Titanic Week - Soliloquism

“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.

“I Didn’t See Much Chance in Living”: Frank Winnold Prentice

And despite the horror of the discovery by everyone aboard the Oceanic that day, it is sometimes reported that there may have been a single crew member aboard who was undoubtedly affected in an even more profound way than his shipmates.

If true, that gentleman’s name was Frank Winnold Prentice.

Frank was English-born. According to birth records, he was newly 23 years old when he signed onto Titanic as an Assistant Storekeeper, although he is often reported as having been but 18. On Titanic, he was promised to earn a monthly wage of 3 pounds and 15 pence. He had reportedly transferred from the Celtic.

Storekeepers were classed as part of the ship’s Victualling Crew.

At 11:40pm on April 14, 1912, Frank was on E Deck port-side, in the “Storekeepers’ Room”—the cabin that he shared with 5 other storekeepers. He maintained that he did not feel the collision itself, but that he noticed a change in the motion of the ship—likening it to hitting the brakes in one’s car—and the ceasing of the engines.

Frank and two of his mates, fellow shopkeepers Cyril Ricks and Michael Kieran, found their ways up to the well-deck, where they observed that although the iceberg itself had passed into the night, that remnants of it were scattered across the floor.

Before I got my lifebelt on, I met a young couple, and, uh, I’ll tell you her name: it was a Mrs. Clark. They had spent their honeymoon in France and we had picked them up at Cherbourg. And she was having trouble with her lifebelt, so I fixed that onto her. And I said, “I think you’d better get into a lifeboat.” And there was one on the port side… so she said, “No, I don’t want to go; I don’t want to leave my husband.”

So I said, “Well, it’s just a precautionary measure. You get in; your husband will follow later on.” And I got her away, and that was that.

And I was hanging onto a board—we had two boards, starboard and port, which said, 'Keep clear of propeller blades.' And I was hanging onto one of these and I was getting higher and higher into the air; and I thought well, now I’ll go and I dropped in; I had a lifebelt on. And I hit the water with a terrific crack.

Luckily I didn’t hit anything when I dropped in; there were bodies all over the place. And then I looked up at the Titanic.

There it was. The propellers were right out of the water; the rudder was right out. And I could see the bottom.

And then gradually she glided away. And that was that. That was the last of the Titanic.

And I sat down on a seat, and who should be—I sat next to Mrs. Clark…The girl I’d put into a lifeboat. [tears] And she said—the first thing she said, where’s my—I have I seen my—have you seen my husband? So I said, “No, I haven’t, but I expect he’ll be all right.”

Anyway. I was in a pretty bad way then, as you can imagine—frozen solid, almost. And she wrapped me round with her cloak—she had some sort of blanket or a coat on. Anyway, I think ,uh… she probably saved my life—I don’t know. But I saved hers; at least I think I might have done, I think I did. And she saved mine.

Frank returned to the sea shortly thereafter. Records indicate that he signed onto the RMS Oceanic in July of 1912, although that date does not abide Frank’s recollections that he was present for the gruesome discovery of Collapsible A in May of that year. Whether records were incomplete, or Frank Prentice was mistaken, is indiscernible.

He carried on, serving in the First World War. He was regularly addressed in his interviews as a Major.

Frank granted many interviews in print and video regarding his survival account throughout his life. He regularly recounted hearing “people crying, praying… [and] the band playing Nearer My God to Thee and them singing.”

And he maintained that Titanic was a victim of J. Bruce Ismay’s pursuit of speed. “That ship,” Frank insisted, “was thrown away.”

“Locker 14, F Deck”: Sidney Sedunary

Samuel “Sidney” Sedunary signed onto Titanic on April 4, 1912. He hailed from Berkshire, England, and was the eldest of 7 children.

Sidney was assigned as a Second Steward in Third Class. He had only recently been married to his sweetheart, Madge Tizzard, in late 1911. He was 25 years old; she, 24.

And by the time he boarded Titanic, Madge was pregnant.

Even though he was comparatively young at the time of his assignment, but he’d already had 8 years of experience at sea. In April of 1904, at just age 17, Sidney joined the Royal Navy. His record indicates that he was acknowledged for excellent conduct; his appearance is also noted with brown hair, brown eyes, and a tan complexion.

After 1908, Sidney moved to the private sector, serving on the Adriatic, and then on Titanic’s elder, and practically identical, sister, the RMS Olympic.

