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Seven years-old in 1912, Eva Hart died on February 15th, 1996 in a London hospital. She was emigrating to Canada with her parents as a Second-Class passenger on the Titanic. Her father - Benjamin Hart, age 43 - was a builder who had decided to start a new life with his family in Winnipeg, Canada and join a friend in a construction company there. The Hart's had been scheduled to sail on the 'Philadelphia' but their plans were changed due to the coal strike. They were transferred instead to the Titanic.
She and her mother survived (Lifeboat #14), but her father did not survive the sinking.
After the disaster, she had nightmares for years. She solved the nightmares by going back to sea and locking herself in a cabin for four days.
She later became a magistrate in England and gave a number of interviews on the subject of the Titanic.
She is famous for the line: "If a ship is torpedoed, that's war. If it strikes a rock in a storm, that's nature. But just to die because there weren't enough lifeboats, that's ridiculous."
She vividly remembered the screams of the drowning people in the water as the ship sank. She swore that she heard the band play 'Nearer My God to Thee', despite conflicting evidence that the band may have played upbeat ragtime tunes almost until the sinking.
When salvage of the wreck began in 1987, Eva Hart was an outspoken critic of any salvage attempts of what she considered a gravesite.
On April 15th, 1995 - the 83rd anniversary of the disaster - the Titanic survivors Eva Hart and Edith Brown (Haisman), another Second-Class passenger, dedicated a memorial garden plaque in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum, London.
It consists of plants in rememberance: roses, purple sage, rosemay and Irish golden yew.
The stone is carved Cornish granite similar to that used in ships ballasts. The marker is an engraved bronze plaque which duplicates the typeface used for Titanic's name on her hull.
The text on the marker is as follows:
Make your choice by clicking on the item concerned:
Note:
I am NOT providing addresses or phone numbers of living survivors.
They deserve their privacy and well earned retirements.
Please stop asking ! ! !
SOUTHAMPTON, England - January 20th, 1997 - Mrs. Edith Brown Haisman, the oldest survivor of the Titanic, died at the age of 100. She was 15 years old when placed in Lifeboat #13 as the Titanic sank. Her father Thomas Brown, a glass of brandy in hand, waved from the deck saying "I will see you in New York."
In 1993 she described her ordeal:
"I was in Lifeboat #13. I always remembered that. My father was waving to us and talking to a clergyman, the Rev. Carter."
"The Titanic went in the ice and I heard three bangs. Before we hit, there had been terrific vibrations from the engines during the night as the ship was really racing over the sea."
"As the lifeboat pulled away we heard cries from people left on the Titanic and in the water and explosions in the ship. There were lots of bodies floating. We kept on rescuing people and trying to cover them up against the cold. We were in the lifeboat nine hours."
"I kept looking in the water for my father and when we reached New York we went to
the hosptials to see if he had been picked up."
Edith married the late Frederick Haisman in South Africa. They had 10 children and more than 30 grandchildren.
Anna Turja: as told by her grandson John Rudolph. Updated April 14th, 1997.
Anna Sophia Turja was one of 21 children, born of two mothers and one father, in Oulainen, in northern Finland.
Aboard:
In the Lifeboat:
The 'Carpathia':
New York and the Aftermath:
Anna Sophia Turja Lundi died in Long Beach, California, in 1982 at the age of 89.
John Lundi, the husband of her half-sister, Maria, invited her to come work for him at his store in Ashtabula, Ohio, and he got her a ticket on the Titanic.
She was 18 years old when she boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England, as a Third-Class ("Steerage") passenger on her way to America. To her the ship was a floating city. The Main-Deck, with all its shops and attractions, was indeed bigger than the main street in her home town.
The atmosphere in Third-Class was quite lively: a lot of talking, singing, and fellowship. She had two roommates on board who were also young Finnish women. One was married, traveling with two small children; the other traveling with her brother. But in "steerage", the men were kept in the front part of the ship, the women in the rear.
Late on that "Fateful Night", she felt a shudder and a shake. Shortly thereafter, her roommate’s brother knocked on the door and told them that “something was wrong,” that they should wear warm clothing and put on their life jackets.
Their little group started heading for the upper decks. A crew member tried to keep them down – ordered
them back – but they refused to obey, and he didn’t argue with them. She clearly remembers,
however, that the doors were closed and chained shut behind them to prevent others from coming up.
The others of the group continued up to a higher deck, “where it will be safer,” they said, but
out of pure curiosity and chance she remained on what turned out to be the Boat-Deck. She thought
it was too cold to go up further, and she was intrigued by the activity and by the music being
played by Titanic's Band, though she didn’t know the names of the tunes. She remembers the band coming out of a room they had been playing in and the doors being locked after everyone had gotten out.
She also remembers seeing the lights of another ship (the "Mystery Ship") from the deck.
It was on the Boat-Deck that she met the Panula family, also from Finland. Mrs. Panula was traveling
with her five children to meet Mr. Panula who was waiting for them in Pennsylvania. Mrs. Panula
posed the question, “Must we all die by water?” She had already lost a teen-aged son by drowning back in Finland.
Grandma believed the hype of the ship being 'unsinkable', and she didn’t fully understand what was
going on because she did not know the language. Eventually a sailor physically threw her into a lifeboat.
