndale Crawford. And it also was a primary residential hub for the Western electric workers. And that included Bernard Napolsky and maybe Katrozina Legivic, his fiance. So the neighborhood's namesake was Peter Crawford, born in 1796, died in 1876, a Scottish immigrant and land speculator, who arrived in Chicago in 1844, and he was instrumental in organizing Cicero Township in 1857, which originally encompassed this area where Bernard and his fiancee were living. Following Chicago's Great Fire of 1871 and the 1889 annexation, the area exploded with development. And by the turn of the century, Crawford had become the Western anchor of South Lawndale, developing a unique cultural identity, sometimes called Czech California, sometimes called Krakow. So you had the Polish and Czech combination. And to be transparent, some of the research that I have been doing has some contradictory information as well. So all that is to say this needs even deeper research. And so the neighborhood itself sat directly on the border of Cicero, which was the home of the massive Western electric Hawthorne Works. And Chicago ancestors also showed Church of the Good Shepherd, Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church, was not even half a mile from Bernard's residence. And it was a Polish Roman Catholic Church. Churches back then, although they might have been the same denomination, they were very much defined by the ethnic group who founded them and who they served. So in this case, it was a Polish Roman Catholic Church. I'm guessing, and I think rightfully so, that both Katarzina and Bernard and their families were members of Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church. Here's the other thing that I saw on Chicago Ancestors. I just tallied out the number of people who lived within a one mile radius of Bernard's home, and there were approximately 72 people who died on the Eastland. So that is our setting, and that's the other thing we needed to take a look at. So we open this section with the story of Bernard's engagement to Katrozina. In that brief article from the Jennik Chikagoski, we learn not only about his job at Western Electric and his heroism during the Eastland disaster, but also significant personal details, his address, his parents' names, and his fiance's address. From just a few paragraphs, we can construct an entire biography, and the outline of his life begins to take shape. Bernard Napolski was born on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1892, in Chicago to Polish immigrants Tomas Napolski and Antonia Beckmann. And he had, according to the 1900s census, seven siblings. And he married Katrizina or Katrina, as she was known in the later census, in 1916. And he had three children with her, according to these records. Katarina died in 1950, and Bernard later remarried. And Bernard died in 1961. But we're not done yet because Bernard had a fair amount of newspaper coverage even after the Eastland disaster. He was very well known in his community and fairly influential. So let me read one article that I think will give you more of an insight into who he was and how he was perceived by his community. This is from the Chicago Sun Times, Tuesday, september thirteenth, nineteen fifty-five. Headline Eastland Survivor 50 Years on Job. The Golden Gong of 50 Years Service rang Monday for Bernard Barney Napolsky of 3830 South Ridgeland, Berwin. He reached that mark with Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works, where he is a supervisor of punch press operations. Napolsky is an ardent hunter and angler with many adventures both on and off the job. He is a survivor of the excursion boat Eastland, which capsized in the Chicago River in 1915, killing 812. Using a long fire hose he found in the wreckage, he helped pull 200 other passengers to safety. Not long ago, Napolsky confessed that he was only 13 when he first went to work for Western Electric. I was big for my age, he said. I told him I was 18. Now that's the end of the article, and as you can hear, there's a bit of discrepancy between him saving 40 people from the Eastland disaster as opposed to 200. That aside, Bernard Napolsky was a hero of the Eastland disaster, and there were several other similar articles that were written about Bernard in various Chicago papers around the same time. And the other thing to take note of is that in 1955, the agreed upon death toll number was 812. That number came from the Cook County Coroner's Report, and of course it was incorrect because it excluded a number of people, including my great aunt. But as time passed, there were other numbers bandied about 835, 844, and 844 came from George Hilton, who was a scholar of the Eastland disaster, who wrote the definitive book about the Eastland disaster in 1995. But Hilton states clearly that this wasn't a final number. He wanted the research to continue. And so the research has continued, and I have found at least two other people who died as the result of being on the Eastland. One who died on the day of the Eastland, but who was excluded accidentally from the number, and another who died seven years after. And as the research continues, I'm sure that we'll find more people who need to be considered as having died on the Eastland. Now we have our next article. This is from the Berwin Life Beacon, Cicero Life, Stickney Life, Illinois. I guess it was a conglomeration. Friday, September 16th, 1955. This is a longer article and gives us a