There is comparatively little information regarding the circumstances of Third Class on the night of the sinking. Much of what is known is ascribed to the testimony of John Hart, one of the eight surviving Third-Class Stewards.

Third-Class evacuation during the sinking was inevitable bedlam. With multiple languages and a single ship translator, confusion was rampant. But it wasn’t just that. Many passengers, even in Third Class, were adamant that it was safer to stay on the ship. John Hart testified that many of the 59 people in his charge “refused to put [lifebelts] on… they said they saw no occasion for putting them on; they did not believe the ship was hurt in any way.”

John Hart continued.

John Hart estimated that he received his initial orders to get lifeboats on his passengers after “three parts of hour” after the iceberg strike at 11:40pm, so he believed it was about 12:30pm. He came across Sidney and Chief Steward James Kieran sometime after that, after they had been to Section S, Q, and R, which were toward the stern and split between three decks: S on G Deck, R on F Deck, Q on E Deck.

G Deck had started to flood at 11:55pm. The forward section F Deck saw water by 12:05am; forward E Deck, around 12:10am, along with water traveling down Scotland Road—the well-known but rarely-named ship-long hallway.

The Chief Steward had to instruct all the other Third-Class stewards throughout the ship. While those stewards receiving instruction were ferrying people in groups up to boat deck—John Hart testified to having taken two or three trips up—the Chief Steward and his assistant were completely embroiled in managing directions on G, F, and E Decks.

Inevitably, since Sidney was in the company of James Kieran or otherwise transmitting his orders to lower Stewards, he presumably moved between the forward (bow) and aft (stern) sections on E, F, and G Decks—which were already flooding to variable degrees.

Segregated in the depths of the ship and at points likely wading through frigid seawater as he acted as Kieran’s right-hand man, Sidney had to have known how frail his chances of survival truly were.

But even as he watched others—colleagues and passengers—move to the upper decks and back again, Sidney was dedicated in his duties as the ship foundered.

As far as we can deduce from the evidence, he spent the majority of the sinking down below, unlocking cupboards and distributing lifebelts instead of seeking a lifeboat.

With that, they returned his effects to his 24-year-old widow: some change, Sidney’s broken pocket watch, which had frozen shortly after he entered the water and before Titanic went under—and a key with a metal tag that read “Locker 14, F"D"k.”

So this key that had been taken from Sidney’s body and remitted to Madge Sedunary was more than a simple key: it was a tribute to his unsung and steadfast courage on the last night of his life.

Madge gave birth to Sidney’s son and only child at the end of 1912. He was named after his late father. And in 1921, 9 years after Sidney’s death, Madge remarried—to his younger brother Arthur. They had a son 5 years later, in 1926.

Sid Sedunary, Jr., died in 2010, at the age of 97. He was the last known surviving Titanic orphan.

6 years following Sidney Jr.’s death, the key that had been removed from his father’s body was sold at auction for £85,000.

“The Spectacle Was Quite Fairylike”: Pierre Marechal

Pierre was Parisian by birth. And so, while on board Titanic, he naturally fell in with fellow French-speaking First-Class passengers: namely Paul Chevre, a noted sculptor born in Brussels to French citizens, and Alfred Omont, a cotton merchant from Havre.

During the late hours of April 14, Pierre, Paul, and Alfred were playing whist, or as alternately reported, auction bridge, with American First-Class passenger Lucien Smith.

It is sometimes reported that the men were gathered in Pierre’s suite; other times, they are placed in the Cafe Parisien or First-Class Lounge.

Titanic, along with all other vessels in the White Star family, had specially manufactured playing cards exclusively available for its First-Class passengers, and used in the First-Class lounge. These were produced by Chas. Goodall & Son, Ltd., a company which shuttered due to the Great Depression and has since been picked up by the Bicycle brand.

These exclusive cards were “Linette,” because of their refined linen-grain texture. The box, which was featured in red and off-white, read as follows.

Pierre and his compatriots swept up their fans of cards and pocketed them for their eventual return to the game. Lucien then parted ways with the others to go wake his wife in their cabin, while Pierre, Alfred, and Paul went directly up on deck, despite Paul insisting that it was too cold to go out and investigate. He suggested in vain that a steward just open a porthole.

It was on deck where the three men overheard an officer or steward was overheard snarking a female passenger who inquired about the accident.

“Don’t worry,” the officer apparently told her. “We are only cutting a whale in two.”

