Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Olive Carruthers: Chain-Smoking, Gravel-Voiced Chronicler of the Eastland

• Natalie Zett • Season 4 • Episode 173

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Sometimes, a single newspaper article can pull lives back from the shadows. Today, I want to share the story behind one of my most treasured discoveries: writer and journalist Olive Carruthers. Her 1952 Evanston Review piece, “How Evanstonians Assisted in the Eastland Disaster,” brings the 1915 Eastland tragedy in Chicago into sharp, unforgettable focus. Long after the Eastland rolled into the Chicago River during the Western Electric picnic, Olive sought out Evanston residents, collected their memories, and wove them into a gripping narrative that saves names other histories have let slip away. 
 
 We step into the raw moments Olive refused to soften: the frantic surge of rescuers, the dread that someone you love might be lost, and diver Enoch Moberg plunging into a world turned upside down, filled with ladders, darkness, wreckage, and the unthinkable. We trace the aftermath through Catherine O’Reilly’s desperate search for her brother Patrick, the jolt of grief and hardship that struck survivors’ families, and the wave of community relief that rose up in the days that followed.

Then Olive steps out from behind the byline and into the spotlight. We follow her journey from Wisconsin to Chicago and Kentucky, exploring her life as a novelist and book critic. Gerald McMurtry offers heartfelt thanks for Olive saving his manuscript and for their partnership on Lincoln’s Other Mary. He also leaves us with a description for the ages: Olive as a “chain-smoking, gravel-voiced time bomb.” Some writers are memorable. Olive apparently came with a warning label.

I close with Olive’s own words on why Chicago held her and what it meant to write with real freedom. 
 
If you love uncovering the hidden stories of the Eastland disaster, or if Chicago history, genealogy, and archival sleuthing spark your curiosity, this episode is made for you. Subscribe or follow, share it with a fellow history enthusiast, and leave a review to help others discover these long-lost tales.

Resources:

  • Olive Carruthers, “How Evanstonians Assisted in the Eastland Disaster,” The Evanston Review (Evanston, Illinois), October 23, 1952, 37–38.
  • R. Gerald McMurtry, My Lifelong Pursuit of Lincoln (Fort Wayne, IN: Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1981).
  • Olive Carruthers and R. Gerald McMurtry, Lincoln’s Other Mary: The Courtship of Mary Owens (Chicago: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1946).
  • Olive Carruthers, We’ll Sing One Song (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1947).
  • She Took the Call. He Dove for the Lost. She Wrote Their Story.

Welcome And Series Setup

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 173 of Flower in the River, and I hope you're doing well.

Writers Who Made It Human

Natalie Zett

Today we are continuing our look at writers and other literary figures who helped interpret the Eastland disaster not just as a news event, but as a human one. Some of the writers were very close to the scene in 1915, and others they came later, listening to survivors, interviewing families, and trying to understand what remained and what needed to be remembered. And that brings us to a writer called Olive Carruthers. I featured her article in episode 121. It was called She Took the Call, He Dove for the Lost, she wrote their story, the she being Olive Carruthers, and that was originally dropped on July 4th, 2025. Now during that time, I focused on the various people who Olive interviewed, and there were approximately 27 of them. Of those 27, 26 of them are not mentioned in any modern revisions or retellings of the Eastland disaster story. That's another reason why I'm bringing this back because as of today, and today is July 2nd, 2026, I have counted 248 people who were part of the Eastland disaster story, but whose names, whose biographies have been completely omitted. And I say that because there's a mistake in understanding that this history has been maintained, has been kept up to date. However, that's not the case. And I want to make sure that I note this in each episode because, after all, these podcast episodes may very well be the only historical records that are available for these people, at least for the time being. So let's get acquainted or reacquainted with this writer. And there are so many twists and turns to Olive Carruthers' life. Olive is one of the more compelling and somewhat frustrating people that I've profiled for this podcast. But she's also one of the most intriguing, and I do love a genealogical historical challenge. Here's some background on this article. It was published in 1952 in the Evanston Review, and that's Evanston, Illinois, and written by Olive Carruthers. By that point, 37 years had passed since the Eastland disaster. Carruthers interviewed Evanston residents who had been directly involved, and she gathered stories from those who'd known the people caught up in it. She spoke with an astonishing number of people, then wove all of this together into a cohesive, condensed piece that fit her newspaper's space limitations. Those of us who've written for print know those constraints very well. You're given a word count, and anything over it gets cut. So Olive had to juggle those limitations as well. And listen to how she draws us into the story until we feel like we're part of it and how effortless she makes it seem. Though this type of effortlessness takes real skill. So let's hear what she had to say.