little more sense of who Bernard is and his contributions. Bernard Napolsky celebrates 50 years with Western Electric Company. Bernard Napolsky of 3830 Ridgeland Avenue, a supervisor at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, rounded out 50 years of service. Monday, September 12th. He joins a select group of ten men who have completed a half century with Western Electric, but only Napolsky is still active in the company. Napolsky was honored at a banquet at the Lakeshore Club in Chicago and was presented with a gold diamond studded 50-year pin by Hawthorne Works manager, Clyde C. Randolph. A member of a large family of five brothers and five sisters, Napolsky started work for Western Electric in 1905 at the age of 13. I was big for my age and I told him I was 18, he said. Although he began as a shearing machine operator, Napolsky's life at the company has been concerned largely with punch presses. A few weeks after he was hired, Napolsky was made a machine setup man's assistant and later became a setup man himself. At present, after almost four decades, Napolsky is a supervisor of punch press operations and related work. With 50 years of service behind him, Napolsky expects to retire on February 1st, 1956. He owns a 120-acre farm in southern Michigan, to which he will devote his attention. Napolsky also plans to take a three-month Florida vacation after his retirement. Napolsky was a survivor of the SS Eastland disaster in 1915. He assisted in the rescue operations by hauling survivors ashore with the aid of a long fire hose, which he found in the wreckage. A fisherman, Napolsky happily recalls cooking a nine-foot shark and numerous swordfish on a vacation trip to Key West, Florida. Napolsky also played football and baseball and did a great deal of bowling in early years and at present watches the sports pages daily to follow the progress of his younger son, Bernard 19, who is a leading sophomore candidate for fullback on the Northwestern Football Squad. Last year, Napolski saw every Wildcat game and plans to attend all the home games this year, plus the encounter with Tulane in New Orleans on October 1st. Although the two articles I shared are broadly similar, they also contain substantive differences, and I wanted you to hear that because reconstructing a biography is rarely a matter of locating a single account and then paraphrasing it. The responsible historical approach is to gather multiple sources, struggle with them, identify where they corroborate, and examine where they conflict. These conflicts are not obstacles to be hidden, but evidence to be evaluated. In some cases, the discrepancies can be resolved, but not always. And that uncertainty must remain visible rather than be forced into a single, simplified narrative. Additional articles about Bernard Napolsky exist, but these two were selected precisely because their similarities and differences make the challenges of biographical reconstruction really clear. Acknowledging disagreement among sources is part of the historical method, and it is part of its integrity. And I hope that I have answered my challenge in such a way where we get more of an impression and a feeling for who this person, who Bernard Napolsky actually was. Bernard was held in esteem, he was prominent in his community. He moved from Chicago proper to Berwin, which is a suburb, and finally here is his obituary from the Chicago Tribune, february twenty sixth, nineteen sixty one. Barney V. Napolsky, three hundred eighty three three three three three zero Ridgeland Avenue, Berwin, Illinois, beloved husband of Mabel P. Devoted father of Raymond and Ben Napolsky, Mrs. Rita Phillips, Warren and Ralph Janky, grandfather of nine, brother of Mrs. Bessie Mack, Mrs. Anna Sapersky, Mrs. Helen Sierosinsky, and Paul Napolsky, at Abram and Son Home for Funerals, six hundred nineteen Windsor Avenue, Berwin, Illinois, Mass at nine hundred thirty AM. Tuesday at St. Leonard's Church, thirty third Street and Clarence Avenue, Berwin, interment, resurrection. Some closing thoughts. There's probably a lot more to find out about Barney, Bernard. Barney was a survivor of the Eastland disaster and not only a survivor, he was a hero. He helped a number of people to also survive. And he was obviously held in high esteem as a community member and as a longtime employee of Western Electric. And I hope that you got a better idea of the process behind uncovering these biographies. And again, we have a good start and we can continue learning more about Barney as time goes by. And what I found is infinitely more interesting than that rather flat biography that this person gave to me. And I hope that it increases the understanding of what it takes to really do this work. It's fascinating, it's fun, but you do have to, as my Greek professor used to say in seminary, wrestle with the text. But we will continue with some more lost stories of the Eastland disaster next week. In the meantime, you know what to do. If you don't, I'll tell you. Take care of yourselves. These are very challenging times. And take care of one another as well. I'll talk to you next week. Hey, that's it for this episode, and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes. And for more information, please go to my website. That's 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 1915. Goodbye for now.

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Natalie Zett

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