They also witnessed Captain Smith, who they said appeared to encourage lifebelts in an abundance of caution—while chewing nervously on a toothpick.

So Pierre took briefly to his stateroom to put on his coat and lifebelt, and in the moment, decided to grab the book he had brought along on the trip: Sherlock Holmes.

Pierre, Paul, and Alfred were encouraged to board Lifeboat 7 in order to set an example for the numbers of women who were reticent to leave the ship and their spouses. It was further reported by the Elmira Star Gazette that even though Pierre had jumped down into the lifeboat, he had immediately sought to be a gentleman, and along with Paul and Alfred, did what they thought was best to reassure the ladies.

[Pierre Marechal] then went on deck and when he saw a boat descending from the davits, with but a partial load of passengers, Marechel [sic] dropped the height of one boat and landed in the boat. The first person he encountered was a woman in a decoleite gown, who had been in the salon enjoying the concert when the collision occurred. Marechel removed his overcoat and placed it about the woman, and then busied himself at the oars. There were only three other men with him in the boat, and Marechel says that he and his male companions devoted themselves entirely to a strain of bombastic talk of how soon their rescue would come in order to assure the minds of the women passengers.

When our boat had rowed about half a mile from the vessel the spectacle was quite fairylike. The Titanic, which was illuminated from stem to stern, was perfectly stationary, like some fantastic piece of stage scenery. The night was clear and the sea perfectly smooth, but it was intensely cold…

Strange to say, the Titanic sank without noise and, contrary to expectations, the suction was very feeble. There was a great backwash and that was all. In the final spasm the stern of the leviathan stood in the air and then the vessel finally disappeared - completely lost.

Once on board the rescue ship Carpathia, the three Frenchmen convened. In a moment of prescience, they each autographed the playing cards that had escaped from Titanic in their pockets. They then sent the autographed cards off to family and unnamed friends back in France.

To the best of knowledge, the Marechal family received at least the Two of Hearts card.

Pierre disembarked in New York, still in possession of the signed playing cards, his light reading, and of course, his actually-not-magical monocle. Having lost all of his identification papers, he listed his mother, who was back home in Paris, as his next of kin and his destination as the Knickerbocker Hotel.

And then he moved on to Hammondsport, NY, to conduct his business as planned, and he successfully closed the deal with Curtiss Aviation. He had then intended to spend a month-long jolly holiday as a houseguest of the President of Curtiss.

But after Titanic, Pierre did not have the wherewithal for a month away from his home. And so he boarded the Savoie bound for France on April 25, one week to the day after the Carpathia arrived in New York.

According to some reports, members of the press were present there to bid him adieu.

On April 20, 1912, the Times published the collective personal account on behalf of Pierre Marechal, Paul Chevre, and Alfred Omont. Unless otherwise noted, it is quoted throughout this post.

Pierre returned home safely and eventually settled down in London with his lover, Lily Castelli. They had one son, Jean-Pierre Marechal.

In subsequent years, during the First World War, newspaper misreported acts of heroism on the part of “well-known aviator” Pierre Marechal, when he was not even enlisted in military service, having been deemed medically unfit due to a prior leg fracture.

(For note: the mistaken accolades should have been directed at an aviator named Anselm Marechal.)

Pierre Marechal died in 1942.

“He Kept Bravely On, With Nothing to Guide Him”: David Blair, Titanic’s Lost Officer

In the course of his civil and military service to the Crown, David Blair was awarded a King’s Gallantry Medal, a British Empire Medal, a Royal Navy Reserve Decoration, the French Cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and the Officer of the Order of the British Empire Award, bestowed upon him by King George V and signed by Prince Edward.

And yet, David Blair is only remembered as That Guy Who Took That Important Key.

That Guy Who Forgot the Binoculars.

The Man Who Sank Titanic.

And that, dear reader, is horse excrement.

David Blair had originally been assigned as Second Officer on Titanic, and until April 4, that was the circumstance under which the crew operated. This arrangement was in place from the start, and was in operation during Titanic’s sea trials on April 2, 1912.

The assignments of Titanic’s top officer ranks were as follows:

William McMaster Murdoch, Chief Officer
Charles Herbert Lightoller, First Officer
David Blair, Second Officer

And yet, whether by White Star’s will or at the behest of Captain Smith himself, Henry Wilde was suddenly lined up to take over as Titanic’s Chief Officer. It’s generally understood that the reasoning was because Mr. Wilde was already Chief on Titanic’s elder sister, Olympic. Since it was temporarily berthed, it seemed like Wilde’s experience could be better used on Titanic’s maiden voyage.

