Blog - Soliloquism

“We Saw Everything Quite Distinctly”: Titanic & the SS City of New York

According to the records of the National Meteorological Library & Archive of the United Kingdom, Titanic's maiden voyage was more or less as lovely a spring day as one could behold. "Southampton had a dry night with clear spells," the reports reads, and "the morning dawned fine with some good spells of sunshine... Despite the sunshine it was a chilly day with a cool north-westerly wind."

And thus, Titanic set sail at about 12:05 p.m.

Second-Class passenger Lawrence Beesley described the scene as Titanic crept away from the dock.

Soon after noon the whistles blew for friends to go ashore, the gangways were withdrawn, and the Titanic moved slowly down the dock, to the accompaniment of last messages and shouted farewells of those on the quay. There was no cheering or hooting of steamers' whistles from the fleet of ships that lined the dock, as might seem probable on the occasion of the largest vessel in the world putting to sea on her maiden voyage; the whole scene was quiet and rather ordinary, with little of the picturesque and interesting ceremonial which imagination paints as usual in such circumstances.

Having looked down on the world from the Titanic's boat deck, I went on the quay and looked up at the projecting heads of the passengers. It was like standing by the wall of St. Paul's Cathedral and craning your neck to get a glimpse of the Apostles on the roof...

For the first yards a caterpillar might have raced the Titanic. It was difficult to imagine such a tremendous object moving, so slowly. I walked along to the end of the deep water dock and saw her come by at a slow pace within a stone's throw of the quay. Her propellers churned the green sea up to liquid grey mud.

As the Titanic moved majestically down the dock, the crowd of friends keeping pace with us along the quay, we came together level with the steamer New York lying moored to the side of the dock along with the Oceanic, the crowd waving "good-byes" to those on board as well as they could for the intervening bulk of the two ships. But as the bows of our ship came about level with those of the New York, there came a series of reports like those of a revolver, and on the quay side of the New York snaky coils of thick rope flung themselves high in the air and fell backwards among the crowd, which retreated in alarm to escape the flying ropes. We hoped that no one was struck by the ropes, but a sailor next to me was certain he saw a woman carried away to receive attention.

Bertie Ervine is recorded as having provided electrical work on the RMS Titanic during its construction. He entered into the employ of the White Star Line after returning from the maiden voyage of another vessel: the SS Maloja, which had likewise been constructed by Harland & Wolff.

It is reported that Bertie Ervine had actively petitioned the White Star Line, hoping to be assigned to Titanic. And so, on April 2, 1912, Bertie Ervine walked out of the Belfast house that he shared with his parents and siblings, and set off to the docks.

Somewhere along his way that day, or perhaps once he arrived, Bertie linked up with fellow assistant electrician Alfred Middleton.

The two boys had been good friends for some time, presumably due to their parents belonging to the same religious community. Having been hired as crew for Titanic's "delivery trip" to Southampton, England, they would depart immediately following the successful completion of her sea trials.

Titanic came to rest at Southampton shortly after midnight on April 4th. And on April 6th, Bertie and Alfred signed on to Titanic once again, for the vessel's maiden voyage.

In the letter to his mother, Bertie outlined his work schedule as "on duty morning and evening from 8 to 12; that is four hours work and eight hours off." Therein, Bertie also described a drill, or "full dress rehearsal of an emergency" that his group had conducted that morning, April 11th.

They had, he wrote, practiced the functionality of the watertight doors.

Three days later, on the night of April 14th, Titanic struck the iceberg.

And though she strained and flooded and foundered, her electricity did not fail until her final moments.

Assistant electrician Bertie Ervine was never recorded as having been sighted on deck at any point during the sinking. And for almost two hours, from 11:40 p.m. until 2 a.m.--approximately 20 minutes before Titanic fell beneath the waves--her lights somehow remained on, and her wireless radio remained operational.

Ervine is, therefore, presumed to have remained at his post deep within the ship, electing to sacrifice his safety and his life to make sure that Titanic's power would not go out.

When Black Cats Prowl and Pumpkins Gleam: How Orange & Black Became Halloween

This is recognized as the impetus for the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain.

Samhain was a so-called “threshold” celebration, occurring as it did between an equinox and solstice. And the liminality of the Samhain festival is the heart of its eeriness.

This in-betweenness is what lifted the gauzy veil between reality and the Otherworld, where faeries played and the dearly departed wandered.

Samhain began at sunset on the last day of October, and concluded at sunset the next day on the first day of November; this is because, in Celtic societies, this is when a day began.

And so, in the advancing night, celebrants lit ritual bonfires atop the hills. They congregated, often throwing bones onto the flames--a practice which informs the word's etymology: a "bone fire."

These blazes were made with the friction of one piece of wood against another, the process of which was known as a 'force-fire'. Practicality aside, it likewise functioned as folk magic well into the 1800s.

It was believed that force-fires would counteract bewitchment, as well as the infectious diseases (known collectively as 'murrain') that too often befell cattle.

Pumpkins are a long-domesticated plant native to the American continents.

And while there are millions of pumpkins now grown in the United Kingdom every year, they did not exist when Irish and Scottish citizens began emigrating en masse to the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As generations of these immigrants introduced Gaelic Halloween traditions to their new country, the old-world custom of carving jack o' lanterns from turnips and potatoes was adapted to take advantage of more readily available produce: the plump and orange pumpkin.

These many natural orange elements--fire, leaves, and rotund gourds--no doubt inform the modern iteration of this peculiar gothic holiday.

But it was the savvy of one manufacturing company that popularized the color scheme that we recognize as Halloween.

