Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

Dwight Boyer: The Man Who Spoke for “the Little Feller”

• Natalie Zett

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 24:19

Send us Fan Mail

As we get closer to the 111th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster (July 24, 1915) in the Chicago River, we learn what careful writers actually put on the page--and what modern revisions often leave out.

We look at why poets and journalists who wrote about the Eastland disaster, such as Edith Wyatt, Agnes Lee, Olive Carruthers, Carl Sandberg, and others, are mostly missing from today’s accounts. We also focus on one key figure: Great Lakes reporter and maritime historian Dwight Boyer. In his chapter “Who Speaks for the Little Feller?” from True Tales of the Great Lakes (1971), Boyer draws on primary sources, courtroom records, and interviews to tell the Eastland's story with accuracy and respect for the victims as real people.

At the center of Boyer’s account is “Victim 396,” a child dressed in Sunday clothes who remained unidentified for days. Eventually, two of his friends and his grandmother recognized him as Willie Novotny (Vilém Novotný).

Next, we look at how the legal aftermath dragged on, with responsibility reduced to technical details and salvage value. We also mention Michael Schumacher’s Along Lake Michigan: Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss (2025), which explains why it was so hard to determine the death toll in such chaos, especially when children were not always counted and survivors moved between hospitals without clear records.

If you want to dig deeper into Chicago history, the Eastland disaster, genealogy research, and learn how historical accuracy gets built, broken and restored, this conversation is for you.

Resources:

Welcome To Flower In The River

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.

Writers Who Answered Eastland

Natalie Zett

Hey, this is Natalie, and welcome to episode 174 of Flower in the River. As always, I hope you are doing well. In the lead up to the 111th anniversary of the Eastland disaster, what I have been doing for the last few weeks is shining a light on various poets, authors, and writers who captured the tragedy in their work. Poets such as Agnes Lee, writers Edith Wyatt, Carl Sandberg, and Olive Carruthers all responded to the Eastland disaster with powerful writing that deserves to be remembered. And yet, their voices have mostly faded from the modern retellings and revisions of the Eastland disaster story. Their words should have been carried forward, woven into the fabric of how we remember the disaster. Even Carl Sandberg, whose name echoes through American literature, is rarely recognized for his searing and scathing articles and poem about the Eastland disaster.

Let Evidence Correct The Record

Natalie Zett

There is a version of the history of the Eastland disaster that has a life of its own. It's not necessarily accurate, and it's certainly not complete, but it's taken center stage because of repetition, no evidence, just repetition, such as the incorrect death toll that's been repeated over and over again. To the point where almost everyone quotes it. I mean, heck, I even quoted it in my book because I was assured it was correct. Needless to say, I am in the midst of updating my book for not just that reason, but for others, but that's one of the main reasons I too have perpetuated the incorrect death toll. The solution is actually very straightforward. You simply let the evidence speak for itself, nothing more, nothing less. In the case of the Eastland disaster, we are so fortunate to have so many records available online, but you do have to do the research.

Dwight Boyer And His Accuracy

Natalie Zett

And now I want to introduce us to someone that we actually met before in two Flower in the River episodes last year, Dwight Boyer. Who was Dwight Boyer? Dwight Boyer was born in Ohio in nineteen twelve and died in October nineteen seventy seven, just shy of his sixty-fifth birthday. For more than three decades, he was one of the great chroniclers of the Great Lakes. He started at the Erie Pennsylvania Daily Times in 1943, spent a decade at the Toledo Blade, and then put in 23 years at the Cleveland Plain Dealer as a reporter and historian. He was that rare journalist who was equally gifted with a camera and a typewriter. His photographs of St. Theodosius Orthodox Church in Cleveland were so striking that the United States Information Agency used them in a Russian language publication. So Dwight was multi-talented. And by all accounts, he was a quiet man. His colleague Emerson Batdorf said it took two years before Boyer engaged in conversation beyond pleasantries. The loudest thing about him was his briar pipe. But once you got past that reserve, he was a raccoon of professional caliber, and behind the quiet exterior was a reporter with almost obsessive commitment to getting things right. His obituary tells the story of the lake captain known only by his initials CA. Boyer spent three months tracking down what those initials stood for. Three months for two letters. That's the standard he held himself to. His own paper put it plainly. His passion for accuracy was legendary. During his life, Boyer published at least five books on the Great Lakes, Great Stories of the Great Lakes, Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes, True Tales of the Great Lakes, Strange Adventures of the Great Lakes, and Ships and Men of the Great Lakes. At least you know what his books are about, right? He was working on another book when he died. His subjects ranged from 19th century mysteries all the way to the 1975 loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He built deep relationships with shipping industry insiders, and reviewers noted that he never simply accepted what people told him. He weighed information carefully and combined solid journalism with compelling narrative. There's a wing of the Fairport Harbor Museum named for him, housing the pilot house of the Great Lakes vessel Frontenac, which he personally secured for the museum in 1968. He was a respected, award-winning journalist and maritime historian, which makes what happened to his Eastland work all the stranger.