Interestingly, Henry Wilde, although aware of the so-called reshuffle as early as March 30, did not receive a proper telegram until April 9, 5 days after Blair’s notice of reassignment.

Charles Lightoller, who was David’s mate, addressed it in his writings, which were published in 1935.

The ruling lights of the White Star Line thought it would be a good plan to send the Chief Officer of the Olympic [Henry Wilde], just for the one voyage, as Chief Officer of the Titanic, to help, with his experience of her sister ship. This doubtful policy threw both [William] Murdoch and me out of our stride; and, apart from the disappointment of having to step back in our rank, caused quite a little confusion Murdoch from Chief, took over my duties as First I stepped back on Blair's toes, as Second, and picked up the many threads of his job, whilst he - luckily for him as it turned out - was left behind.

But many people seem to believe that David Blair’s removal from the crew had disastrous consequences. Because when David disembarked, he accidentally took something that should have remained on board.

It was a tiny iron key, with an oval-shaped brass tag that read “Crow’s Nest Telephone Key.”

In the locker opened by that key were David Blair’s looking glasses. And it is speculated that, because the key that David Blair took was of course missing from the ship, that Titanic’s lookouts were without binoculars.

To spot things like icebergs in the distance.

The speculation about the impact of the lost binoculars is not novel—in fact, began in the Senate Inquiry immediately after the disaster. Lookout George Hogg attested to binoculars being on board during Second Officer Blair’s tenure, but that they became unavailable for use before leaving Southampton.

17494. Do you remember when the "Titanic" was leaving Belfast - you signed on the "Titanic" as look-out man, we know - were a pair of glasses given you?

- Yes.

17495. For the crow's-nest?

- Yes.

17496. Who gave them to you, do you remember?

- Mr. Blair, the acting Second Officer then.

…

17501. When you left the ship at Southampton, what did you do with those glasses?

- Mr. Blair was in the crow's-nest and gave me his glasses, and told me to lock them up in his cabin and to return him the keys.

…

17503. As far as you were concerned, the glasses, you were told, were to be locked up in the cabin of the second Officer?

- I locked them up.

17504. And they were locked up. When the ship left Queenstown were there any glasses in the crow's-nest?

- There were none when we left Southampton.

But, despite the sensationalism regarding David Blair’s supposedly fatal moment of forgetfulness, Lightoller’s response to Hogg was neither damning nor surprising. Lightoller would not be troubled by the lack of binoculars because he had his own pair on board with him.

Moreover, the White Star Line was anecdotally the only line of vessels to even provide binoculars to lookouts, as it was unnecessary for spotting endangering objects and was therefore completely against industry practice. And George Hogg’s testimony immediately following, as well as those of his colleagues, attest to as much. Notable captains experienced in disaster, such as Captain Walter Lord of the SS Californian and Ernest Shackleton, were of the same opinion.

17513. Have you had experience of glasses; have you used them much?

- Never before; only in the White Star Line.

17514. But had you used them before you were on this voyage?

- On another ship.

17515. Of the White Star Line?

- In the "Adriatic."

17516. You had never had them in any ship you have been on except in the "Adriatic," which was another ship of the White Star Line you had sailed in?

- No other ship except the White Star.

17517. Did you find them of use?

- Well, I believe in my own eyesight.

…

17522. What it comes to, if I understand that, is you pick it up with your eyesight, and then if you want to see as well as you can what it is you would use the glasses?

- That is what they are handy for, Sir.

17523. But not for picking up things, you mean?

- No, I pick up things with my own eyesight.

And it was understood that George Hogg’s testimony was accurate—binoculars were never intended to spot distant objects. Just to ascertain details.

Additionally, Senator Smith, who conducted the American Inquiry, was in no way familiar with this fact because he was not a mariner in the slightest—a fact that deeply vexed multiple surviving officers who he interrogated, including Second Officer Lightoller and Fifth Officer Harold Lowe.

So, when contemplated within the context of contemporary maritime practice, David Blair’s mistake resulted in nothing more than a perplexity.

Summarily: David Blair did not “doom” Titanic at all.

In July of 1912, aboard the RMS Majestic, David was reunited with his friend and Titanic colleague, Charles Lightoller. In a repetition of Titanic’s original assignments, Lightoller was First Officer; Blair, Second.