The Dennison Manufacturing Company was established in 1844, when an eponymous father-and-son team pioneered a better jewelry box: one made of paper (as was standard at the time), but domestically produced, and more durable and attractive than the imported options then available.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the Dennison paper-product lines had expanded to include crepe paper.

And Dennison set out to make crepe paper the most indispensable novelty decoration of them all.

Halloween parties, once unusual, were becoming more popular by the year.

And in Halloween, a holiday less commonly celebrated than Christmas, the Dennison Manufacturing Company saw a profitable opportunity to promote its crepe paper by making it the go-to product for Halloween merrymaking.

Halloween decorations certainly existed prior to Dennison’s revelation, but the decorations were not commercial. Historian Lesley Bannatyne has stated that parties of this period typically used festive decor that was derived from more natural resources.

That 'measure of darkness' was more than necessary, "for unless a mysterious atmosphere is created in the rooms," published the Pictorial Review magazine in 1907, "the festivities would cease to be interesting even to children."

So for its brand new Halloween crepe, the Dennison Manufacturing Company paired orange with black.

In addition to solid colors, Dennison made crepe with printed patterns. Printing on bright crepe paper meant using black ink--perfect for grinning cat faces, wide-winged bats, and witch silhouettes.

This black ink necessitated a brightly colored background; so, most likely running with the long-established harvest colors, Dennison chose orange, red, and yellow.

To sell their new Halloween crepe, Dennison decided to print a book.

Dennison had produced a so-called instruction booklet before. It was called Art and Decoration in Crepe and Tissue Paper, and it had been circulated since 1894.

But unlike its previous effort—and unlike any holiday promotional material at that time—Dennison’s Bogie Book was all about Halloween.

The Bogie Book offered easy-to-do ideas for home-made Halloween decorations, costumes, and party games--all to be accomplished with the use of specific rolls of Dennison crepe paper, complete with individual product numbers and convenient ordering instructions.

Decorate the living room with vivid orange and black. The doorway, windows, chandelier and fireplace can all be effectively “dressed up.” The doorway shown will give any timid guest a thrill as she tries to enter the room without encountering the dangling spider. To copy it, fasten natural branches above the door frame and suspend orange, yellow and black crepe paper moss from them, allowing it to hang very irregularly… the chandelier sheds a weird glow over the whole room through the long orange crepe paper fringe that surrounds it.

The Bogie Book, however, was not an overnight success.

In fact, after its initial publication, Dennison did not issue a sequel until 3 years later, in 1912.

The cover art of the 1912 edition incorporated much of what is now recognized as Halloween iconography.

The soft cover featured the silhouettes of three hunched witches around a cauldron, a trio of screeching black cats around their feet. Above their pointed hats, the tree branches are perched by owls and hung with jack o' lanterns, all of them black with bright orange eyes. Beneath the illustration, in vibrant lettering, it reads only "Dennison's BOGIE BOOK".

The 1913 Bogie Book cover art likewise featured a shadowy gathering of witches under a tree. They are outlined against a starry sky with orange light cast by the moon. The lead witch, bent over a walking stick, has a black cat on her shoulder and a wide-eyed owl overhead. In the background, bats fly past the moon, giving the impression of a distressed face.

Halloween, it would seem, was fast catching on.

After that, the Dennison Manufacturing Company began publishing a new Bogie Book every year.

Their popularity grew so much that, by the early 1920s, the price of the Bogie Book had doubled to ten cents a piece.

A preserved countertop store display from that same time period exclaims: "HALLOWEE'N is coming Oct. 31st" and "You'll need Dennison's Bogie Book, 10¢per copy."

The cardboard display is, of course, predominantly black and orange, with a harlequin border. Its illustrations include a flying witch on a crescent moon, a prowling black cat, and a jack o' lantern.

So year after year, Americans were encouraged to buy orange-and-black printed crepe paper aplenty, or otherwise purchase Dennison's pre-fabricated stock pieces, in order to have the most fabulous and ‘weird’ Halloween parties.

Every issue included step-by-step instructions to make things like hanging honeycomb pumpkins, haunting hallways and hidden fortune tellers that would foretell romance and frivolous woe.

There were even instructions on how to make wear-once, worry-free costumes.

They were, of course, made of crepe paper.

Generic by today's standards, these disposable costumes were usually archetypically spooky Halloween characters such as harlequin figures, fortune tellers, and witches. Sometimes, girls wore more 'pretty' thematic costumes, like 'Night' or 'The Moon.'

And these outfits were always illustrated in shades of orange, red, and black.

“Look Here, You Crazy Thing”: Edith Rosenbaum Russell

But one item was out of the ordinary: a musical toy pig.

Edith, who had been born in Cincinnati, had spent the previous four years living in Paris for haute couture.

Her little toy pig was papier-mache and spotted, wrapped in black and white fur. Upon winding its corkscrew tail, it played the song “La Maxixe.”

It was, as she called it, a mascot. Her mother had given it to her in 1911, after Edith had been in a nearly fatal auto accident. Her fiance, Ludwig Loewe, had been killed.

But Edith had survived, with only a concussion to recover from. And so her mother gifted her with the pig, a traditional symbol of good luck in France, as a charm. Edith promised her mother that she would keep it nearby always.

Were I of a superstitious nature, or given to following my instincts which are very strong, I should never have taken my trip on the Titanic, leaving Cherbourg for New York on April 10, 1912. In the month of January, when in Biskra, Africa, an Arab fortune-teller predicting my fortunes in the sand, held up his hands in amazement saying, ‘Madame will be in a very grave accident at sea.’ I naturally discredited this, but for months afterward felt an impeding sense of calamity…

Arriving in Cherbourg, my premonition of ill was so strong, that again I was tempted not to take the trip, and even telegraphed my secretary, expressing my fears.