Lifeboat #15 was fully loaded when it was launched; it was not one of the ones that got caught up in the cables. They immediately rowed away from the ship, fearing that they would get sucked down with it when it went under. The sailors were so well trained, she was sure that they would have capsized had it not been for the expertise of the oarsmen. She heard loud explosions as the lights went out. Her lifeboat was so full that as she held her hand on the edge of the boat her fingers got wet up to the knuckles. For the first five or ten minutes in the water they had to beat people off who were trying to get into the boat.
They were in the lifeboats for eight hours. Though the night was a “brilliant, bright night,” they had to burn any scraps of paper they could find - money or anything else that wouldn’t cause a flash fire - so that the boats could see each other and stay together.
Her most haunting memory was that of the screams and cries of dying people in the water. Every time she would get to this part of the story she would start crying. “They were in the water, and we couldn’t help them.”
The people aboard the 'Carpathia' were wonderful. They gave up their blankets and coats, anything that could help. She kept looking for her roommates, but she never saw either of them again. The whole Panula family was also later confirmed lost.
The survivors did not have to go through "Ellis Island", as all other immigrants did in those days. Instead, they were taken straight to New York Hospital, and then sent on their way. Because of the language problem, she was literally tagged and put on a train to Ashtabula, Ohio. Years later, my uncle Butch was trying to get a security “crypto clearance” in the Army. The FBI first had to investigate why there was no record of Grandma’s citizen registration from entering the country. (He did get the clearance.)
She was greeted by a crowd in Ashtabula, as she was somewhat of a celebrity by this time. She very soon met my grandfather, Emil Lundi, John’s brother. They fell in love and got married. She never did go to work for her brother-in-law.
Her name turned up on the “lost passengers” list. Her family in Finland didn’t know that she was alive until 5 or 6 weeks later when they received a letter from her.
In May of 1953, she was a special guest when the movie “Titanic” came to the new theater in Ashtabula. It was the first movie she had ever seen in her life. When reporters asked her afterwards (through my uncle as translator) if she thought the movie was realistic, all she could say was, “If they were close enough to film it, why didn’t they help?” The reporters took that as a “Yes” to their question. Family members tried to explain to her that it was a re-creation. She just kept saying, “No, no.”
Years later, on July 20, 1969, when they were watching the first moon walk, she wouldn’t (and never did) believe that it was really happening. “No, no. If they could re-create the Titanic, they could re-create this, too.”
Over the years she was interviewed regularly by the local newspapers when the anniversary of the sinking came around, but she turned down appearances on “I’ve Got a Secret” and “The Ed Sullivan Show,” partly because of her age, her physical condition, and the language problem. (She never felt strongly enough about it to learn English.) She also refused many times to join in any lawsuits over the loss. She and my grandfather felt that they didn’t need to go after money: Grandma had her life, and that was compensation enough.
Every year on the April anniversary she would sit her seven children down to tell them the story again. The phrase she would always close with, and repeated throughout her life was, “I can never understand why God would have spared a poor Finnish girl when all those rich people drowned.”
Margaret Devaney: as written by her grandson Peter W. Mastrolia. Updated 3/10/98.
At the age of 19 my grandmother boarded that 'unsinkable' ship, the Titanic, to take her to the Promised land. Instead, she found Brooklyn and later the city of my birth, Jersey City. But as is often the case,extraordinary events make heroes out of Irish peasant girls and unfortunately tragedy
makes for good story telling. Just ask the producers of the new movie, "TITANIC". Margaret Devaney O'Neill fled her small village in County Sligo in 1912 to escape famine, poverty, and the English, just as thousands of others had done, to seek out a new life in the New World. She carried with her a suitcase, some odds and ends, and the clothes she had on at the time.
Everybody knows the tale of Titanic's maiden voyage that would beat her sister ship 'Olympic' for crossing the Atlantic, how the ship drifted north, it hit an iceberg that ripped a hole in the starboard side, one of the boilers blew, and the ship sank like a rock. And although this happened 87 years ago people are still fascinated by the story.
She was below decks in Third-Class ["Steerage"] peeling potatoes on April 14th, 1912 when she decided that she needed some fresh air. With coat in hand she headed up the many flights of stairs to the Main-Deck (Boat-Deck). As she was nearing the top of the final flight she felt a tiny bump that interrupted the constant motion she had grown accustomed to over the last four days. It was, of course, the collision with the iceberg that would cause the Titanic to sink. Unfortunately 2,230 passengers and crew tried to fit into 20
lifeboats. My grandmother was literally thrown into Collapsible Lifeboat #C when she was trying to go back to "Steerage" to find her three traveling companions who boarded with her. She didn't know they were already doomed: Sealed behind bulkheads that were closed to try to prevent the ship from sinking.
On the lifeboat with about 50 other terrified souls it appeared that she would at least survive the sinking, but the officer in charge could not detach the lifeboat from the quickly sinking Titanic. The story goes that Margaret gave him the little knife that she had been using earlier to peel potatoes and with it he was able to cut the boat loose.
After her lifeboat was picked up by the 'Carpathia' the officer returned the knife to my grandmother and gave her the ensign, which is the plaque that is attached to the side of each lifeboat bearing the White Star Line symbol. He gave her the ensign to thank her for the knife, but he also knew that people would begin tearing apart the lifeboats as souvenirs and he wanted to make sure that she had something to tell her grandchildren about.
The knife, the ensign and her ticket stubs were on display at the Museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty. My grandmother's name appears in many books and she had been interviewed many times regarding this incident. My grandmother died in 1975 but her story lives on. My daughter, Margaret has
written an account of this same story and won a state prize for it.