In 1913, following a stint on the Teutonic during which David had been promoted to First Officer, he returned to the Majestic with his newly acquired superior rank, which he maintained for four months.

But fate was determined to intervene on behalf of The Man Who Doomed Titanic.

On the morning of May 6, 1913, a trimmer (id est, a fireman) chose to attempt suicide by jumping overboard. He was only 27 years old.

David was laying down in his cabin when he heard the cries of alarm. He hastily dressed in his uniform and ran up on deck.

MAJESTIC IN WITH CHIEF OFFICER A HERO

Passengers Cheer David Blair, Who Risked Life in Fog to Save Fireman
---
DIVED IN MIDOCEAN
---
Women Weep as Gallant Sailor and Man for Whom He Jumped Are Helped Over Side

...

Everybody on board except Blair himself, wanted to tell about the rescue yesterday, and Captain Kelk said he felt mighty proud of his chief officer.

...

Mr. Blair, who had been roused from sleep by the cry of "Man overboard!" pulled his trousers over his pajamas and grasping his binoculars rushed forward to a place on the promenade deck just under the bridge. He never took his eyes from the sea until he shouted to the skipper that he saw the helpless fireman.

The passengers said Blair made a perfect dive. When he came to the surface he looked to the bridge, and seeing Kelk pointing in the direction of the fireman, got his bearings and struck out for the man he could not then see.

Once he got a glimpse of the unconscious Keoun as the fireman was tossed up on a wave, and from that tie until he himself was rescued Blair saw nothing but sea and mist.

Thought of Fireman First

He kept bravely on, with nothing to guide him, until the lifeboat came by in search of the fireman. Those in the boat called to Blair to climb in, but he shouted: "I'm all right. Get that fireman first. He should be somewhere about here."

Davy Blair, my old Oceanic pal, and I volunteered for a job that we had got wind of in the Flag Lieutenant’s office. The main qualification for the men who were to get it, we were told, was that they should be “Hard Cases.” Well, Davy and I had both done the Western Ocean, and knew it in its worst moods these many years… We were accepted… A visit down sailor town soon completed the outfit, blue jersey, smock, rough serge pants, heavy weather cap, and seaboots, making us the imitation of a perfect fisherman.

“Every Star in the Heavens Was Visible”: Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall

Per his testimony to both the American and British Inquiries following the tragedy, Joseph said that he was on the bridge when the collision occurred.

But in 1962, he gave an interview to the BBC in which he stated that he was in his cabin, making a cup of tea.

He heard a trio a warning bells and immediately returned to the bridge, where he overheard First Officer William Murdoch shouting to Quartermaster Hitchens to pull the wheel hard over, as well as the telegraphs ordering the engine room to reverse.

Joseph was subsequently present for First Officer Murdoch’s discussion with Captain Smith about the strike, which he detailed at the British Inquiry.

Commissioner: And did the Captain then come out on to the bridge?

Boxhall: The Captain was alongside of me when I turned round.

Commissioner: Did you hear him say something to the first Officer?

Boxhall: Yes, he asked him what we had struck.

Commissioner: What conversation took place between them?

Boxhall: The First Officer said, "An iceberg, Sir. I hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard-a-port round it but she was too close. I could not do any more. I have closed the watertight doors." The Commander asked him if he had rung the warning bell, and he said "Yes."

He went on to say that Captain Smith and Murdoch went to look overboard to spy the iceberg, but that he did not see it himself. “I was not too sure of seeing it,” he said. “I had just come out of the light, and my eyes were not accustomed to the darkness.”

Joseph then went down to F Deck to assess the ship for any damage, but he found none. On his way return, as he passed through C Deck, he encountered steerage passengers playing with fragments from the iceberg that had scattered the well deck.

Joseph returned to the bridge to report the absence of any finding, and was sent to fetch the ship’s carpenter. He met him on the way, and he told Joseph that water was coming in. Fast.

Joseph hurried to the mailroom, where he saw the worst. “It was rising rapidly up the ladder and I could hear it rushing in.”

From there, Joseph returned to the bridge to report the state of the mailroom, and was assigned to calculate Titanic’s position for Captain Smith to provide to the Marconi Room, in order to begin distress signaling.

Joseph then worked to prepare the lifeboats for launch, unlacing the covers on the port side himself. It was then, he testified, that he heard someone state that they saw the light of another ship out ahead of them.