Eastland Told Through Real Lives

Natalie Zett

In 1971, more than two decades before George Hilton's scholarly study, Eastland Legacy of the Titanic, published in 1995, Dwight Boyer published True Tales of the Great Lakes. Chapter 2 is titled Who Speaks for the Little Feller? And it is one of the earliest detailed narrative accounts of the Eastland disaster and its aftermath ever published. This is not a passive mention, it's foundational. Boyer approached the Eastland the way he approached everything, like a seasoned journalist. He drew on primary sources, courtroom records, and interviews. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cited his work in its official guide to Great Lakes materials, specifically noting his use of courtroom records in his Eastland account. Frank Cole, whose father worked for Western Electric, called this chapter marvelous. Dwight Boyer refused to let victims be reduced to numbers. In his chapter about the Eastland disaster in True Tales of the Great Lakes, he gives us some vivid, memorable stories of each person who was involved. Eighteen-year-old Agnes Kapersky, afraid of the water, who went to the picnic anyway because she was afraid of losing her job. Barbara Lucas in the new dress she spent a month sewing. Three-year-old Martha Benke on her father's shoulder. The Novotney family, James, Agnes, Mamie, and seven-year-old Willie in his new brown check suit. Boyer walked us, the reader, through the ticket selling pressure campaign at Western Electric, the loading count that conveniently undercounted children, the ballast tank operations minute by minute, the capsizing, the rescue, the makeshift morgue at the Second Regiment Armory. He recorded the vegetable peddler, that would be Mike Jianvenko, not Javenko as he's been misnamed, who stood up on his wagon and shouted a warning to the crowd on the bow, and was jeered at with an ethnic slur for his trouble. Mike was right. And Boyer gave the chapter its title, which really is its moral center. Who speaks for the little feller? The little feller that he's referring to was Victim 396. At least that's how he was initially known. A small boy in his Sunday best, unclaimed at the armory for days because, as it turned out, his entire family had died with him. His name was Willie Novotny. His grandmother, who had already buried her daughter, her son-in-law, and her eight-year-old granddaughter, Mamie, identified him by the second pair of knickers that came with his new suit, the pair he hadn't worn. Boyer then traced the legal aftermath across three decades, right through to 1946, when the courts finally ruled that the ship's owners were liable for the salvage value of the vessel. His closing line lands like a hammer after all

Victim 396 , Willie Novotny

Natalie Zett

those years. I'll read from his chapter. Now Boyer's talking about what happened two days after the ship capsized. By Monday, all but fourteen of the dead at the armory and various undertaking establishments had been identified. The known toll at this time was eight hundred and ten, with more probably trapped in the overturned hall. As the number at the armory had dwindled, there developed a heart-tucking mystery. Still unidentified was a small boy, obviously dressed in his Sunday best as the picnic occasion merited. On the tag he was number three ninety-six. No more, no less. Coroner Hoffman suspected that the lad remained unnamed because his parents were still included among the unidentified, or perhaps still in the Eastland submerged rooms or passages. The small, quiet form of the little feller had a curious psychological effect on Chicagoans. To them, the single, lonely, unclaimed victim symbolized the enormity of the catastrophe, the fickled forces of adversity and a fate which, but for the grace of God, could have been theirs. Who is the little feller? Everybody asked. In the wake of frequent vengeful promises by the prosecuting authorities to punish the guilty, inspectors, owners, and crew, and the certainty that the red tape of legal procedures would be further complicated by the defense of the politically powerful vessel operators, one paper returned some semblance of perspective by simply asking who speaks for the little feller. Eight days later, a pair of youngsters brought to a mortuary where the little feller had been moved, pointed to him and said, That's him. That's Willie. The two were playmates of Willie Novotney, Walter and Willie Check. But an uncle from another city did not agree with the identification. But we've been living right next door to him, protested the Chech brothers. We was at his birthday party when he turned seven. Get Willie's grandmother's. She's all that's left next door. She'll tell you. Willie's grandmother who had already buried her daughter, son in law, and eight-year-old Mamie was Agnes Martnik, obviously in a state of shock, distraught and plagued with a language barrier. Unaccountably she had failed to notify authorities that there was still another Novotny missing. Brought to the mortuary in tears, she was carrying a small bundle. Opened by a policeman it revealed a small pair of brown knickerbockers, never worn. If it's Willie, he's got pants on like these, she haltingly explained. It was a new suit he went to the picnic in, and two pairs of pants came with it. These are the other pair. Number three ninety-six was indeed Willie Novotny. Moving ahead to the end of this very profound, very complete chapter on the Eastland disaster. The end for the army of still hopeful claimants had come long ago, in August of nineteen thirty five to be specific, when the final court decision in the ship's long wake of trouble and travail was announced. Quote, in Chicago, the teletypes and newspaper offices clicked out. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a district court ruling that the St. Joseph, Chicago Steamship Company, former owners of the steamer Eastland, which sank in the Chicago River on july twenty fourth, nineteen fifteen, is not liable for the eight hundred and thirty-five deaths in the disaster. The court held, as predicted on the day after the disaster, that the company was liable only to the extent of the salvage value of the vessel, that the boat was seaworthy, that the operators had taken proper precautions, and that the responsibility was traced to an engineer who neglected to fill the ballast tanks properly. Finally, twenty years after he had marched so happily over the Eastlands gangway, there was no point in anyone speaking up again for the little feller. End of chapter And you have been listening to True Tales of the Great Lakes by Dwight Boyer, Chapter 2 Who Speaks

