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A Flower for the Little Feller: Anastasia's Goodbye
Description
In the days after the Eastland disaster, a little girl in Waukegan read about a boy she had never met—and could not stop thinking about him.
Her name was Anastasia Holmes. The boy was Willie Novotny, the “little feller” whose story appeared in the newspaper after his death. Anastasia was so deeply affected by what she read that she could not sleep. Finally, her mother agreed to take her by train from Waukegan to Chicago so Anastasia could attend Willie’s funeral and place a flower on his coffin.
It is a small story beside the enormous scale of the Eastland disaster, but that is exactly why it is so powerful.
In this episode, I follow Anastasia’s journey through a remarkable July 31, 1915, article in the Waukegan Daily Sun and look more closely at the family behind the little girl who carried that flower. I also explore the kind of intimate reporting that preserved moments like this—moments that can disappear when history is reduced to totals, summaries, and familiar retellings.
Anastasia never knew Willie, but from that day onward, his story became part of her life.
And more than a century later, this lost story is restored. Anastasia's response to a child she never met gives us another way into the Eastland story: not through a number, but through one child reaching toward another.
Resources:
- Waukegan Daily Sun, July 31, 1915, p. 1
- Illinois Digital Archives
- 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