Voices from the Titanic (77 page)

Minia
– Cable ship which assisted the
Mackay-Bennett
in retrieving bodies.

Mount Temple
– Westbound Canadian vessel which was some 49 miles west of the
Titanic
at the time of the sinking.

New York
– Liner involved in a near-miss with the
Titanic
as the latter left Southampton on 10 April.

Olympic
– Sister ship of the
Titanic
, situated about 512 miles west of her at the time of sinking.

Virginian
– Allan liner situated some 170 miles from the
Titanic
at midnight on 14/15 April.

Abelseth, Olaus
– Norwegian-born livestock farmer who had settled in South Dakota in 1908. In the autumn of 1911 he visited relatives in Norway, returning home on the
Titanic
. After the sinking he travelled around for a bit before eventually resuming work on his farm. In 1915 he married a Norwegian girl, Anna Grinde, who bore him four children. She lived to be over a hundred (dying in 1978) and he passed away two years later at the age of ninety-two.

Andrews, Miss Kornelia
– A native of Hudson, New York State, where she was one of the managers of the City Hospital, sixty-three-year-old Miss Andrews was returning to the United States on the
Titanic
with her sister Anna Hogeboom and their twenty-one-year-old niece Gretchen Longley. They boarded at Southampton and travelled first-class. After the sinking Miss Andrews filed a claim for $480.50 against the White Star Line for a variety of lost possessions including fur coats, antique lamps and ‘one velvet hat with ostrich plumes'. She died in December 1913 from pneumonia.

Andrews, Thomas
– The nephew of Lord Pirrie, the principal owner of shipbuilders Harland & Wolff, Belfast-born Andrews left school at sixteen to join the firm as an apprentice. By 1910 he had become managing director of Harland & Wolffwith special responsibility for design. In his final letter to his wife Elizabeth he wrote: ‘The
Titanic
is now about complete and will, I think, do the old firm credit tomorrow when we sail.' One of the last sightings of him was sitting in the sinking ship's smoking room, staring blankly at the wall, his life jacket in front of him. He was thirty-nine.

Asplund, Mrs Selma
– Steerage passenger from Sweden who was emigrating with her family to Worcester, Massachusetts. While Mrs Asplund, six-year-old daughter Lillian and baby Felix all survived their ordeal at sea, husband Carl and sons Gustaf, Oscar and Carl were lost. Mrs Asplund died on 15 April 1964 – the fifty-second anniversary of the sinking of the
Titanic
.

Astor, Colonel John Jacob
– One of the richest men in the world in 1912 with a personal fortune estimated at $87 million. At the age of forty-six, he had scandalized New York society by choosing as his second wife Madeleine Force, who, at eighteen, was younger than his son Vincent. The newlyweds had fled to Egypt to escape the gossip but headed back to New York on the
Titanic
when Madeleine discovered that she was pregnant. After helping his wife into a lifeboat, he met his fate with great dignity in company with his Airedale terrier, Kitty. In August 1912 Astor's widow gave birth to a son, whom she named after him.

Astor, Mrs Madeleine
– During the First World War, she married New Yorker William K. Dick (thus relinquishing all claim to the Astor fortune) and had two sons by him, but the union ended in divorce in 1933. That same year she married professional boxer Enzo Firemonte but that marriage lasted just five years before it too ended in divorce. She died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1940, aged forty-seven.

Barrett, Frederick
– Liverpool-born crew member who had previously served on the
New York
. As a leading fireman on the
Titanic
, he earned a monthly wage of £6. 10s. Shortly after testifying to the Board of Trade Inquiry, twenty-eight-year-old Barrett was back at sea working on the
Titanic
's sister ship, the
Olympic
.

Beane, Edward
– Although born in Norwich, England, he worked in New York as a bricklayer before returning to his home town to marry wife Ethel in April 1912. A few days later he returned to New York with his bride on board the
Titanic
. They travelled second-class and both were rescued in lifeboat No. 13. Mr Beane died in 1948, aged sixty-seven, but his wife lived until 1983, reaching the age of ninety.

Beesley, Lawrence
– Educated at Cambridge, Beesley was given his first teaching post at Wirksworth Grammar School, Derbyshire. By 1912 he was a science master at Dulwich College in south London, and provided the press with one of the most graphic accounts of the
Titanic
disaster. He died in 1967, aged eighty-nine.

