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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.

Resources:

• Dziennik Chicagoski, Volume 27, Number 130, 5 June 1916.
• Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers
• Chicago Ancestors.org

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
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• The opening/closing song is Twilight by 8opus
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In this episode, I bring to a close my journey through Edna, His Wife by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Margaret Ayer Barnes, a novel that paints a hauntingly intimate portrait of a family navigating life in the shadow of the 1915 Eastland Disaster.

This final section steps past the catastrophe itself and into the tangled aftermath: the paperwork of loss, the quiet unraveling of marriages, and the daily rituals of mourning that linger long after the headlines fade.

Through Edna’s sorrow, Barnes reveals how loss reshapes who we are, transforms our connections, and changes the very tempo of our lives.

A mysterious letter from a figure in Edna’s past, with no return address, becomes a lifeline to her former self, a reminder that identity endures despite shifting circumstances. I also explore how memory, literature, and genealogy weave together, and why honoring history through careful research is so vital.

I recount the thrill of finding an autographed copy of Barnes’ novel and reflect on the deep responsibility storytellers and genealogists share to preserve history with honesty, compassion, and devotion.

Resources:

• “Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner Skillfully Presents ‘Edna His Wife,’” The Washington Daily News (Washington, D.C.), February 22, 1938, accessed via Chronicling America, Library of Congress.
• Edna His Wife, Broadway production, December 7, 1937–January 1938, Little Theatre, New York, Internet Broadway Database (IBDB).
• Margaret Ayer Barnes, Edna, His Wife: An American Idyll (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935), accessed via Internet Archive.

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• Substack: https://nataliezett.substack.com/
• 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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A single newspaper review from 1938 turned this story on its head.
Digging through Chronicling America, I stumbled upon a mention of Cornelia Otis Skinner's one-woman show—a performance inspired by Margaret Ayer Barnes's novel Edna, His Wife—and it included a "sensational scene" set on the Eastland. That brief reference shatters the myth that Chicago's 1915 disaster simply faded from memory. It never vanished. It lingered in novels, on stage, in film, and in poems.

I retrace that rediscovery, then plunge into vivid passages from Barnes's novel: morning chatter, a ringing phone, a name called out. The Chicago River teeming with people. A stranger thrusting a peach crate into a woman's arms. In the armory—now a morgue—the coroner pleading with a restless crowd to let grieving families pass. Headlines scrambling for blame. Two sisters selecting gloves, pews, and pallbearers.

These scenes press close because they ring true: the sound of shock, the way loss rearranges a room, a city returning to work beneath the glare of searchlights.

I also pause to ask a larger question: what other stories have been hiding in plain sight? Barnes won a Pulitzer, yet her Eastland chapter is rarely—if ever—mentioned today. Skinner crafted a powerhouse performance from that book, but her credit faded into the background. This story was waiting to be found.

Why wasn't it?

Here, genealogy, local lore, and literature intertwine—revealing how culture preserves memory even when research falls short.

Resources:

• “Miss Cornelia Otis Skinner Skillfully Presents ‘Edna His Wife,’” The Washington Daily News (Washington, D.C.), February 22, 1938, accessed via Chronicling America, Library of Congress.
• Edna His Wife, Broadway production, December 7, 1937–January 1938, Little Theatre, New York, Internet Broadway Database (IBDB).
• Margaret Ayer Barnes, Edna, His Wife: An American Idyll (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935), accessed via Internet Archive.

• Book website: https://www.flowerintheriver.com/
• Substack: https://nataliezett.substack.com/
• 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