Edith recalled that the day of April 14 was “brilliantly fine, but icily cold.” She figured that the only warm place in the whole boat was her bed, so that is where she elected to stay until about 4 o’clock in the evening. “If you were to go inside of your Frigidaire, or hold your hand over a solid block of ice,” Edith wrote, “you would get an idea of the temperature. The cold cramped one’s face and hands.”

After a gala dinner, Edith returned to her stateroom. After turning in, she heard a calamity below-deck and looked out her window to see a “white mass” moving by, into the distance.

Edith put on her fur coat and popped into a friend’s room to suggest they go up to boat deck. Edith said the few people there were in “various stages of undress.” Someone pointed out a nearby iceberg.

I was met by my room steward, Wareham, fully dressed in overcoat and derby hat. I asked, ‘Wareham, do you think there is any danger, or is it simply the rule that all passengers should put on life belts?’ He answered, ‘It is a rule of the Board of Trade that all passengers must put on life belts and that women and children are put aboard the lifeboats. Now I do not think that the boat can sink. In all probabilities we shall tow her on to Halifax.’ So I said, ‘If you have any idea of going to Halifax, here are my trunk keys, and you better clear my trunks at the customs.’ I remember now, but did not at the time appreciate the significance of his reply, ‘Well, if I were you, I would kiss those trunks good-bye.’

On her way to the First-Class Lounge, Edith stopped into the quarters of her friend, Robert Daniel, who is noted in Titanic history for bringing with him the most expensive dog on the ship, a French bulldog named Gamin de Pycombe.

Edith recalled, “It was whining and crying. I remember taking it and tucking it under the bed covers, and patting its head.” Edith and Mr. Daniel then carried on to A Deck.

But the dreaded cold and lack of order led Edith to take to an armchair in the First-Class Lounge. She stayed there until she caught the eyes of Bruce Ismay, who was—by Edith’s account and others’ as well—pretty much frantic.

I then went out up to the Boat Deck and found myself standing next to Mr. Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line, who was wearing his black evening trousers and a nightshirt with frills down the front. He was shouting orders/ A number of men on the other side of him were banked up almost in a solid mass near the cabin bulkhead. He spied me and called out: "What are you doing on this ship? I thought all women and children had left! If there are any more women and children on this ship, let them step forward and come over to this stairways immediately."

Mr.Ismay practically threw me down a narrow iron stairway to the deck below. There has been much criticism of Mr. Ismay, but he certainly saved my life. I passed between two lines of sailors to the rail. Two burly sailors got hold of me and attempted to throw me head foremost into the lifeboat which was suspended alongside. But when I noticed how far from the rail that lifeboat was, swinging on its davits from above, I became terrified -- so much so that my legs and feet went rigid and my slippers fell off. I screamed to the two men: "Don't push me!" One replied, "If you don't want to go, stay!"

Edith guessed she spent the next five minutes searching for her slippers.

One of the crew then grabbed the toy pig from Edith's arms and told her that at least they’d save her “baby.”

And because Edith had promised her mother that wherever she would go, the mascot would go, she—with the assistance of a nearby gentleman who offered to lift her over the side—got into the lifeboat. She found her pig as the boat was being lowered away.

It was Lifeboat 11, which was one of the few to exceed capacity. Edith, seeing the young children wriggling and crying. And so she played the song on her toy pig.

Edith later credited the bravery of many, especially Bruce Ismay—surely some of the only praise he received in the wake pf the disaster. “What thrilling deeds of heroism! Bruce Ismay certainly saved my life, and I don’t doubt that he saved many more."

Edith Rosenbaum went on to become one of the first, if not the first, female correspondent to enter the trenches with soldiers during the First World War by signing on as a journalist with the American Red Cross. In 1920, she changed her surname to Russell due to anti-German sentiments.

She died in 1975 at the age of 95.

In 2001, during a James Cameron expedition to the Titanic wreck, Edith’s stateroom was found and explored. The dressing table was still upright, with its mirror still intact.

“Immeasurable Sorrow and Unending Grief”: The Allison Family

Bess Daniels met her future husband, a stockbroker from Montreal named Hudson Allison, in 1907 while they were passengers on a train.

They married in her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in December of that same year, on Hudson’s 26th birthday. Bess was newly 21.

Less than five years later, Hudson and Bess boarded the Titanic as First-Class passengers at Southampton on the morning of April 10, 1912. With them were their young children—Lorraine, who was 2 years old, and their infant Trevor—and four servants.

The Allisons occupied First-Class cabins on C-Deck, which they shared with their maid, Sarah, and Trevor’s new nurse, Alice Cleaver.

Their cook, Mildred, and their chauffeur, George Swane, were booked with Second-Class cabins.

The Allison family had sailed to the United Kingdom in order for Hudson to attend a meeting of directors, as he was on the Board of the British Lumber Corporation. They took a side trip up to the Scottish Highlands so Hudson could pick up horses for the Allison’s stock farm back home. While there, they also hired the four servants that were traveling with them on Titanic.

On the night of April 14, Hudson and Bess dined with Major Arthur Peuchen and fellow Canadian Harry Molson. Later, Bess brought little Loraine up to the First-Class Dining Room to awe at its Jacobean prettiness.

When Titanic struck the iceberg later that night, the new nursemaid Alice woke the Allisons, but per her (presumably defensive) account, they dismissed her concern, insisting that it was nothing more than her imagination.

Some time after the engines had ceased, Mr. Allison finally consented to go up on deck to seek the trouble. Alice said that she advised that the family would have to evacuate the ship, and Mrs. Allison became “hysterical.” Alice, wrapping the baby, did her best to calm Mrs. Allison.