Olive’s 1952 Eastland Article Begins

Natalie Zett

This article is from the Evanston Review, Thursday, October 23, 1952. This is part of a series called Evanston's First One Hundred Years. The headline How Evanstonians Assisted in the Eastland Disaster by Olive Carruthers. One Evanston life was lost. Another townsman performed service of heroic and almost superhuman magnitude, and the city showed its traditional generosity in a disaster which shocked the nation back in 1915. Early in the morning of Saturday, July 24th, the big pleasure boat Eastland lay at Mooring in the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle Streets. She was one of four boats which had been chartered by the Western Electric Company for the fifth annual picnic of its employees around the lake in Michigan City. The Eastland was the largest and finest of them all. Three thousand people had gone aboard, and the boat was ready to cast off. Suddenly, at a few minutes before eight, without warning, the boat tipped over into the river. Before the passengers could move or realize what was happening, those on the upper decks were hurled into the muddy water. Those who were below never had a chance. They were trapped like rats. In minutes the boat was nothing but a floating bier. The horrified crowd on the banks sent in a fire alarm, and all the stations in the city responded. Ambulances armed with pull motors and filled with doctors and nurses arrived. The coast guards sped to the scene, along with fire tugs and crews of other boats on the river. Police and firemen manned small boats and threw life boys into the river. Firemen chopped holes into the bowels of the eastland to release the trapped passengers. They worked madly, furiously. Out in Evanston, one of the first persons to hear of the disaster was Catherine O'Reilly, who worked for the telephone company. She passed the word to city officials, and police chief Fred Schaefer, Fire Marshal A. N. Hofstetter, and James Lee, city editor of the News Index, rushed into the city in a police car with a pull motor to help in the rescue work. They had their pull motor at work on the scene within 50 minutes of the time they left Evanston. As soon as Miss O'Reilly had passed on the message to the Evanston authorities, she turned her post over to someone else and, with the chief clerk and head telephone operator, took a train for the city. For her brother, Patrick O'Reilly, had gone to Chicago the night before to attend the picnic. He had been employed by the Western Electric Company some time before, had lost his job, and was now working for the greenhouse at Calvary Cemetery. Old friends among the Western Electric employees had invited him to go along for the outing. Headline Fear Others are aboard. Edward Walder, son-in-law of James T. Bartlett, was an executive in charge of a department at the electric plant. He had gone across the lake in advance to arrange the grounds for the picnic, expecting his wife and children to come along on the excursion boat. Miss Ruth Madison, 815 Chicago Avenue, had gone in early Saturday morning to join the excursion. Miss June Woods, manager of the Girls League, had gone on her vacation July 18th, giving the Western Electric Company as her vacation address. Friends feared that she might be aboard. Another Evanstonian was involved. Rivers McNeil, collector of the Port of Chicago, took charge of the rescuing.