Why Boyer Belongs Up Front

Natalie Zett

for the Little Feller Copyright 1971, Freshwater Press, Cleveland, Ohio. Boyer was able to take all these disparate records, newspaper articles, distill them, but not shrink them down. He made sure that the people were first and that the emotional impact was there, as you can hear. The book is available on the Internet Archive. You can read it there, or you can look on eBay to see if there's a copy there. And sometimes retailers like Abe's Books or Amazon carry copies as well. So when it comes to the story of the history of the Eastland disaster, Dwight Boyer should be front and center. He came before George Hilton. And Hilton acknowledged him. And there's also another writer who acknowledged the work not just of George Hilton, but of Dwight Boyer. That's very rare, by the way. And I want to mention

Michael Schumacher And Counting Loss

Natalie Zett

him as well. This is an author I literally just ran across. I have his book now, and I've not read all of it, but he has a very detailed chapter about the Eastland Disaster. When I started reading this book, and it is called Along Lake Michigan, Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss, and it was published in 2025. I wanted to contact the author, Michael Schumacher, only to find out that Michael Schumacher also died in December 2025. And so I want to acknowledge his contribution to the Eastland Disaster History. I'm going to read a paragraph from the book Along Lake Michigan, Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss by Michael Schumacher. And this is the chapter on the Eastland. Quote There was no way of accurately assessing how many lived and how many perished in the accident. There were the counted, of course, but there were the uncounted as well. The official tally of passengers was not to be trusted. Children were treated differently from adults, some counting as half an adult, some not counted at all. Some passengers were whisked off to hospitals, treated and released, and then taken away by family members. Estimates by those on board and those watching dockside added to the confusion. The range of numbers was staggering, since final figures on those boarding the Eastland were impossible to trust, all kinds of numbers, from modest to preposterous were given. Now just to be clear, later in that same chapter, Michael Schumacher does mention the number eight forty four, but as George Hilton did before him, he also said it's a death toll estimate, and that's all it ever was. The research should have continued, but it slowed down because that number was presented as final. That's where Michael Schumacher's work stands out as well. He didn't repeat a death toll number without the proof behind it.

Restoring Overlooked Voices And Closing

Natalie Zett

The title of one of my earlier podcasts about Dwight Boyer is Who Speaks for Dwight Boyer? In fact, Who Speaks for the Other Writers and Poets such as Agnes Lee, Edith Wyatt, Olive Carruthers, and even Carl Sandberg when it comes to his contributions to the history of the Eastland disaster. Not that many people, and that's all the more reason to keep bringing them up, moving them forward, so their contributions are not lost. And so they get the credit, too, for their work. I hope you enjoyed learning more about the life and work of Dwight Boyer. And I hope that you also enjoyed meeting Michael Schumacher. I'm looking forward to reading more of his writings. I'm very sorry that he is no longer with us, but I appreciate the body of work that he left. He was a very prolific writer, as was Dwight Boyer. So next week I'll have more stories for you about these various writers and others who contributed to the history of the Eastland disaster, but for the most part have been omitted. It's time to get them back where they belong. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves and do take care of each other. Stay safe, and I will 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.

Head Shot

Natalie Zett

Host