An officer then came by and advised an immediate evacuation to the boat deck. And so Alice, with the bundled baby Trevor in her arms, exited the suite. She claimed that she found Mr. Allison in the hallway.

Alternate accounts reflect that Alice took Trevor with her to retrieve George and Mildred in Second Class, without informing either Mr. or Mrs. Allison.

In the end, it is reported that George Swane escorted Alice to Lifeboat 11. Trevor was then carried into the boat by bedroom steward William Faulkner, who was instructed to stay aboard, and thusly also rescued in Lifeboat 11.

Also in the lifeboat was Mildred, the cook that the Allisons had hired. According to a letter from Mildred to her mother on April 19, 1912, written on board Carpathia and postmarked from Grand Central Station in New York City:

And then, years on, Titanic was forced to shoulder its very own Anastasia story.

Decades later in 1940, a woman named Helen Loraine Kramer came forward, claiming on a radio show to be the long-lost toddler, Loraine Allison. Over the course of time, she insisted that she had been saved in secret—and then raised—by no less than Thomas Andrews, who she claimed had disguised his identity under the alias of "James Hyde" to avoid persecution.

Kramer’s granddaughter reinvigorated the rumor in 2012, claiming to have found definitive proof in the form of paperwork in the late Kramer’s suitcase.

Genetic testing was finally performed in 2013 as a result of the Loraine Allison Identification Project. It proved that Kramer’s absurd claim, unsurprisingly, to be entirely false.

David Allison, grandson of Hudson’s brother Percy, issued the following statement.

“I’ll Stay and Take My Chances”: Clarence Moore

Clarence Moore left his home of Washington D.C. in March of 1912 with a singular goal: to get himself a whole lotta dogs.

Clarence was an accomplished man of business and a famed equestrian in the United States. According to the New York Times report dated April 16, 1912, "Socially he is one of the best-known men in Washington."

Clarence Moore had traveled across to England on this leisure trip in order to purchase foxhounds for the Loudoun Hunt at the brand new Rock Creek Hunt Club, which was back home in Virginia.

Per an interview with a member of the Rock Creek Hunt Club, published April 18th, 1912, "Clarence Moore was the most daring horseman I have ever seen, and yet one could not call him reckless. He knew every phase of fox hunting, which was his greatest hobby."

So, after purchasing 50 pairs of foxhounds, he and his manservant, Charles Harrington, booked First-Class passage back to America on Titanic. Clarence had originally intended for the hundred dogs to travel with him on Titanic, but ultimately elected for alternate passage for them.

Clarence and Charles boarded in Southampton, sans canines.

The three men would have adjourned to the Palm Room following their meal, and likely played a hand of cards before retiring.

Clarence would spend his evenings on board with Archie and Millet, typically playing a game of whist well into the dark hours of the evening.

After lunch in the afternoon of Sunday, April 14, Clarence Moore and Archie Butt took a stroll about the promenade, despite the stark and sudden chill that was keeping so many other passengers indoors.

When Titanic struck the iceberg, Clarence was awake and at whist yet again with Archie, joined by William Carter and Harry Widener. Theirs was not the only party at card-playing; in fact, the group shared the room with professional card sharps such as George Brereton, who admitted to actively seeking a victim at the time. It is reported that Clarence Moore had at some point been indulging the tables in his personal tales of the West Virginian wilderness--especially his feat in guiding a newspaper reporter to an interview with Captain Anse Hatfield, of the notorious Hatfield & McCoy feud.

According to Archibald Gracie, the group seemed entirely engrossed and initially unbothered by the curious goings-on.

Clarence and Archie are reported to have stuck together as the sinking progressed, providing calm and steadfast reassurance to those women who were reticent to enter lifeboats. According to a number of survivor accounts, both men stood “in an unbroken line” with others who declined to enter lifeboats.

Repeatedly, Moore refused to take a place in one of the boats, the survivors who saw him say. His friend, Butt, knew that he was an oarsman, in fact, he realized that Clarence Moore could do most anything any true sportsman could, so he requested Moore to man an oar in one of the last lifeboats to leave the ship.

“No, major, I’ll stay and take my chances with you; let the women go,” Moore said to his companion according to Robert William Daniels, one of the survivors... “And he evidently stuck with Butt until death took them both,” said Mr. Daniels. “The two men jumped at the eleventh hour and were lost.”

Returning to a description of the scenes immediately after the Titanic crashed into the mammoth iceberg, Colonel Gracie told of the heroic work of Major Butt, John Jacob Astor, Clarence Moore, Jacques F. Futrelle, H. B. Harris, and other men, who stood aside in obedience to the law of the sea that the woman and children might live...

My last view of Major Butt---one that will live forever in my memory---was with that brave soldier coolly aiding the officers of the boat in directing the disembarkation of the women from that doomed ship. The recollection of him that is seared into my very brain is impressed by his last assertion of that manliness and chivalry so peculiarly his, that stately demeanor so well known to all Washingtonians. He died like the soldier and brave man he was.

It was reported that Clarence Moore and Archibald Butt jumped ship together "at the eleventh hour" as Titanic's boilers exploded.

The public eagerly awaited news of the famous Americans who were presumed lost in the sinking of the Titanic, particularly Major Butt, Clarence Moore, and other societal and affluent paragons such as John Jacob Astor.

Articles ran in newspapers with the 1912 equivalent of clickbait:

"Clarence Moore, Who May Have Lost His Life, Well Known in Capital."

"Moore's Partners Give Up Hope of Hearing From Him."

"Mrs. Moore Awaits Word from Husband."