The Diver Who Entered The Hull

Natalie Zett

When the rescue work in Chicago had got underway and it became apparent that many passengers, an estimated 1,000, were trapped and drowned in the bowels of the boat, C.C. Sayner of the Chicago Engineering Department, former Assistant Commissioner of Public Works in Evanston, remembered Enoch Moberg's diving. Headline City Diver twenty years. Enoch Moberg, police sergeant on the Evanston Force, had been diving for the city for nearly twenty years. He had charge of the water intakes from the lake, his duties being to keep the intakes clear of anchor ice and in repair. Saynor drove out to Evanston Saturday morning as fast as a good car would take him, got the consent of the chief to borrow Moberg, and had Waterworks engineer Charles Lapp released from duty to help. They loaded in Moberg's diving suit and were back in the city in an hour. The diver went to work immediately. His own story, given to the press at the time, is more graphic than any present rewrite could be. He told the reporter, quote, We got to work at one o'clock Saturday afternoon, and in two hours and twenty minutes, I had found and started from the water forty bodies. It was an awful experience, but so big that I forgot I had any nerves and was handling them mechanically as if I had been treating something that never had any life in it. Headline Grope's Way in Boat I had no trouble with my air. Charlie Lapp always attends to that alright, but I found it very hard to get down the fireman's ladders which had been placed there and to explore the upside down cabins. The decks were straight up and down like walls, and it was utterly dark, so I had to grope my way foot by foot among topsy turvy furniture, feeling for bodies. It was hard work, but I did not feel unusually tired. The strain was too great for that. He went down first to the forward end to the east, going through a hole cut on the side of the boat, and was let down into the salon deck where he found four bodies. He got the bodies out from whatever was holding them, attached cords to the wrists, and the bodies were pulled up to a platform, which had been thrown across one end of the hulk. From there, they were taken ashore. He found a pile of bodies in the after quarter of the same deck, wedged into a pocket about eight feet square, and what was evidently a stairway to the upper deck. He figured all the people had rushed together in a frantic effort to reach the stairway when the boat turned over and they were wedged in. Headline gets twenty-five bodies. He took twenty-five bodies out of this pocket. In another part of the cabin he found a woman's body and those of her two children, one about four years old and the other less than two. The baby was under a table with broken dishes and glass piled around. Enoch Moberg worked all afternoon and took out between fifty five and sixty bodies. Sunday morning he started again at seven and worked until eleven thirty. But usually do it in two hour stretches. I heard, he continued, that one of the divers went crazy and died later. I did not have time to notice what the others were doing. Five, besides myself, were diving, nearly all Scandinavians who take to diving work. All afternoon Sunday I was working outside the boat, between it and the dock. I found no bodies there. I searched the bottom of the river, along the piles and foundations very thoroughly. When the boat tipped, all persons thrown overboard fell toward the center of the river, and I understand that other divers working there found a number of bodies. Those who were rescued alive were among the upper deck passengers who were catapulted into the water. Mr. Moberg put in nearly two full days in the rescue work, stopping hardly long enough for fresh air and food. He pulled out three more than three score bodies of the drowned victims. Headline Mother and Children Safe.

