The "Elephant," the Eastland, and the Catholic Columbian Discovery

About this episode

The episode discusses the significance of personal stories behind the Eastland disaster and the impact of lost names on understanding the tragedy.

Send us Fan Mail Just one missing name can change how people understand the Eastland disaster—a reminder that the story’s true impact lies in the details we can recover and connect. And we’ll get to that… After two descendants reached out to me searching for relatives lost in the 1915 Chicago River tragedy, I saw an opportunity to highlight a core problem: when people search for an Eastland person and find only a name on a list, the significance and humanity of the loss are diminished twice—f...

People in this episode

Host: Natalie Zett

Topics covered

• Eastland disaster
• family history
• historical research
• loss and remembrance
• Chicago River tragedy

Keywords

• Eastland disaster
• Chicago River
• 1915 tragedy
• family history
• historical significance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Catholic Columbian

More episodes of Flower in the River: A Family Tale Finally Told

• The Clue in the Old Almanac: Solving an Eastland Mystery · June 11, 2026 · 31 min
• The Scars That Wouldn't Heal: Two Priests, Two Parishes · June 4, 2026 · 38 min
• A City of Sorrow, a Voice of Fire — Edith Franklin Wyatt & the Eastland · May 28, 2026 · 33 min
• SPECIAL DELIVERY - A Messenger Boy’s Path to the Eastland · May 21, 2026 · 36 min
• One Survivor. Two Surnames. A 1940 Eastland Time Capsule · May 14, 2026 · 27 min
• Louella Parsons: Ink, Influence, and the Eastland · April 29, 2026 · 32 min