“Am Safe – Pray God”: George Rosenshine & Gertrude Maybelle Thorne

When George and Maybelle boarded Titanic in Cherboug, France, in the evening of April 10, they became acquainted with other First-Class passengers as simply “Mr. and Mrs. Thorne.”

That was, as it turns out, only partly true.

Maybelle was married, yes. Just not to George Thorne.

Because George Thorne was an alias.

His actual name was George Rosenshine, and he was Maybelle’s secret boyfriend. Together with Maybelle in their palatial cabin, he traveled on Titanic as her fake husband. The only evidence of his true identity had been hidden away, in the assorted papers in his private leather satchel he carried.

Maybelle had absconded with George on his extended business travels back in 1911. Their adventure had become a round-the-world tour.

They went to Singapore and Indonesia. They went to Japan. And the trip had ended in Paris, where they attended a fashion show.

This ultimate stop was, of course, for the benefit of George’s business.

Ostrich plumes and the like were ubiquitous in fancy women’s hats, as well as in feather boas and the collars of jackets and shawls. The periodical The Illustrated Milliner published the following in a 1910 issue.

“These [ostrich feather] sales store up a considerable amount of business and promote trade throughout the entire establishment. Special advertising plans, attractive window trims and unique ideas are used with most satisfactory results.”

Alongside this text is a photo of a Macy’s window display containing a lush selection of ostrich plumes from Rosenshine Brothers.

The Paris fashion show left George in low spirits. If the sartorial choices were any indication, plumes were falling out of favor in the world of feminine fashion. The size and volume of those feathers selected were significantly diminished.

Never the less, George and Maybelle exuded happiness while on board. Per the account of First-Class survivor Renee Harris, the couple appeared very much content and in love. And it would seem that most of their fellow passengers were unaware that they were in the presence of an extramarital affair.

There is limited information regarding George and Maybelle over the course of the sinking. Fellow survivor Renee Harris last observed George on deck around 12:30am, approximately 15 minutes before the first lifeboat was launched. He was leaning on a railing on the starboard side, lamenting to Maybelle about an unspecified bad investment, anticipating a stymied cash flow once they returned home to New York.

George’s brother Albert was waiting in Halifax, and arranged for interment in the family plot in Queens.

For decades, George Rosenshine was something of a mystery to Titanic historians—because no one by that name had boarded.

But in 1964, over tea with historian Walter Lord, Renee Harris let the truth slip. As tantalizing as this was, however, there was no further substantiation of the claim.

Until 1993.

That year, a leather satchel was brought up from the debris field of the Titanic wreck. It had been discovered alongside compressed silverware and a leather cigarette carrying case with cigarettes intact within.

Inside the satchel, they discovered several typed letters to George Rosenshine regarding the business. Another was from a travel agent, indicating that George and Maybelle had made a stop in Yokohama.

And one was from Albert.

From the 47 and 59 East 11th Street, Manhattan, Rosenshine to Rosenshine... The outlook for the coming year for ostrich feathers and staple goods does not look promising...

I will have Betsy kiss the baby for you. She is looking and feeling well, thank God...

Received your letters from Japan... I am more than pleased that you are having the time of your life...

I bought last week the following stocks...

Outlook for next year for ostrich feathers not promising. There is a tendency for shaped hats that do not any [illegible] or French plumes, and what little ostrich will be sold will be in the way of simple little fancy stick-up effects, of which it will be very hard to make a season. I have been to Atlantic City and Philadelphia for the last week, and have had a good time. Felix promises me to straighten out Steurer’s account with him direct, and give me a part payment on my account which, after deducting Steur’s account , now stands on our books about $10,000. It is a hard proposition to get any money from him... Mrs. Seese was in yesterday. I lunched with her and took her out last evening. She a bill of about Y Y [sic] hundred.

“The Titanic Was Also A Vessel of Hope”: David Vartanian

David Vartanian (who Armenian name was Davit) was 21 years old when his family implored him to leave them—and his new wife—behind in Armenia.

He had just married his sweetheart, Mary, in 1911.

David was a Christian, and the Armenian populace was suffering more each day, persecuted and abused by the hand of the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, there was a rumor that the Turks were beginning to draft able-bodied young men from the villages, sending them to the front lines without any weapons.

So local families collaborated to save their sons.

David Vartarian’s salvation was the kindness of his Turkish neighbors, who gave David their dead son’s papers, so that he would be permitted to leave the country.

And so David banded together with four other young men from the village. They set their course on foot for a seven-day trek to the Black Sea, where they then sailed for Marseilles, France.

Once there, the group purchased steerage tickets on the RMS Titanic. They would leave from Cherbourg.

David’s compatriot Neshan Krekorian described the steerage accommodations as snug, but comfortable.

Both David and Neshan were among those who insisted that steerage passengers were barricaded below decks. The reasoning, however, is rarely cited to be anything more than fact, although malice is often implied: Third-Class passengers were not permitted under any circumstance to enter other parts of the ship belonging to First- and Second-Class. Certain areas were always locked or closed off to prevent any wandering.

Neshan Krekorian attested to breaking a chain on a door. David said they had to break down the gates.

David Vartanian made it to the boat deck in the end and soon thereafter found himself with no other option than to jump from Titanic.

And so David watched Titanic sink.

It was his 22nd birthday.

Before leaving Armenia, David reportedly had taught himself to swim in a nearby creek; he would maintain that this incidental choice saved his life that night in the Atlantic.

David Vartanian always maintained that he swam for the nearest lifeboat, but when he reached it, the occupants within slapped and pounded at his hands to make him let go. They were terrified, he believed, that he would capsize the boat while attempting to climb in.

David did not speak English at the time. He did not understand.