Ruth Becker Blanchard (1899 - 1990):
Ruth Becker was 12 years old in 1912 when she and her family travelled on the Titanic. After the sinking - she survived in Lifeboat #11, Ruth attended high school and college in Ohio, after which she taught high school in Kansas. She married a classmate, Daniel Blanchard, and after her divorce twenty years later, she resumed her teaching career. Like most survivors, she refused to talk about the sinking and her own children, when young, did not know that she had been on the Titanic.It was only after her retirement, when she was living in Santa Barbara, California, that she began speaking about it, granting interviews and attending conventions of the 'Titanic Histrorical Society'. In March of 1990, she made her first sea voyage since 1912, a cruise to Mexico. She passed away later that year at the age of ninety.
Richard Becker:
Richard Becker was Ruth's younger brother and was two years old at the time of the disaster. Richard became a singer and in later life a social welfare worker. Widowed twice, he passed away in 1975.
Nellie Becker:
Nellie Becker was the children's mother. She was married to a missionary stationed in India and her three children were sailing to America for treatment of an illness Richard had contracted in India. Once in America, she and her three children settled in Benton Harbour, Michigan, until her husband's arrival from India the following year. It was apparent to him and the children that her personality had changed since the disaster. She was far more emotional and was given to emotional outbursts. Until her death in 1961, she was never able to discuss the Titanic disaster without dissolving into tears.
Marion Becker:
Marion contracted tuberculosis at a young age and died in Glendale, California in 1944.
Olaus Abelseth:
Olaus tried vacationing in Canada to calm his nerves following his ordeal with the Titanic - he survived in Collapsible Lifeboat #A, but found that simply going back to work was just what he needed.
Returning to the South Dakota farm he had first homesteaded in 1908, he raised cattle and sheep for the next 30 years before retiring in North Dakota where he died in 1980.
Richard and Sally Beckwith:
Richard and Sally survived the sinking of the Titanic in Lifeboat #5. They continued to travel and entertained frequently at their homes in New York City and Squam Lake, New Hampshire. Richard died in New York in 1933 and his wife in that city in 1955.
Madeline Astor:
Madeline inherited from her husband, Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, the income from a five-million-dollar trust fund and the use of his home on Fifth Avenue and in the Newport so long as she did not marry. In August 1912, she gave birth to a son with whom she was pregnant on the Titanic, and she named him after her husband, John Jacob Astor. She relinquished the Astor income and mansions during World War I to marry William K. Dick of New York, and by him she had two more sons. She divorced Dick in Reno, Nevada in 1933 to marry Italian prize fighter Enzo Firemonte. Five years later this marriage also ended in divorce. She died in Palm Beach, Florida in 1940 at the age of 47.
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He became Colonel-staff to General Levi P. Morton in 1898, at the time of the Spanish-American War, was commissioned as a luteniant colonel in the US volunteers.
On May 1st, 1891 Astor was married to Ava, daughter of Edward Shippen Willing of Philidelphia. Together they had a son and one daughter. In 1909 Astor divorced Ava. Two years later he married eighteen year old Madeleine Force (who was a year younger than his son, Vincent). Public opinion was divided concerning the respectability of Astor's actions, and the newlyweds decided to winter abroad in order to let the gossip die down at home. Mr. and Mrs. Astor travelled to Egypt and Paris and in the spring of 1912 decided to return to America as First-Class Passengers on board the Titanic.
They boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg with Colonel Astor's manservant, Mr. Victor Robbins (Cabin C-62), Mrs Astor's maid, Miss Rosadile Bidois, Miss Caroline Louise Endres - Mrs. Astor's private nurse (Cabin C-45) - and their pet Airedale Kitty. Their ticket #17754 cost £224 10s 6d.
After the iceberg hit the ship Astor left his suite to investigate. He quickly returned and reported to his wife that the ship had struck ice. He reassured her that the damage did not appear serious.
Later when the First-Class passengers had begun to congregate on the Boat-Deck, the Astors sat in the gymnasium on the mechanical horses. They wore their lifebelts but Colonel Astor had found another and cut the lining with a pen knife to show his wife what it was made of.
Even as the lifeboats were loaded Astor appeared unperturbed, he ridiculed the idea of trading the solid decks of the Titanic for a small lifeboat 'We are safer here than on that little boat'. He had changed his mind by 1.45 a.m. when Second Officer Charles Lightoller arrived on A-Deck to finish loading Lifeboat #4. Astor helped his wife to climb through the windows of the enclosed ormenade and then asked if he might join her, being as she was in a 'delicate condition'. Lightoller told him that no men could enter until all the women had been loaded. Astor stood back and just asked Lightoller what boat it was. Adter boat 4 was lowered at 1.55 a.m. Astor stood alone while others tried to free the remaining collapsable lifeboats.
Astor's badly crushed body was recovered on Monday April 22 by the cable ship 'McKay-Bennett' (#124):
NO. 124 - MALE - ESTIMATED AGE 50 - LIGHT HAIR AND MOUSTACHE
CLOTHING - Blue serge suit; blue handkercheif with "A.V."; belt with gold buckle; brown boots with red rubber soles; brown flannel shirt; "J.A.A." on back of collar.
EFFECTS - Gold watch; cuff links, gold with diamond; diamind ring with three stones £225 in English notes; $2,440 in notes; £5 in gold; 7s. in silver; 5 ten franc pieces; gold pencil; pocketbook.
