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What We’re Covering:

• Maritime journalist Dwight Boyer (1912–1977) published a detailed Eastland Disaster account in 1971—more than two decades before most major works on the subject
• His chapter in True Tales of the Great Lakes draws from courtroom records, witness interviews, and primary source material
• Although George Hilton cited Boyer in Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic, Boyer's work has otherwise been mostly overlooked or uncredited

Highlights from Dwight Boyer's Career:

• Boyer wrote for the Toledo Blade (1944–1954) and Cleveland Plain Dealer (into the early 1970s)
• Respected journalist, known for precision, solid journalism, and vivid storytelling
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cited his work in its Official Guide to Great Lakes Materials

Resources:

• Boyer, Dwight. True Tales of the Great Lakes. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1971. — Chapter 2: “Who Speaks for the Little Feller” (Eastland Disaster)
• Hilton, George W. Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.— Includes citation of Boyer’s 1971 account
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A Guide to Selected Great Lakes Maritime History Materials at the National Archives–Great Lakes Region. Washington, D.C.: NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, 1992.

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• LinkTree: @zettnatalie | Linktree
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-z-87092b15/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zettnatalie/
• YouTube: Flower in the River - A Family Tale Finally Told - YouTube
• Medium: Natalie Zett – Medium
• The opening/closing song is Twilight by 8opus
• Other music. Artlist

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Released on July 24, 2025 – the 110th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster

On this pivotal anniversary, I’m sharing one of the most haunting firsthand accounts ever recorded about July 24, 1915—a story that doesn’t end when the ship rolled, but follows the tragedy all the way to its most chilling conclusion.

TRIGGER WARNING: There are graphic descriptions of death in this episode.

Jack Woodford was a 20-year-old aspiring writer standing on a Chicago River bridge when he witnessed something impossible: a massive steamer slowly rolling over "like a whale going to take a nap" in calm water on a sunny morning. But Jack's story doesn't end with the disaster itself. It continues through his swim across the river, his frantic reporting for the Chicago Herald and Examiner, and ultimately to a moment that would change his understanding of life and death forever.

At 3 AM, Jack was alone in an emergency morgue with hundreds of Eastland victims. What he experienced there defied explanation - a presence, an awareness, something that suggested the boundary between life and death wasn't as clear as anyone believed. In his own words: "You could stand in the middle of the floor and by swiveling, see them all... It was as though their brains, having been taken out of play, their thought processes, somehow continued."

This episode features Jack's complete, unedited account from his 1962 autobiography - a powerful reminder that the Eastland disaster's most compelling stories often come from voices that have been overlooked or ignored.

About Jack Woodford: Born Josiah Pitts Woolfolk in 1894/5, Jack became a controversial novelist, pulp writer, and author of the famous writing manual "Trial and Error." He died in 1971, leaving behind over 100 novels and this extraordinary eyewitness account.

RESOURCES:

• The Autobiography of Jack Woodford (1962, published under Jack Woolfolk)
• The Pulp Scribbler meets the Capsized Ship (Flower in the River)

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• LinkTree: @zettnatalie | Linktree
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-z-87092b15/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zettnatalie/
• YouTube: Flower in the River - A Family Tale Finally Told - YouTube
• Medium: Natalie Zett – Medium
• The opening/closing song is Twilight by 8opus
• Other music. Artlist

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What if being late saved your life?

In this episode of Flower in the River, we follow the eerie ripple of that question through time.

On the morning of July 24, 1915, Tom Milton and Willard Haynes were in Chicago when the Eastland Disaster unfolded. Milton missed boarding the ship by a single minute. Haynes, a physician, arrived just as chaos overtook the riverfront and assisted at the scene.

Their connection to the disaster surfaced in 1954 when both were living in Texas. That year, the Houston Chronicle published an interview with Milton in which he mentioned the Eastland Disaster. After reading the article, Haynes wrote a letter to Milton sharing his own experience of being there that day—opening with the words:

“Stranger things have happened…”

Their names do not appear in any known accounts of the Eastland Disaster. Their stories remained overlooked—until now.

This episode is about memory, timing, transparency, and the strange ways history finds its way back. It’s also a story within a story: about family archives, investigative instincts, and the quiet dignity of men whose roles in history were left unrecorded for nearly 40 years.

Spoiler alert: the eBay item that sparked this episode is now safely archived at the Newberry Library in Chicago!

Resources

• The Actor and the Doctor: Converging Lives Post-Eastland (released July 5, 2024) featuring the detailed stories of Tom Milton and Willard Haynes.
• Newberry Library, Eastland Disaster Digital Collection

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• LinkTree: @zettnatalie | Linktree
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-z-87092b15/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zettnatalie/
• YouTube: Flower in the River - A Family Tale Finally Told - YouTube
• Medium: Natalie Zett – Medium
• The opening/closing song is Twilight by 8opus
• Other music. Artlist