Near Misses And One Evanston Loss

Natalie Zett

Evanston soon learned that the whereabouts of the people who were thought to have been on the excursion boat, Mrs. Walder, and the children were safe. They had not gone on the trip at all, but had come to her father's home in Evanston on Saturday night. Ruth Madison had a remarkable escape. She had boarded the Eastland, but as soon as she got on, a police officer came along and ordered fifty passengers off, saying that the boat was overloaded and not safe. It turned over just a few minutes after Miss Madison got to land. Sometime during the day on Saturday, June Woods telephoned that she was safe. Tom Connell nineteen twenty six Jackson Avenue told how losing a job saved his life. He had applied for work as a kitchen helper on the Eastland. He was told to get on the boat, and if the regular man did not show up he could have the job. But the man did come, and Tom walked off the boat just fifteen minutes before it turned over. Only Patrick O'Reilly, twenty years old, was lost. When his sister, Catherine, and her friends arrived at the river, the crowd was so dense that the police wouldn't let her through. So they went to the information bureau at two hundred one four North Clark Street and waited an hour and a half, only to learn that Pat had not been listed there. They went back to the boat, but still could not get through the crowd. At an emergency station of the telephone company in Chicago, Catherine got in touch with friends and learned that her brother's body had been found and taken to 328 West Chicago Avenue. There it was identified and taken to Ahern's funeral parlor on Kedsey Avenue. Headline Unprepared for Loss. The loss found Catherine totally unprepared financially. She was only twenty two years old herself, had come to the United States from Ireland only a few years before. She had found employment first in the home of W. M. Calwell. After she went to work for the telephone company, she stayed on in the Calwell home, earning her board and room in her spare time. A younger sister worked in the household of Mrs. B. D. Cole, while an older one, Molly, had married an Englishman and lived near Decatur. All the sisters were sending every cent they could spare home to the folks in the old country, where, besides their parents, there were seven more children, all under the age of fifteen. The brother Patrick roomed alone at thirteen eighteen Elmwood Avenue. Whatever savings he had had been used up during his unemployment. Monday after the disaster, the board of directors of the Evanston Commercial Association met and voted to ask the Chicago Association what they could do to help. George Kearney called attention to the plight of Catherine O'Reilly, and it was decided to offer her help first, at least to the extent of the funeral expenses. The Elks wired the mayor of Chicago their offer of assistance as well as the Evanston Commercial Association. Evanstonians on the Chicago Special Relief Commission included James A. Patton, D. R. Forgan, E. J. Buffington, W. A. Gardner, and Northwestern University's president Abram W. Harris. Headline Evanston Banks Help. All the Evanston Banks aided through the Chicago Clearinghouse, which subscribed twenty thousand dollars toward the relief of the families of victims. Two children, Marion and Harold McNeil, 921 Davis Street, wanted so much to help that on the Friday evening after the disaster, they sold flowers on the street until the police stopped them for a lack of a permit. They had collected one dollar and eighty cents, and they sent it to the relief fund, which the Chicago examiner was raising. Enoch Moburg, who retired in nineteen twenty five after twenty eight years of service for the city, and now lives at fourteen twenty six Elmwood Avenue, remembers the disaster as though it happened yesterday. Quote, it was harder work moving the furniture and wreckage than bringing out the bodies, he said of the great service he rendered. I will encourage you again to listen to that earlier episode that provides more of the backstory about the people that Olive Carruthers interviewed. And I will put that link in the show notes. For you, so you can revisit it. But before we go further, there's a couple things I want to say. Evanston, Illinois is about 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, and it's best known, well, it's known for a lot of things, but it's best known as the home of Northwestern University. And of course, Olive Carruthers was writing for the Evanston Review. In the previous episode that I did, we didn't get to know Olive in as much detail simply because there were so many other people that she wrote about. But let's get to know Olive Carruthers.