Bentham, Miss Lillian
– One of a party of eleven Americans on their way home from a trip to Europe, she travelled second-class from Southampton, paying £13 for her ticket. After her rescue, she was unable to be met in New York by her family because her brother had contracted typhoid. In 1918 Lillian married John Black. She died in 1977.

Bishop, Dickinson
– Wealthy resident of Dowagiac, Michigan, who was returning to the US after honeymooning in Europe with his second wife Helen. They escaped on the first boat to leave the
Titanic
and twenty-five-year-old Bishop was there-after the subject of unfounded rumours that he had dressed as a woman to secure his place in the boat. Fortune rarely smiled on them again. The baby that Helen was carrying at the time of the sinking died when just two days old, they were caught up in an earthquake, and then Helen was involved in a car crash from which she never fully recovered. They were divorced in 1916 and she died later that year. He quickly remarried and lived until 1961.

Bjornstrom-Steffanson, Lt. Mauritz Hakan
– A military man as well as being a leading light in the Swedish pulp industry, twenty-eight-year-old Bjornstrom-Steffanson paid £26 11s. for his first-class ticket. He was drinking hot lemonade in the first-class smoking room immediately prior to the collision. He and other survivors later presented an inscribed silver cup to Captain Rostron and medals to each of the 320 members of the
Carpathia
's crew in appreciation of their bravery. In 1917 Bjornstrom-Steffanson married Mary Pinchot Eno to whom he had been introduced by fellow
Titanic
survivor Helen Churchill Candee. They set up home in Manhattan but had no children. He died in 1962, nine years after his wife.

Bonnell, Miss Caroline
– Aged thirty from Youngstown, Ohio, Miss Bonnell travelled on the
Titanic
with her aunt Lily and the Wick family. She shared cabin C7 with Natalie Wick. Rescued in lifeboat No. 8, among the wreckage in the water she spotted a man's glove and a baby's bonnet. She later married and had two children. She died in 1950.

Boxhall, Joseph
– A twenty-eight-year-old from Hull, Yorkshire, Boxhall was the
Titanic
's Fourth Officer and the man responsible for calculating the ship's precise position. He survived the disaster and acted as technical consultant on the making of the 1958 film
A Night to Remember
. When he died in 1967, his ashes were scattered at the point where the
Titanic
went down.

Brayton, George
– Minnesota-born professional gambler George Brereton sailed on the
Titanic
under the alias of ‘Brayton', presumably to avoid detection. Even on the
Carpathia
he tried to involve fellow survivor Charles Stengel in a horse-racing scam. Tragedy dogged his later years. Grieving over the death of their son, his wife shot herself dead in Los Angeles in 1922. Twenty years later in the same house, sixty-seven-year-old Brereton took his own life in similar fashion.

Bride, Harold
– Twenty-two-year-old junior wireless operator aboard the
Titanic
, born in Nunhead, South London. Despite selling his story at the time, he subsequently shunned publicity and went to live in Scotland where he worked as a travelling salesman. He died there quietly in 1956.

Brown, Miss Edith
– A native of South Africa, fifteen-year-old Edith Brown was travelling with her sister and father to Seattle, but was the only survivor. Afterwards she went to live in Cape Town and in 1917 married Frederick Thankful Haisman following a whirlwind, six-week romance. They had ten children. She ended her days in Southampton where she died in 1997.

Brown, Mrs Margaret Tobin
– Born in Hannibal, Missouri, in 1867 to an Irish immigrant family, she married impoverished miner James Joseph Brown in 1886 and, when he struck it rich, she became one of the most prominent citizens of Denver, Colorado. By 1912, however, they were virtually estranged since he did not share her enthusiasm for the high life. She had been holidaying with the Astors in Cairo when she learnt that her first grandchild was ill. So she booked on the first available ship back to the United States – the
Titanic
. Her heroics in boat No. 6 and her indomitable spirit made her a national figure. She tried to run for Congress, became a keen supporter of women's rights and in 1932 was awarded the French Legion of Honour. She died in that same year of a brain tumour. Although she has gone down in history as ‘Molly' Brown, the name was purely a Hollywood invention,
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
becoming a hit movie starring Debbie Reynolds.

Buckley, Daniel
– Twenty-one-year-old from County Cork, he boarded at Queenstown and paid £7 15s. 17d. for his third-class ticket. He survived the
Titanic
but could not survive the First World War and was killed in service in 1918.