He back away, but had to swim back. When those in the lifeboat saw that David was only attempting to hold on, and not crawl in, they let him alone. He shortly fell into unconsciousness, and they hauled him into the boat.

This is sometimes speculated to have been Collapsible A, which was partially submerged.

David’s family have since been told that sometime after David had been pulled aboard unconscious, that the lifeboat went under. David swam to another, it is said, where he entered without any hesitation from the passengers in the boat.

In the end, there is no conclusive evidence to be had about which version of events is true. We only know for certain that he was somehow saved from the water.

David Vartarian and Neshan Krekorian were the only survivors of the five in their party.

Upon reaching New York, the two men were hospitalized. According to David’s grandson, "The lower half of my grandfather’s body had a bluish tint from being in the frigid water for so long, and remained that way.”

While he and Neshan were convalescing, a reporter visited at the hospital with a translator in tow. At some point during the interview, this journalist informed David that he was one of two survivors with the same first name. When asked which he preferred, he replied, “Titanic David.”

He went by “Titanic David” for all the rest of his life.

But David’s saga had not concluded in his survival.

David eventually left Canada for Toledo, Ohio. By 1915, he had heard that the village he had left behind had been decimated in the ongoing invasion by the Ottoman Empire.

He was led to believe that his beloved wife, Mary, was dead--inevitably killed in the genocide of the Armenian people.

In 1915, Mary’s brothers had miraculously found their ways to America and had set up in Pennsylvania. David met up with them to begin a campaign to track down his dear Mary.

Dead or alive, he had to find her.

David proceeded to write to relatives, churches and convents, orphanages, newspapers, and anyone or anything else that occurred to him.

And six years after he left Armenia, David Vartanian found Mary alive.

Mary had fled her village in the genocide, but had returned to live with her sister.

She herself, having heard of the disaster and nothing more, had believed that David had been killed in the sinking of the Titanic.

According to the Vartanian family, David sent Mary money for the journey for nearly five years. Their daughter Rose revealed that money in Armenia was gold coin, so Mary kept each coin on a necklace.

One day, Mary would reunite with her husband in America. Because she was not a legal citizen, she would travel to Canada first, and then cross the border.

Immediately before Mary left Armenia for her passage to Canada, her family convinced her to leave the necklace behind because, as Rose Vartanian repeated decades on, “where you are going, the streets are paved with gold.”

Their great-granddaughter Melissa has mused on the significance of the Titanic not just from the vantage of trauma, but also of promise.

“True Distinction and Refinement of Soul”: Edward Austin Kent

Edward Austin Kent was born in 1854 in Bangor, Maine. He graduated from Yale in 1875, and moved on to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He returned to the United States in 1877, and undertook an impressive and extensive architectural career. In his chosen hometown of Buffalo, New York, he contributed to the landscape.

By 1912, at 58 years old, Edward was on a multi-stop European tour that included both France and Egypt. He had designs to retire when he returned to America.

And although he was invariably ready to begin that peaceful chapter of his life, he delayed his voyage home just a little longer—so that he might sail on the maiden voyage of the brand new Titanic.

Edward boarded as a First-Class passenger in Cherbourg on the evening of April 10, 1912.

On board, he immediately fell in with the elite circle of writers spearheaded by Colonel Archibald Gracie. They referred to themselves as “Our Coterie.” Colonel Gracie wrote the following regarding the fated night of April 14, 1912.

At dinner, two hours later, the scene might have been in London, or New York, with the men in evening jackets, the women shining in pale satins and clinging gauze. The prettiest girl even wore a glittering frock of dancing length, with silver fringe around her dainty white satin feet.

And after dinner there was coffee served to all at little tables around the great general lounging place, for here the orchestra played.

Some said it was poor on its Wagner work, others said the violin was weak. But that was for conversation's sake, for nothing on board was more popular than the orchestra. You could see that by the way everyone refused to leave it. And everyone asked of it some favorite hit. The prettiest girl asked for dance music, and clicked her satin heels and swayed her adolescent arms to the rhythm.

...

How gay they were, these six. The talkative man [Colonel Gracie] told stories, the sensitive man [presumed to be Edward Austin Kent] glowed and laughed, the two modest Irishmen forgot to be suppressed, the facile Norseman cracked American jokes, the cosmopolitan Englishman [Hugh Woolner] expanded, and the lady (the writer, Helen Churchill Candee] felt divinely flattered to be in such company.

Soon thereafter, Helen Churchill Candee found herself wearing a lifebelt and rushing up on deck with Hugh Woolner, who had immediately set out to search for her.

The pair encountered Edward Austin Kent on the Grand Staircase.

She pleaded with him to take valuable tokens, reportedly because she believed that he had a far stronger chance of surviving than she, and because Edward was in possession of pockets. Upon her insistence, Edward accepted an ivory-and-gold cameo miniature of Mrs. Candee’s dear mother, and a flask of brandy.

Edward, along with Woolner and another gentleman of the Coterie, escorted Mrs. Candee to Lifeboat 6, which was being launched off the port side by Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

When Colonel Gracie found Edward, he asked after the well-being of Mrs. Candee. He said, “She is safe and in a boat, Mr. Gracie.”

While Edward’s actions after the launch of lifeboat 6 have never been detailed, accounts attest to him continuing to assist women into lifeboats with haste. Mrs. Candee last saw him at his dapperest, standing unflustered at the rail and waving.

It is reported that Edward Austin Kent never left Titanic. The sea closed over him 2:20am.

He did not struggle or flounder.

Word of the sinking was reaching shore as the lifeboats were still in the water. But there was no word of Edward.