Who Was Olive Carruthers

Natalie Zett

Olive Skinner Carruthers was born November 13th, 1905, in Broadhead, which is in Green County, Wisconsin, about 118 miles or 190 kilometers west of Chicago. And she died September 17, 1969, in Janesville, Wisconsin, which is 20 miles east of Broadhead. Her parents were Oliver and Annette, or Nettie Skinner. Her dad, according to the 1910 census, was a laborer. By the 1920 census, the family was still living in Broadhead, where Oliver worked as a clerk in a general store. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, and Olive had two older sisters, Violet and Pearl. Olive would have been 10 years old when the Eastland disaster happened, so she very well may have been aware of it, but she wasn't living in Chicago. By 1924, she had graduated from Broadhead High School. In 1928, Olive graduated from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. She lived in Wisconsin for a while and then in Chicago, where her parents were also living. Her mother died in 1936 in Chicago. In 1938, Olive Skinner married William Wells Carruthers in Chicago. She was 32 years old. And at that point, there's no record available that tells us where she was working. Two years later, in 1940, Olive and William moved to Kentucky. This information is from the 1940 census. It appears that they were living in a hotel, and they are both listed as lodgers. The address is illegible, but they are living in Bardstown, Kentucky. At that point, Olive was not working, and her husband was an assistant manager at a hotel. And in 1944, Olive's father passed away. He was buried in Wisconsin. And Olive Carruthers, like Agnes Lee, has a connection to Carl Sandberg. Here's the story. In 1945, Carl Sandberg moved to North Carolina. He stated that he relocated his family and his wife's prize-winning dairy goats from Michigan to Western North Carolina to find peace, solitude, and a milder climate for writing. And a number of people wrote farewell notes or poems to Carl that were published in the Chicago Sun. I did not find the primary source for this. I only found references to it. But in 1945, Olive Carruthers was one of those who wrote a farewell poem to Carl Sandberg. In 1946, Olive's husband died. This is his obituary from the Kentucky Standard, Thursday, May 23rd, 1946. William W. Carruthers dies in Chicago, Illinois, writes here Friday. William Wells Carruthers, 45, formerly of Bardstown, died Tuesday, May 21st, in Chicago, Illinois, of a heart attack following a brief illness. He was an accountant for the Instrument Produce Company of Chicago. Mr. Carruthers was born in Bardstown. He was a graduate of Bardstown High School and attended the University of Kentucky. He was a member of Bardstown Baptist Church. Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Olive Carruthers, one sister, Miss Emily Carruthers, and two aunts. The remains are at the Man and Smith funeral home, and funeral services will be held there. Reverend Dr. W. H. Moody officiating Interment will be in the Bardstown Cemetery.

Lincoln Novel And A Brutal Review

Natalie Zett

The following article was published a month after Williams' death. Monroe Evening Times, Monroe, Wisconsin, Tuesday, june twenty fifth, nineteen forty six. Headline misses Carruthers is co-author of novel concerning Lincoln. A novel that is receiving high praise is the book named Lincoln's Other Mary, written by Mrs. Oliver Carruthers, a former Broadhead resident, with Gerald McMurtry as co-author. Mrs. Carruthers is now in Chicago, and Lincoln's Other Mary is her first publication. She has reviewed light fiction in the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sunbook Week. The daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Skinner, Broadhead, she has two sisters residing in Janesville. Her husband is the late William W. Carruthers of Chicago and Bardstown, Kentucky. The new author is a graduate of the Broadhead High School class of 1924 and Beloit College 1928. End of article. In the midst of all of this loss, Olive publishes this novel. This is a fictionalized novel about Mary Smith Owens, and she was future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's fiance for a short time following the 1835 death of Anne Rutledge. According to Wikipedia, to his surprise and mortification, Mary Owens rejected his marriage proposal. And Olive Carruthers' co-author was Gerald McMurtry, who is someone that we definitely need to get to know better. And this excerpt is from the Lincoln Memorial University Libraries website. Gerald McMurtry, a Lincoln scholar from Kentucky, began his career in 1932 and later directed the Lincoln National Life Foundation. He built major Lincoln collections, authored numerous works, and left a lasting legacy in Lincoln studies and in scholarship. He passed away in 1988. I'm going to read an excerpt from Gerald McMurtry's book, My Lifelong Pursuit of Lincoln, published in 1981 by the Lewis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum in Fort Wayne. He's talking about his struggles as an author and the challenges that he was facing. He writes, Once I began to write my novel, the dialogue between the characters, especially Lincoln and Mary, was the most stilted and stupefying effort ever to be put on paper. My best friends read my novel and shook their heads in disbelief. My good friend, Otto Eisenschmiel, suggested that I put my manuscript aside for a long period and take a rest. But Ralph Newman had the best idea. He knew a woman novelist who could take my research material and do wonders with it. Her name was Olive Carruthers. She was a chain smoking, gravel voiced time bomb. She did her best work under pressure, her greatest stimulus was not newly discovered historical facts, but a deadline. I was tremendously pleased with her work. She took my voluminous notes, some of which I had made when I visited the Nathaniel Owens home in Green County, and very soon she had ready for publishers a manuscript entitled Lincoln's Other Mary. I was to write an appendix to her novel, a task that I was well prepared to do. Ziff Davis, a Chicago-New York publishing firm, agreed to take it, and without much delay it was released in time for an extended review in the July 8, 1946 issue of Time magazine. The Time Reviewer really had fun criticizing the book. He said that Mrs. Carruthers had whipped up a quote unquote mess of taffy prose. He made disparaging comments relative to Mary Owens. He wrote that Lincoln, according to the novelist, quote, appeared to have begun the affair at a full rolling boil, and he provided his reader with a brief synopsis of the romance. His comments relative to Miss Carruthers were entirely undeserved. The reviewer did say, quote, luckily for the reader who wants to know what really happened, historian R. Gerald McMurtry retells the unadorned facts in an appendix which is almost as long and far better than the Olive Carruthers novel. The book sold fairly well and made a little money for the authors. However, it would have enjoyed a larger scale if the publisher had anticipated the excellent publicity that it was to receive. There were two or three printings after the initial run, but many disappointed buyers who inquired for a copy of the bookstores the first time never went back for a copy the second time. The whole experience for Miss Carruthers and me was a pleasant one. She did not mind the adverse comments. I decided never again to attempt a novel. I would have loved to have met Olive, the chain-smoking, gravel-voiced time bomb. Yes, I would have. What I liked about McMurtry is that he has a sense of humor about himself and about the world in general. And even his description of Olive, which is quite comical, I felt that he respected her and held her in esteem. And the perspective of a co-author, a colleague, well, that is another priceless find. But we will continue.