FIRST CLASS NAME - J.J. ASTOR
Colonel Archibald Gracie IV:
Archibald Gracie IV, 54, was born January 17th, 1859, in Mobile, Alabama. In 1912 he was a resident of Washington, D.C. and New York City. Gracie was married with four daughters, two died very young (one was killed in an elevator accident), and the only one to reach maturity died shortly after marriage.
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A member of the wealthy Gracie family of New York state, one of Gracie's ancestors had built Gracie Mansion which became the official residence of the mayor of New York City in 1942. Gracie was a graduate of St. Paul's Academy in Concord, New Hampshire and of West Point Miltary Academy. Later becoming a colonel in the Seventh Regiment, United States Army, Gracie was independently wealthy, active in the real estate business and an amatuer military historian.
"...there arose to the sky the most horrible sounds ever heard by mortal man except by those of us who survived this terrible tragedy. The agonising cries of death from over a thousand throats, the wails and groans of the suffering...none of us will ever forget to our dying day."
Gracie's father, Archibald Gracie Jr. (1832-1864), was schooled at Heidelberg, Germany and West Point, New York. He had resigned from the Army in 1856 to go into the cotton-brokerage business in Mobile, Alabama. At the outbreak of secession, Archibald Gracie Jr. broke with his Unionist father and served with the Confederate forces as militia captain of the Washington Light Infantry. In 1862 he was promoted to brigadier general and fought through the Battle of Chickamauga, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. On December 2nd, 1864, General Gracie was killed while observing Union Army movements at the seige of Petersburg, Virginia. Respected by his troops, he was eulogized in a poem "Gracie, of Alabama" by Francis O. Tickner.
Although Archibald Gracie IV was only about 5 years old when his father died, he had spent seven years writing a book, "The Truth About Chickamauga". In 1912, following the publication of his book, Colonel Gracie decided he needed to relax, and took a trip to Europe. Leaving his wife and daughter at home, he travelled to Europe on the 'Oceanic'. On this eastward voyage, he made friends with one of the ships officers, Herbert Pittman who was later the Third Officer on the Titanic.
Gracie took return passage on the Titanic, boarding at Cherbourg.
During his other trans-Atlantic trips it had been Gracie's custom to take as much exercise as needed to stay in prime physical condition. However on this trip he had devoted much his time to social enjoyment and reading books from the ships library. He had spent much time with Mr Isidor Straus who had regaled him with tales of his adventures during the Civil War. He loaned Mr Straus a copy of his new book, "The Truth About Chickamauga".
On the evening of Saturday, April 13th, Gracie decided it was time to cut back on the socializing and start his fitness regimen again. He arranged with Steward Cullen, his room steward, to awaken him early on Sunday morning in order to play squash with the raquet attendant, Fredrick Wright, to work in the gymnasium with Mr T. W. McCawley, and to swim - all before breakfast.
"I enjoyed myself as if I were on a summer palace by the seashore surrounded by every comfort. I was up early before breakfast and met the professional racquet player in a half hour's warming up preparatory for a swim in the six foot deep swimming pool with saltwater heated to a refreshing temperature."
Following breakfast, Gracie attended Church service in the First-Class Dining Room, where the hymn was No. 418 of the Hymnal, "O God our help in ages past". He finished reading Mary Johnston's tales of adventure and escapes "Old Dominian" and returned the book to the ships library. He then spent some time with Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus and they returned the book he had loaned them.
Sunday night, after diner, Gracie and his table companions Clinch Smith and Edward Kent, adjourned to the Palm Court where they enjoyed coffee as they listened to the Titanic's band. After circulating and socializing for a while, Gracie retired early to his cabin, C-51, to be ready for the following mornings excercise session.
After about three hours sleep, he was awakened by a jolt. He noted the time as 11.45 p.m., then opened the cabin door and looked out. He saw no one and heard no commotion. He could hear steam escaping and there was no sound of machinery running. Realizing that something was wrong, Gracie removed his nightwear and got fully dressed. Wearing a Norfolk coat he left his cabin and made his way the Boat-Deck.
It was a cold, starlit night with no moon. There was no sign of ice or other ships. He jumped over the barrier dividing First and Second-Class and roamed the entire Boat-Deck. He saw a middle aged couple strolling along arm-in-arm but there was no sign of any officers or any reason for concern. Returning to the A-Deck companionway he encountered Mr. Bruce Ismay - the Managing Director of the White Star Line - with a crew member, they seemed preoccupied and did not notice him.
At the foot of the stairs there were a number of men passengers who had also been disturbed by the jolt. This was where he learned that the ship had collided with an iceberg, his friend Clinch Smith handed him a piece of ice, commenting that he might like it as a souvenir. He also learned that the mailroom was flooding and the postal clerks were busy moving two hundred bags of registered mail.
Gracie and Smith were now joined by some ladies, and at this time they noticed a tilt in the deck. Realizing that the situation was worsening, the men returned to their staterooms where Gracie hastily packed all his possesions into three large travelling bags ready to transfer to another ship. After putting on a long Newmarket overcoat and returning to the deck, Gracie found that everyone was putting on the life preservers. Steward Cullen insisted that Gracie return to his stateroom for his. Returning to A-Deck, Gracie located the unaccompanied ladies he had promised to escort.
"Our hopes were buoyed with the interchange of wireless messages with passing ships one of whom was certainly coming to our rescue. To reassure the ladies of whom I had assumed special charge I showed them a bright white light of what I took to be a ship about 5 miles off."