And so, on April 21, his bereft sister Charlotte published the following in the New York Sun.

Mrs. Candee’s daughter Edith replied to Charlotte’s plea via letter. Therein, she detailed her mother’s encounter with Edward on the Grand Staircase, although it appears that Edith (or Helen) moved the set piece to the boat deck for dramatic effect.

On April 27, the First Unitarian Church, which Edward had himself brought to life, held a service for Edward. Every seat was filled.

Reverend Richard Boynton, at a pulpit adorned with both a large floral wreath and an anchor, made this remark among many eulogizing Edward.

Edward’s corpse, along with all those onboard the Mackay-Bennett, was brought into port at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Edward's cousin and brother-in-law were there to receive his remains.

He was laid to rest in Buffalo, and the miniature and flask were eventually returned in sadness to Mrs. Candee.

The chairman of the Royal Institute of British Architects issued his condolences, lauding Edward as "the very best type of American gentlemen."

Edward Austin Kent’s headstone is engraved as a testament to his kind and quiet courage.

“They Told Me the People Were Singing”: Elizabeth & Madeleine Mellinger

Elizabeth Maidment was born in 1870 in Middlesex, England, and records indicate that she had five siblings.

She married Claude Mellinger in 1895, at age 25.

But they did not move much further.

By 1901, Elizabeth and Claude are reflected on the census as living at separate addresses: Claude at the registered family address, and Elizabeth and her children listed as visitors at a friend’s home.

They had five children, all in all. The first in 1895; the last, 1904.

It is not clear when the couple became estranged, but Claude sent their middle daughter, who appears to have gone by her middle name of Madeleine, a final letter from New Zealand in 1909.

By 1910, Claude Mellinger was registered as a resident of Australia.

Claude was reportedly a journalist of great accomplishment and talent. Per Madeleine, her father was “a genius whose extravagant high living brought the family to ruin.” But her mother never elaborated further on the “mistake” he’d made that finally expelled him from England.

Elizabeth clearly struggled an enormous amount in the years following Claude’s vanishing act. They had to auction off the furniture and the prized family heirlooms. And then lost their home altogether. And despite acting as a nanny/travel companion, finances forced her to ship her children off to relatives.

In 1911, her oldest daughter Eugenie Claudine is recorded as living with her, but her remaining children seem to have gone into the system… her son Alexander and Madeleine were both listed as inmates in children’s homes.

But in 1912, Elizabeth caught a break.

She was hired on as a housekeeper at Fillmore Farms, an estate in Bennington, Vermont, that was owned by the Colgate family—yes, of toothpaste fame.

As an adult, Madeleine realized that, had she not been there to answer that knock upon the door, that she might very well have ended up motherless in addition to already being fatherless. Because when the steward knocked, Elizabeth was sleeping, and the loud sounds did not rouse her.

And that was because Elizabeth was hard of hearing.

Elizabeth and Madeleine vacated the room in a hurry—so much so, that upon reaching the deck, Madeleine realized that her mother was not wearing any shoes.

The pair found themselves on the port side. They were lucky enough to enter Lifeboat 14, which was launched by Second Officer Charles Lightoller and overseen by Fifth Officer Harold Lowe.

Officer Lowe would go on to experience a hero’s welcome at subsequent hearings due to his brave conduct and no-nonsense attitude.

Madeleine later described the sinking. Other passengers apparently tried to shield her from the trauma, but she was 13 years old and clearly knew better.

Officer Lowe eventually transferred the passengers of Lifeboat 14 into other boats so he could return to search for survivors in the water. Elizabeth and Madeleine were moved into Lifeboat 12.

This lifeboat would succeed in the rescue of survivors on the capsized Collapsible B. And one of those survivors was Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

Lightoller’s coat was white with ice. And so Elizabeth Mellinger, who was still barefoot, removed her wool cape and placed it on Lightoller’s shoulders. Elizabeth then took his hands and rubbed them between her own to do what she could to warm him.

Once on board Carpathia, Elizabeth’s hypothermia finally caused her to pass out. And so she was removed to the infirmary to treat the frostbite in her feet.

Madeleine had been hauled up on deck separately from Elizabeth. By the time she settled, her mother had already been taken away. By people Madeleine did not know, who did not know Elizabeth or anything about her daughter.

Madeleine proceeded to wander the decks, calling out her mother’s name through tears. This desperation was later seized upon by newspapers as a the pitch-perfect embodiment of Titanic’s sorrow.

Elizabeth and Madeleine eventually found each other later that day. And then Second Officer Lightoller found them, too.

He wanted to give Elizabeth a token, to thank her for her kindness to him during the rescue. But he lamented that all he had on him was his “little tin whistle,” that he had used to call for help, balancing on the back of Collapsible B in the dark.

“The whistle has a curious pitch,” Lord told Madeline during a phone conversation, mentioning this only in passing.

“What do you mean?” Madeline asked.

“It’s not the sort of sound I would have expected it to make,” Lord replied. Sensing, then, that something was wrong on the other end of the line, he tried to explain further just how pleased he was to have Lightoller’s whistle. “And, of course,” he added, “the first thing I did was to blow it.”

“Oh, no,” Madeline said. “We had never blown the whistle, Mother or I—and in fact no one has—in all the years we owned it. And always, always, we believed Lightoller should have been the last one to do so.”

“My! I Wish I Could Go Out There Sometimes!”: Titanic’s Elevators

Titanic was outfitted with four passenger elevators: three available to First-Class passengers, and the remaining one for those in Second Class. In conjunction, the ship was staffed with a total of four Lift Attendants, one responsible for each passenger elevator.