Journalism Career And Medill Scholarship

Natalie Zett

In 1947, she published another book. It's called Will Sing One Song. And here's the publication notice. We'll Sing One Song is the title of a novel of life in Kentucky written by a Beloit graduate of 1928, Olive Skinner Carruthers, who writes under the pen name of Olive Carruthers. I want to pause here and say her actual married name was C-A-R-O-T-H-E-R-S. Her pen name sounds the same, but it's spelled differently. It's C-A-R-R-U-T-H-E-R-S. It says Mrs. Carruthers, whose home was formerly in Broadhead, Wisconsin, was married in 1938 to William W. Carruthers, who died in 1946. She frequently reviews books for Chicago newspapers, and she's the author of another book, Lincoln's Other Mary, which was published in Chicago in 1946. In the 1950 census, Olive was living in Chicago. Her occupation was listed as a secretary, and she was working in a doctor's office. I suspect that like so many writers, self-included, she had to take a day job to pay for things, even with publishing two books and her work on the various newspapers was not bringing in enough income. But she continued writing for the Evanston Review, among other publications. On October 9, 1952, she wrote an article about the Iroquois Theater Fire in 1903 because many Evanstonians were involved in that. At some point, we will revisit the Iroquois Theater Fire and its connection to the Eastland disaster, and I will share Olive's article. We'll continue. On October 23rd, 1952, Olive published in the Evanston Review the article that you just heard how Evanstonians assisted in the Eastland disaster, and Olive just keeps on working. This article is from the Glencone News, August 6, 1953. Olive Carruthers given scholarship. The Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University has awarded a scholarship for graduate study to Olive Carruthers, Chicago novelist, feature writer for the Evanston Review, and book critic for the Chicago Tribune. It was announced by Dr. Albert A. Sutton, Chairman of the Scholarship Committee. She will work toward a master's degree in journalism beginning this fall. Miss Caruthers was a member of the editorial staff of the Public Relations Department at Northwestern during its centennial celebration in 1951, writing the historical articles on the university, which ran weekly in the Evanston Review throughout that year. Last year she was employed in the publicity department at Northwestern and also wrote a weekly feature story for the Evanston Review, recalling interesting events in Evanston through the town's 100 years of life. She is presently employed by the American Library Association Division of School Librarians and has continued feature writing for the review with stories of industries and associations in Evanston, which have nationwide distribution and significance. Miss Carruthers is the author of a novel, We'll Sing One Song, Bob's Merrill, 1947, and a fictionalized history, Lincoln's other Mary, Ziff Davis, 1946, and is a recognized authority on this little known romance in Lincoln's life, which preceded his marriage to Mary Todd. She is a graduate of Beloit College. She was forty seven years old at that time, by the way. And it's not clear whether she finished her master's work, but I will continue researching just to make sure. This is from the Monroe Evening Times, september eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine. Local author dead at sixty three. Lawrence Avenue, an author of two books, died in Mercy Hospital yesterday at twelve thirty PM following a four month illness. And I'm skipping over the biographical information that I've already shared with you and will continue. She was employed in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois until six years ago when she came back to Janesville, where she had been employed at the Norwood Mills. She was a member of the First Methodist Church of Broadhead. Survivors are two sisters, Mrs. Violet Selk and Pearl Skinner. Funeral services will be held Friday at 1030 in the United Methodist Church. Burial will be at Maplegrove Cemetery, Orfordville. Memorials may be made to the Cancer Fund.