He saw it himself: the two masthead lights of a steamship.

At Captain Smith’s behest, Joseph began firing distress rockets, one at a time at five-minute intervals. He informed the British Inquiry that these rockets were the type with which “you see a luminous tail behind them and then they explode in the air and burst into stars.”

COMMISSIONER: Could you see it distinctly with the naked eye?

BOXHALL: No, I could see the light with the naked eye, but I could not define what it was, but by the aid of a pair of glasses I found it was the two masthead lights of a vessel, probably about half a point on the port bow, and in the position she would be showing her red if it were visible, but she was too far off then.

COMMISSIONER: Could you see how far off she was?

BOXHALL: No, I could not see, but I had sent in the meantime for some rockets, and told the Captain I had sent for some rockets, and told him I would send them off, and told him when I saw this light. He said, "Yes, carry on with it." I was sending rockets off and watching this steamer.

Soon thereafter, Joseph was assigned by Chief Officer Wilde to Lifeboat 2. He noted that there were no lights stocked in the boat, and had the presence of mind to bring some green flares along.

Joseph recalled that there were mostly women and children in the boat, three crewmen, and a male passenger “who did not seem to do much.”

Lifeboat 2 was launched on the port side under the supervision of Second Officer Lightoller. So Joseph, following orders, promptly rowed around Titanic’s stern to the starboard side.

Joseph was called before the American Senate Inquiry, in which his insights, while valuable, were communicated with curt words. Once permitted to return home to Great Britain, Joseph also testified--with a notable surplus of patience--at the British Inquiry.

Joseph promptly returned to the sea. Having joined the Royal Navy Reserve already, he was promoted the lieutenant in 1915 during World War I. In 1919, he married, and post-war, was promoted once again to Lieutenant Commander.

Joseph Boxhall was a taciturn sort, and was always reticent to speak about Titanic, but he did agree to be a technical advisor on the 1958 film “A Night to Remember” and even attended the premier.

In the years that followed, Joseph agreed at last to collaborate with researchers, and also took the above-cited BBC interview.

He passed away five years later, in 1967.

He was the last of Titanic’s deck officers to die.

“As If All the Devils of Hell Had Been Let Loose”: Henry & Clara Frauenthal

In 1906, Clara Heinsheimer divorced her husband.

This was, predictably, a scandalous notion in polite society. And Clara more or less resigned herself to raising her child, a daughter named Nathalie, all alone.

But when one of Clara’s brothers passed away, her remaining brother Alfred was left in charge of an incredible estate worth more than $5 million.

And so Alfred established the New York Foundation, which promoted charitable and educational causes.

Alfred had an active role in the selection of candidates and the distribution of grants to those who applied on behalf of their causes. And he was one of the first to make a donation to the Hospital for Deformative and Joint Diseases.

And that was how Clara met Dr. Henry Frauenthal, the surgeon who had founded the institution.

Henry was an eminent physician, to say the least.

He had achieved a great deal of acclaim, in particular, for his methods of treating chronic joint diseases; soon, in 1905, he and his brother Herman were opening their first hospital on Lexington Avenue, before moving to a larger building on Madison Avenue in 1906.

This was when he met Clara.

Henry was an ardent believer in the principle of treating the whole person, and as such, had patients spanning race, class, age, and gender.

It was this philanthropic philosophy that brought him fame as an innovative and successful treater of children afflicted with polio, which at the time was overwhelming the nation.

Henry and Clara eloped in Nice, France, in the autumn of 1911, with only Henry’s brother Isaac coming along to serve as the best man.

Clara was 42 years old by this point; Henry, 48. They were atypical newlyweds, perhaps, but no less affectionate for it.

Henry and Clara boarded Titanic in Southampton with First Class passage. Isaac joined them at Cherbourg.

Henry’s reputation as an eminent physician followed him aboard. When First-Class passenger Irene Harris fractured her elbow because “took a header six or seven steps” on the Grand Staircase (because she had slipped on the remains of a teacake), she requested the specific supervision of Henry Frauenthal.

Henry replied that maybe Isaac shouldn’t have had so much cheese before dinner time, as it was clearly making his imagination work as hard as his gallbladder.

As it turned out, Isaac was the one who was awakened later that same night by the collision with the iceberg, which he described as a “long, drawn-out rubbing noise.”

Isaac went up to A Deck, where he noticed a number of fellow First-Class passengers milling about. And when John Jacob Astor stopped Captain Smith as he was descending the steps from the bridge, Isaac overheard the conversation: the situation was dire and the ship was sinking.