The position of List Attendant was categorized as Victualling Crew. The Victualling Department was made up of 421 people tasked with all manners of service provided to those on board the ship, from foodstuffs to linens to barber services to bathroom cleaning. And of course, elevator services.

Titanic’s elevators, as well as those installed on her elder sister Olympic, were designed and installed by R. Waygood Co., an established and international firm that was headquartered in London. The Otis Elevator Company has claim to those bragging rights today, however, owing to the fact that it merged with R. Waygood in 1914.

The lifts were electric in operation, but not in any modern sense of the word. There were no buttons to be pushed, and no door that automatically closed. They were, in essence, manual—powered by electricity but controlled by hand. The Lift Attendant was responsible for controling a lever which decided the direction of the lift. It took a bit of finesse to ensure a jostle-free ride from start to end, and skill to operate the lift so that it stopped at the desired deck with its gate perfectly aligned to the floor onto which the passengers would alight.

The ship’s four steam-powered engines generated thousands of amps of 100-watt electricity, which catered not only to the elevators, but also to equipment on the Bridge, deck cranes, loudspeakers, kitchen equipment, fans, and heaters—and, of course, the approximately 10,000 incandescent lightbulbs in use on board.

It is reported that each elevator’s capacity was 10 people at a time, including the Lift Attendant therein.

The three First-Class lifts were tucked into a taut and tidy row just forward of the famed Grand Staircase on A Deck. Their course ran all the way down to E Deck. A curious design choice, considering the athletic amenities exclusively available to First-Class passengers occupied lower decks than the lifts could achieve. By terminating on E Deck, First-Class passengers found themselves one deck above the Swimming Bath and adjacent Turkish Baths of F Deck, and two decks too soon to access the Squash Court on G Deck. Lift passengers wishing to access those facilities would need to take leave of the elevators at the last available floor, and then proceed to take the stairs.

These gilded lifts, unlike the walled-off box elevators of today, were open-faced cages. They were designed in the Empire style, their frames trimmed with carved wood and accented ornate wrought-iron gates. They were outfitted with individual light fixtures and inviting sofas for passengers to make use of on their arduous vertical journeys.

The First-Class lifts were staffed by William Carney, who was the oldest of the Lift Attendants at 31 years old, as well as Frederick Blades and Alfred John Moffett King, who were 17 and 18, respectively.

He was quite young,—not more than sixteen, I think,—a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with a love for the sea and the games on deck and the view over the ocean—and he did not get any of them. One day, as he put me out of his lift and saw through the vestibule windows a game of deck quoits in progress, he said, in a wistful tone, "My! I wish I could go out there sometimes!" I wished he could, too, and made a jesting offer to take charge of his lift for an hour while he went out to watch the game; but he smilingly shook his head and dropped down in answer to an imperative ring from below.

Lawrence also wrote that he didn’t believe Reginald was on duty with his lift on the night of the disaster, but he was sure that had the boy been on duty, he would have offered his passengers nothing but a kind smile, even as he knew the ship was sinking.

“I wonder where the lift-boy was that night,” Lawrence Beesley wrote. “I would have been glad to find him in our boat, or on the Carpathia when we took count of the saved.”

Reginald Pacey, along with the three Lift Attendants Carney, Blades, and King, all were killed in the sinking of Titanic.

While the bodies of William Carney and Alfred John Moffett King were identified during the Mackay-Bennett’s recovery efforts, both Reginald Percy and Frederick Blades were lost.

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“We Saw Everything Quite Distinctly”: Titanic & the SS City of New York

"We Saw Everything Quite Distinctly": Titanic & the SS City of New York

When Black Cats Prowl and Pumpkins Gleam: How Orange & Black Became Halloween

When Black Cats Prowl and Pumpkins Gleam: How Orange & Black Became Halloween

“Look Here, You Crazy Thing”: Edith Rosenbaum Russell

"Look Here, You Crazy Thing": Edith Rosenbaum Russell

“Immeasurable Sorrow and Unending Grief”: The Allison Family

“Immeasurable Sorrow and Unending Grief”: The Allison Family

“I’ll Stay and Take My Chances”: Clarence Moore

"I'll Stay and Take My Chances": Clarence Moore

“Am Safe – Pray God”: George Rosenshine & Gertrude Maybelle Thorne

"Am Safe - Pray God": George Rosenshine & Gertrude Maybelle Thorne

“The Titanic Was Also A Vessel of Hope”: David Vartanian

"The Titanic Was Also a Vessel of Hope": David Vartanian

“True Distinction and Refinement of Soul”: Edward Austin Kent

"True Distinction and Refinement of Soul": Edward Austin Kent

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS, THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.

“They Told Me the People Were Singing”: Elizabeth & Madeleine Mellinger

"They Told Me the People Were Singing": Elizabeth & Madeleine Mellinger

“My! I Wish I Could Go Out There Sometimes!”: Titanic’s Elevators

"My! I Wish I Could Go Out There Sometimes!": Titanic's Elevators

"We Saw Everything Quite Distinctly": Titanic & the SS City of New York

When Black Cats Prowl and Pumpkins Gleam: How Orange & Black Became Halloween

"Look Here, You Crazy Thing": Edith Rosenbaum Russell

“Immeasurable Sorrow and Unending Grief”: The Allison Family

"I'll Stay and Take My Chances": Clarence Moore

"Am Safe - Pray God": George Rosenshine & Gertrude Maybelle Thorne

"The Titanic Was Also a Vessel of Hope": David Vartanian

"True Distinction and Refinement of Soul": Edward Austin Kent

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS, THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.

"They Told Me the People Were Singing": Elizabeth & Madeleine Mellinger

"My! I Wish I Could Go Out There Sometimes!": Titanic's Elevators

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