A Flower for the Little Feller: Anastasia's Goodbye

Send us Fan Mail 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 f...