Olive Explains Why Chicago Held Her

Natalie Zett

We'll have Olive Carruthers provide the closing words for this episode. This is from the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, December 6, 1953. Article title is Among Our Kind of People by Olive Carruthers. I've tried to get away. I've sampled California where the air is so clean you can see through it. I've thought longingly of New York, where the real literary jobs are. I've hungered with all my heart for Bardstown, Kentucky, where my husband is buried, where spring bursts into golden bloom in February, and living is a slow and gracious thing. I've even been tempted to return home to a small town in Wisconsin where I think I could be a big toad in a little puddle, where I wouldn't have to work eighteen hours a day to meet the third highest living cost in the country. But I stay in Chicago, and that pull isn't only the stars falling into Lake Michigan, or the beacon cutting the night like a silver sword, though those are strong homing magnets. There are a couple of other considerations which for me preclude migration. One is my present newspaper connection. If you're trying to be or become a journalist and critic as well as a novelist, your newspaper affiliation is of paramount importance. I'm happy with mine. My editors give me elbow room. I can be myself. To my knowledge, no book review or feature article of mine has ever been blue penciled or cut except for space limitations. I can write, not for the paper, but for Olive Carruthers. And being such a belligerent individualist that nobody can get along with me, I couldn't write on assignment under other conditions. Another thing, my paper speaks to and for what to me spells America, the great Midwest, which not only embraces the majority population of the nation, but also expresses the American personality. But that isn't all. In the heart of Chicago is a commercial enterprise which is the heart of a world so small and esoteric that many people don't know it exists. The Lincoln World. That community is peopled by Lincoln writers, scholars, collectors, and admirers of the Civil War president. You don't get in by just asking, you have to earn and learn the password. This interest is more than intellectual escapism. It grows out of a shared belief that the ideals and ideas of democracy can best be nourished through study of the life and work of the man, whose name means democracy to all men everywhere. It is perhaps a stringent indictment of the rest of the country that the Lincoln world seems to be geographically limited. It may be that only in the Midwest which produced him can Abraham Lincoln be understood. He was our kind of people. And I'll stay here among our kind of people. I hope that you enjoyed getting a chance to know the person behind this Eastland article. This seldom happens, by the way, and I'm really grateful to have gathered all of this information and to be able to get to know Olive and to introduce you to her as well. She's a complicated person, but most interesting people are, right? In the meantime, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Stay safe. And I will talk to you next week.

Final Thoughts And How To Support

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 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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