When the order to load the lifeboats came, Gracie escorted the four ladies to the Boat-Deck and since the crew did not allow any men to approach the lifeboats, he released the ladies to the custody of 6th Officer Moody. During the Titanic's final moments, Mrs. Appleton and Mrs. Cornell became separated from Mrs. Brown and Miss Evans. Mrs. Cornell and Mrs. Appleton were eventually helped into Lifeboat #2.
Shortly after midnight, while looking for his friends, Gracie met the raquet coach, Wright, in the stairway of C-Deck and jokingly cancelled his 7.30 a.m. lesson for the next morning. Wright seemed concerned, probably because by that time he knew the raquet court to be filling with water.
Together with Steward Cullen, he obtained extra blankets for distribution to the lifeboats. Gracie then rejoined Clinch Smith who informed him that fellow First-Class passengers Björnström-Steffansson and Woolner had put Mrs. Candee into into Lifeboat #6, the third boat to leave. Mrs. Straus almost entered Lifeboat #8, - then she turned back and rejoined her husband, she had made up her mind: "We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go." Gracie, Woolner and other friends tried to persuade her, but she refused. Mr. and Mrs. Straus went and sat together on a pair of deck chairs.
Just then someone pointed out that a group of men were trying to take over Lifeboat #2. Second Officer Lightoller jumped into the boat and threatened them with his empty gun driving them all out. With the help of Gracie and Smith they were able to load 36 women and children into this boat, and it was lowered at 1.45 a.m. under the command of Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall. It was the fifteenth boat to leave the Titanic and contained 20 people although its maximum capacity was 40. The lifeboat needed to travel only 15 feet to reach the water. In normal circumstances it would have been 70 feet.
Gracie and Smith continued to assist Lightoller, now loading the women and children into Lifeboat #4. One of the ladies Gracie lifted into the boat was was the pregnant teenage wife of Colonel John Jacob Astor IV. Lightoller tried to remove thirteen year old John Borie Ryerson from the boat, but was persuaded by the boys father to allow him to stay. Lifeboat #4 was under the command of Quartermaster Perkis, it left at 1.55 a.m.
At around 2.00 a.m. all of the Titanic's rockets had been fired and all the lifeboats had been lowered save for the four collapsible Englhardt boats with cavas sides. Collapsibles A and B were still lashed upside down to the roof of the Officers' Quarters. The crew was having trouble removing the canvas covers and Gracie gave them his penknife.
Collapsible Lifeboat D was lifted, righted and hooked to the tackles where Lifeboat #2 had been. The crew then formed a ring around the lifeboat and allowed only women to pass through. The boat could hold 47, but after 15 women had been loaded, no more women could be found. Lightoller now allowed to men to take the vacant seats. This was when Gracie found Mrs. Brown ("The Unsinkable Molly Brown") and Miss Evans were still on board, so he escorted them to the lifeboat. When Gracie arrived with the female passengers, all the men immediately stepped out and made way for them. Thinking there was only room for one more lady, Edith turned to Mrs. Brown and told her, "You go first. You have children waiting at home." Mrs. Brown was helped in and the boat left the Titanic at 2.05 a.m. under Quartermaster Bright. Edith Evans would never find a space in any of the lifeboats and died in the sinking. As the collapsible was lowered to the ocean, two men were seen to jump into it from the rapidly flooding A-Deck.
Ironically these two men were Gracie's friends, Woolner and Björnström-Steffansson, who had found themselves alone near the open forward end of A-deck. Just above them Collapsible Lifeboat D was slowly descending towards the sea, and as the water rushed up the deck towards them they got onto the railing and leapt into the boat, Björnström-Steffansson landing in a heap at the bow. Woolner's landing was similarly undignified but they were safe.
Gracie and Smith were still working on the Collapsibles when the Titanic's bridge dipped under at 2.15 a.m. Gracie and Smith turned and headed for stern when met a crowd of men and women coming up from "Steerage".
"My friend Clinch Smith made the proposition that we should leave and go toward the stern. But there arose before us from the decks below a mass of humanity several lines deep converging on the Boat-Deck facing us and completely blocking our passage to the stern. There were women in the crowd as well as men and these seemed to be "Steerage" passengers who had just come up from the decks below. Even among these people there was no hysterical cry, no evidence of panic. Oh the agony of it."
As the Titanic foundered, Gracie and Clinch Smith stayed with the crowd. As the water rushed towards them, Gracie jumped with the wave, caught hold of the bottom rung of the ladder to the roof of the officers mess and pulled himself up. Clinch Smith disappeared beneath the waves never to be seen again. As the ship sank, the resulting undertow pulled Gracie deep into icy waters, he kicked himself free far below the surface and, with the aid of his life preserver, swam clear. Clinging to a floating wooden crate, Gracie was able to swim over to the overturned Collapsible Lifeboat B and, with a little help managed to climb onto it.
When Gracie first got to the boat there were about a dozen people on it. All told some thirty men and women managed to climb on the partially submerged boat during the next few minutes. Some of the men were quite dry, they had apparently been on the boat as it was swept off. Gracie, teeth chattering, hair frozen tried to borrow a cap to warm his head, the man refused. The boat was slowly sinking.