Buss, Miss Kate
– One of a family of seven from Sittingbourne in Kent, Kate worked in a village grocer's shop owned by her brother Percy. She was going to America to marry her fiancé, Samuel Willis, in San Diego and transported assorted wedding gifts on the
Titanic
. The couple married later in 1912 and had a daughter Sybil. Kate Buss died in 1972, aged ninety-six.

Butt, Major Archibald
– Hailing from a prominent Augusta, Georgia, family, Archie Buttgraduated from the University of Tennessee in 1888 and went on to work as a journalist in Louisville, Kentucky, and Washington, DC. He joined the United States Army in 1898 as a lieutenant during the Spanish– American War and later became military aide to President Theodore Roosevelt. He held the same post with Roosevelt's successor, William H. Taft, but by 1912 his health had begun to suffer as a result of the stress caused by the ongoing feud between Roosevelt and Taft. To recuperate, Butt took six weeks' leave from the White House and went to Europe with his friend, the artist Frank Millet. Before leaving for Europe, Buttmade a will, having apparently been told that he would meet his death on the trip. The return journey was aboard the
Titanic
. Butt hosted a party in the Café Parisien on the evening of the disaster and went down with the ship. He was forty-five.

Candee, Mrs Helen Churchill
– A fifty-three-year-old New York writer and lecturer (married to Edward Candee), she journeyed alone on the
Titanic.
Shortly after the collision she gave an antique cameo of her mother to fellow first-class passenger Edward Kent in the belief that he was more likely to survive than her. In the event Kent died and she was rescued. When his body was recovered, the cameo was found on his clothing and returned to Mrs Candee. She eventually died in 1949.

Cardeza, Mrs Charlotte
– A wealthy fifty-eight-year-old Philadelphian who, in her younger days, was a noted yachtswoman (twice sailing around the world) and fearless big game hunter. Married to attorney James Cardeza, she sailed on the
Titanic
with her son Thomas and maid Anna Ward, both of whom also survived. They brought with them fourteen trunks, four suitcases, three crates and a medicine chest, the contents including seventy dresses, ten fur coats, thirty-eight feather boas, twenty-two hatpins and ninety-one pairs of gloves. She later filed a fourteen-page claim against the White Star Line for loss of property amounting to $177,352.75. She died in 1939.

Carlisle, Alexander
– General manager of shipbuilders Harland & Wolff and the leader of the team that designed the
Titanic
. He retired in 1910.

Carter, Billy
– A prominent Philadelphian, aged thirty-six, who travelled with his wife Lucile and children Lucile and William. Their entourage also numbered Mrs Carter's maid, Mr Carter's manservant and his personal chauffeur for his luggage included two dogs and a brand new Renault car. The Carter family survived; the car didn't. He later claimed $5,000 for the loss of the car and $300 for the loss of the dogs. He reached the
Carpathia
before the rest of his family and did not recognize son William, who was hidden under a lady's hat, said to have been placed on his head by his mother in response to an order that no more boys were to be allowed in the lifeboat. Billy Carter died in 1940.

Cavendish, Mrs Julia
– Born in Chicago, although she lived much of her life in Staffordshire, England. She was twenty-five when she boarded the
Titanic
with husband Tyrell and her maid Nellie Barber. She and the maid were rescued but Mr Cavendish perished when the ship went down. Mrs Cavendish died in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, in 1963.

Cherbourg
– Town in northern France, the first port of call for the
Titanic
on her transatlantic journey. Having left Southampton an hour late, she arrived at Cherbourg at 6.35 p.m., local time. Twenty-two passengers got off and 274 got on, among them Benjamin Guggenheim, the Duff Gordons and ‘Molly' Brown.

Cherry, Miss Gladys
– The thirty-year-old cousin of the Countess of Rothes with whom she shared first-class cabin B77 aboard the
Titanic
. After the disaster she married George Pringle and died at Godalming, Surrey, in 1965.

Chevré, Paul
– Born in Brussels to French parents in 1867 (his father ran a foundry), Paul Chevré made his name as a sculptor, staging his first exhibition in Paris in 1890. His best-known work is the sculpture of Samuel de Champlain, Canada's founder, which stands in Quebec City. Commissioned by Charles Hays to do a bust of Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the lobby of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa, Chevré joined Hays on the
Titanic
to return to Canada for the hotel's official opening on 26 April 1912. He boarded at Cherbourg and on the evening of the disaster was playing cards in the Café Parisien with Pierre Maréchal, Alfred Omont and Lucien Smith. Chevré survived the night but died in Paris two years later.