Lightoller now took took command. He ordered all the men to stand. He got them into a double column, facing the bow. Then, as the boat lurched, he ordered then to lean to the left or right, whatever was neccessary to counteract the swell. They found that Harold Bride, the junior wireless operator was on board. Lightoller questioned him about the positions reported by the rescue boats and determined the the Carpathia should arrive about dawn.
Just after 3.30 a.m. the survivors heard the sound of a cannon being fired, and as dawn broke around 4 a.m. the 'Carpathia' came into sight. The men on Collapsible Lifeboat B were now desperatly trying to stay afloat. The 'Carpathia' was 4 miles away, picking up survivors from the other lifeboats. About 400 yards away, Lifeboats #4, #10, #12 and Collapsible D were strung together in a line. Lightoller used his officers whistle and got their attention. Lifeboats #4 and #12 cast of at once and rowed over. Lifeboat #4 arrived first and started transferring the survivors from the foundering collapsible. Gracie was unable to make the jump and crawled into Lifeboat #12. Lightoller was the last to leave.
By 8.15 a.m. all Lifeboats were in but for Lifeboat #12. Gracie worked in vain to revive a lifeless body lying beside him. At 8.30 a.m., Lifeboat #12 made fast and Gracie was able step onto the 'Carpathia's' gangway. Laying under a pile of blankets on a sofa in the ship dining room, while his clothes dried in the ships bake oven, Gracie discovered cuts on his legs and body and a wound to his head. He was to be black and blue and sore for days.
Colonel Gracie wrote an account of the tragedy that was published as "The Truth About The Titanic" in 1913. Gracie never finished proofing the manuscript as he died on December 4th, 1912 at his ancestral home in New York, N.Y., having never fully recovered from the trauma of that night. Many survivors were at the graveside for his burial, together with members of his regiment.
Archibald Gracie was the third survivor of Titanic to die, being preceded in death by Maria Nackid on July 30th, 1912 and Eugenie Baclini on August 30th, 1912. Colonel Gracie's final surviving child, Edith Temple Gracie Adams, died childless in 1918, about a year after her marriage.
(Quote by: Colonel Archibald Gracie IV)
The Countess of Rothes:
The Countess of Rothes (Noel Lucy Martha Dyer-Edwards) was born on March 21st, 1879. She boarded the Titanic at the age of thirty-three with her cousin Miss Gladys Cherry, and her maid, Miss Roberta Maioni.
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She was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Dyer-Edwards, who was famous for owning a chapel in Gloucestershire, which was founded by the Abbot's in 1530. Mr. Edwards was the first man to have renewed and restored the old chapel, and to improve it's building after the late Mr. Ackers had the chapel.
Soon, when Miss Edwards was around her twenties, she met Norman Evelyn Leslie (nineteenth Earl of Rothes), and their relationship became a wedding on the twenty-first of June, 1900.
As soon as Miss Edwards said, "I do", she became the Countess of Rothes. She had two children with his lordship, who were eleven, (just turned two months ago [I am telling you this from the time the newspaper came out, which was just after the sinking], and her other son would not turn three until the end of the year.
Lady Rothes was heading to America on the Titanic, so that she could join her husband, who wished to settle down for the rest of his life as a fruit-farmer, and spend a summer vacation in Pasadena, California. Other reports say she was heading to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
When the Titanic sank, her ladyship boarded Lifeboat #8 with her cousin and her maid. There, she took the tiller, and Able Seaman Tom Jones said, "She had a lot to say, so I put her to steering the boat". He admired the Countess of Rothes greatly, and later represented her with a plaque from the lifeboat, representing the number.
On board the 'Carpathia', her ladyship earned the title of "the plucky little Countess", (by the crew), for she helped the sick in "Steerage", and helped make clothes for the babies.
A stewardess said, "You have made yourself famous by rowing the boats", and her ladyship replied, "I hope not; I have done nothing".
At the Ritz Carlton, her ladyship joined her husband, Lord Rothes, and they left for California.
Miss Cherry, Lady Rothes cousin, was asked by her cousin to help take the tiller. Miss Cherry wrote a letter to Able Seaman Tom Jones from the Great Northern Hotel.
The Countess's husband, Earl Rothes, died in 1927, and she soon met Colonel Claude MacFie that same year and became Mrs. Noel MacFie in December. She lived with the colonel in Sussex and died there on September 21st, 1956.
Joseph Boxhall:
Joseph was 4th Officer on the Titanic and attained a command with the Royal Navy but was never made captain while in the merchant service. He left the sea in 1940 and in 1958 acted as technical advisor to the film "A Night To Remember." Following his death in 1967, his ashes were scattered over the ocean in the vicinity of the Titanic's sinking place.
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Harold Bride:
Harold Bride was one of the two Titanic's Radio Operators. He kept a very low profile in the years following the disaster. World War I found him as a wireless operator on the tiny steamer, the 'Mona's Isle'. He later embarked on a career as a salesman before retiring to Scotland where he passed away in 1956.
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"The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1867 - 1932):
Mrs. James Joseph Brown (Margaret Tobin) - "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" - occupied Cabin B-4 and Cabin B-6 aboard the Titanic and survived in Lifeboat #6.
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Mrs. James Joseph Brown (Margaret Tobin), age 44, was born July 18th, 1867, in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of Irish emigrants John Tobin and Laura Collins. She had four siblings as well as two half-sisters from her parents previous marriages, both were widows when they remarried.
Maggie Tobin received little formal education and went to work in her early teens as a waitress. About 1884 she followed one of her brothers to the mining town of Leadville, Colorado where she met James Joseph Brown (born September 27th, 1855), who was manager of a silver-mine. They were married in 1886 and had two children: Lawrence Palmer and Catherine Ellen. A popular but apocryphal story was that their first fortune was accidentally burned in a stove.
In 1894 James Joseph Brown struck it moderately rich in a gold find, and the two moved to Denver, where Maggie sought to enter Denver society, with little success. After her husband left her (while continuing to support her), she began visiting New York and Newport, R.I., and then Europe and through persistence and her flamboyant personality was able to join the select group of wealthy Americans whose acceptance she craved.
In 1912, Maggie was touring Europe when she received word that her grandson Lawrence Palmer Jr. was ill. Maggie immediately made arrangements to return to the States, and booked passage on the Titanic. She boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg as a First-Class passenger (Ticket No. PC 17610, £27 14s 5d).
Maggie had been reading a book in her cabin when she noticed the collision, she said it threw her to the floor. She went out to investigate and saw passengers in the corridor in their nightwear. Maggie noticed that the engines had stopped. "I again looked out," she wrote, "and I saw a man whose face was blanched, his eyes protruding, wearing the look of a haunted creature. He was grasping for breath, and in an undertone he gasped, 'Get your life-saver."' Maggie went up on deck and found herself flung into a lifeboat. She discovered that the only one man in the boat was the terrified quartermaster Robert Hichens. "with an attitude like someone preaching to the multitude, fanning the air with his hands, recommenced his tirade of evil forebodings, telling us we were likely to drift for days. . . He most forcibly impressed upon us that there was no water in the casks in the lifeboats and no bread, no compass and no chart." Although they were subsequently joined by two more men Maggie effectively took command and organised the ladies in the boat to row.
Their lifeboat #6 was picked up by the 'Carpathia' shortly after dawn on April 15th.
On board the 'Carpathia', Maggie helped with the ongoing rescue . She later helped to form a committee of other wealthy survivors to help destitute victims and also to organise a suitable token of thanks to Captain Rostron and his crew. She would later present the Captain with a silver cup and gold medal.
On arrival in New York Maggie attributed her survival to "Typical Brown luck... We're unsinkable." In Denver, James Joseph Brown was heard to comment, "She's too mean to sink". When she arrived at the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver Maggie retold her version of the Titanic adding-in stories of how she had survived a cyclone on the Mississippi and a typhoon on the Indian Ocean.
It was only in later years that Maggie gained the nickname "Molly Brown".
Molly's life took a surprising turn after the sinking. Previously, her efforts to be accepted by the Denver society had been unsuccessful, the selflessness and heroism she had shown on the Titanic prompted her neighbours, for a short time, to open their doors to her. In 1914, she ran, unsuccessfully, for the American Senate. With the outbreak of World War I, Maggie volunteered, through the press, to serve as an army nurse and offered her Newport cottage as a naval hospital. When both requests were turned down, she announced she would serve her country as an entertainer for the armed forces.
James Joseph Brown died September 5th, 1922 in New York. By 1931 Maggie was estranged from her family and living in New York's Barbizon Hotel. On October 26th, 1932 she died after a stroke, alone, in her hotel suite. While her death made headlines in the Denver papers, her remains were not returned to Colorado. After a simple funeral service Maggie was buried, next to James Joseph Brown, in Long Island's Holy Rood Cemetery. It was only after her death, when she became the subject of the hit Broadway musical and film "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", that she gained some of the fame she would have so enjoyed in life. Their daughter Helen Benziger (née Brown) died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on October 17th, 1993 at the age of 97.
Fredrick Fleet:
He was the lookout who first sighted the iceberg that sank the Titanic. He left the sea in 1936. He worked for Harland and Wolff's Southampton shipyard during World War II, after which he became a night watchman for the Union Castle Line. As he moved into old age, he sold newspapers on a street corner in Southampton. In 1965, despondant over his finances and the recent loss of his wife, Fleet took his own life.
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J. Bruce Ismay (1863 - 1937):
Bruce Ismay retired as planned from the International Mercantile Marine in June 1913, but the position of managing director of the White Star Line that he had hoped to retain was denied him. Survivng the Titanic disaster (in Collapsible Lifeboat #C) had made him far too unpopular with the public. He spent his remaining years alternating between his homes in London and Ireland. Because Ismay had never had many close friends, and subsequently had few business conatcts, it was mistakenly easy to assume that he had become a recluse. He did enjoy being kept informed of shipping news but those around him were forbidden to speak of the Titanic. He died in 1937.
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Masabumi Hosono:
The Titanic was sinking fast. Horrified passengers rushed onto lifeboats being lowered into the dark, icy sea. Desperate men were stopped at gunpoint so women and children could escape first.
Masabumi Hosono stood on the Boat-Deck, torn between the fear of shame and the instinct for survival. Then the 42-year-old Japanese bureaucrat found himself in the right place at the right moment. There were two spots open in a Lifeboat #10. Hosono hesitated, but when he saw a man next to him jump in, he swallowed his
fear and followed.
Hosono's decision saved his life - yet it brought him decades of shame in Japan. He was branded a coward, fired from his job and spent the rest of his days embittered.
Sarah A. Stap: as written by her grandnephew Gordon Stap. Updated 3/13/98.
My great-aunt, Miss Sarah Agnes Stap, served on many of the White Star liners as her father was a Captain with the White Star Line. She was born on one of his ships and shared his love of the sea.
She was, in fact, not a stewardess as is commonly listed. She was on the maiden voyage of the 'Baltic', and 'Adriatic', and also served on the 'Celtic', and 'Olympic' as a nurse. She was one of the first to be transferred from the 'Olympic' to the Titanic on which she served as matron.
She owed her survival to a young cabin boy beside her who, when she was told to get into Lifeboat #11 by the crew member in charge of that lifeboat, that there was room for her, she told the young cabin boy that as she was forty years old and had had the best years of her life, he should take her spot. The cabin boy's answer was to simply pick her up, and put her in the lifeboat. She died in 1938.
Louise Laroche:
She was one of the members of the only "Black Family" aboard the Titanic that travelled in Second-Class.
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The Laroches - Mr. Joseph Laroche, his wife Juliette Marie Louise, their two daughters Louise and Simonne, where originally from France where Mr. Joseph Laroche obtained his engineering degree.They then moved to Haiti but when Mrs. Laroche became pregnant with their third child they decided to move to the USA hoping jobs would be better racially for engineers. Mr. Laroche spoke fluent French and English and must have drawn little attention to himself and his family. There was no mention of a black family aboard the Titanic by any of the press or survivors accounts. This is unusual for the time when predjustice was very existant. Only one passenger, Miss Kate Buss (another Second-Class passenger), mentions in a letter home about the Laroche children. Calling them the cute "Jap" baby girls.
Mr. Laroche did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. His wife and two daughters were saved in lifeboat #10 (possibly).
Michel Marcel Navratil:
Michel Marcel Navratil (age 3 years) travelled with his father - Mr. Michel Navratil - and his younger brother Edmond Roger (age 2 years) aboard the Titanic in Second-Class under the name "Hoffman" and occupied Cabin F-2.
They were abducted by their father and became known as the "Titanic Tots" aboard the rescue vessel 'Carpathia'.
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Michel Navratil alias "Louis Hoffman" was an Austrailian born tailor living in Nice, France who was separated from his wife Marcelle. Michel was 27 when they married, she being as young as 15. He was Slavic and methodical, she was Italian and mercurial.
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Julian Pedro, who had the table next to Navratil in the dining saloon aboard the Titanic, described Mr. "Hoffman" as a rather handsome man about 40 (actually 32), 5 ft 6 inches tall with a ruddy face, dark moustache and hair, who looked either English or French.
The divorce proceedings were in process and the Easter Sunday, April 7th was Michel's day to visit the children. In a well thought out plan he picked up the boys at his mother-in-laws and took them to England to board the Titanic. He had a revolver in his pocket in case of interference.
Marcelle's mother had been caring for the boys while she worked as a seamstress to supplement the family income. The mother-in-law constantly undermined Michel's standing in the family.
At the end of the Easter weekend Marcelle went to pick the boys up from their father but they were no where to be found. She never dreamt that her name would be a household word on two continents.
"Hoffman" isolated himself from the other passengers during the crossing. He rarely let the boys out of his site not trusting anyone. Only at one point when he wanted to participate in a card game he did. He let a Swiss woman by the name of Bertha Lehmann who spoke only French and German, but not English, look after the children.
He loved his sons and when handing them to strangers in Collapsible Lifeboat D he kissed them goodbye. The tots were handed into the arms of two different passengers - one to a First-Class and the other to a Third-Class passenger.
On board the 'Carpathia', the children were cared for by New Yorker Margaret Hays who spoke fluent French. The boys were know as the "Titanic Tots" and assumed to be Hoffmans.
It was soon discovered that a man named Hoffman - fitting Michel Navratil's description - representing himself as a German antique dealer, had purchased tickets for himself and the two children in March at the Thomas Cook offices in Monte Carlo.
Marcelle read the story of the "Titanic Tots" and knowing her husband had a friend by the name of Hoffman, cabled a picture of Michel to Monte Carlo, then gave a description to Miss Hays through the Paris Bureau of the New York Herald.
Confirming that she was the mother, the White Star Line gave her a ticket on the 'Oceanic' to New York were she was reunited with her children.
In the New York Evening Journal columnist Dorothy Dix lamented the childrens return to their "poor" mother when they could have been adopted to a "rich" American. She suggested strongly that Madame Navratil was selfish by forcing her sons to grow up with little education and few advantages.
Miss Dix could not have been more wrong:
Michel Marcel became a scholar and teacher of philosophy and received his doctorate in 1952. His son a doctor of Urology, one daughter a psychoanalyst and the other a German translator and music critic.
Edmond Roger was a builder and architect until he volunteered for active duty in WW 2. He was captured and interred as a prisoner of war. He escaped but never recovered and died in 1953.
Marcelle Navratil died in 1974.
Mr. Michel Navratil was buried in the Jewish "Baron de Hirsch Cemetery" in Halifax. The officials offered to move his body to the Catholic section after the error was discovered but his wife was quite happy to leave the body where it was resting. Here is where the saying "No rest for the wicked" comes in. No French Catholic would rest peacefully there ! ! !
Apparently Mr. Navratil had so many creditors after him that the money they recovered from his body - the equivalent of several hundred francs - that they put a lien on the cash he had been carrying.
No member of the family had ever visited Mr. Navratil's grave until Michel Marcel did - then 88 years old.
Following Jewish tradition many visitors had honored his memory by leaving stones on his marker to signify their having stopped to pay their respects.
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