Isaac ran down to Henry and Clara, pounding on their door and waking them from sleep.

The three soon found themselves waiting at Lifeboat 5 on the starboard side, which was overseen by First Officer William Murdoch and Fifth Officer Harold Lowe.

Clara was permitted to enter the boat; Henry and Isaac followed. How exactly they did so is contested.

While no survivor accounts make mention of any sort of upset or curiosity in how the Frauenthal brothers boarded, Mrs. Annie Stengel later filed a claim with White Star in which she alleged that a “Hebrew doctor” broke her ribs and knocked her unconscious when he jumped into the lifeboat.

The Frauenthals only learned once the lifeboat had been rowed around 100 yards away from Titanic that the ship had collided with an iceberg.

After the ship sank, Henry in particular sat heartbroken with his face in his hands, absorbed in the anguished cries of those in the water. As a physician, he knew full well how unlikely their survival truly was.

The Denver Post printed Dr. Frauenthal’s firsthand account on April 19, 1912.

It was reported that Henry, Clara, and Isaac were the very first to leave the rescue ship Carpathia upon its arrival in New York.

They took with them a young Swedish woman named Dagmar Bryhl, who had lost both her brother and her fiancé in the sinking. The girl was frightened, alone, and frail, so Clara took her immediately to Henry’s hospital for rehabilitation.

The Frauenthal brothers, particularly Henry, were maligned for their cowardice, as many surviving men were.

Shortly after the disaster, Henry called upon Irene Harris to check up on her fractured elbow, which he had helped to set on the Saturday before the sinking.

It is reported that when he began to discuss Titanic with her, she snapped, “I wouldn’t have my husband at the cost of a woman’s life.”

Dr. And Mrs. Frauenthal survived Titanic, but they were less fortunate in the years that followed. Despite professional successes and further travel abroad, Henry and Clara both suffered from mental health issues as the years bore on.

Henry’s health deteriorated alongside his marriage: diabetes caused him to lose some of his toes—a procedure that he supervised over, of course.

On March 11, 1927, Henry Frauenthal jumped out a seventh floor window of his hospital.

His family, including his great-nephew, believe that Dr. Frauenthal’s suicide was because of his failing health, and a fear of the diabetes-related amputations that he foresaw as inevitable.

He was 63 years old.

Owing to social mores, Henry’s suicide could not be reported on in any direct fashion. The medical examiner listed his cause of death as “a fall from a window due to mental derangement.”

Over one thousand people attended Henry’s funeral. Per his last will and testament, his ashes were reserved until they could “be scattered from the roof of [his] hospital to the four winds” on the fiftieth anniversary of its founding: October 4, 1955.

Clara was admitted to a sanitarium shortly after Henry’s death, where she remained until she died in 1943.

“All the Rest Were Dead From Cold”: Richard Norris Williams

Richard, who was 21 years old, was to spend the summer of 1912 on an American tennis tour, and also planned to take the Harvard entrance exam while there. His father, Charles, would accompany him stateside.

They had originally intended to travel to the United States in March of 1912, but Richard had come down with the measles shortly before the trip, so it was postponed until Richard was fully recovered.

Charles and Richard made their way down to Paris from Geneva on the evening of April 8, and arrived in Paris on the morning of the 9th. They spent the afternoon together at the Tennis Club de Paris, and viewed the operetta The Count of Luxembourg that evening.

On the morning of April 10, Richard and Charles were in a rush; they had been directed to the wrong train station, and took a hellish and frantic tax ride through Paris just in time to make the train to Cherbourg.

Richard settled in and enjoyed the pleasant ride to port—and was pretty stoked to see famous tennis player Karl Behr on the same train.

Father is writing to you just opposite me but as he will not tell you any news I shall just tell you what this boat looks like.

The room in which we are is about as big as the national dining room and it is not the biggest on the boat. We have beautiful room nearly as big as my work room in Geneva.

Of course there is room after room—smoking-reading-lounge-palm room; you can imagine that there are many other rooms but as we have only been on board about 10 minutes, really not more, we have not been able to see everything.

Father says I must stop as the letter must go.

Richard and Charles were situated in staterooms on C Deck. On the night of the collision, Richard urgently threw on a fur coat and he and his father promptly left their quarters and found chaos mounting in the hallway.

Richard soon found himself involved in an incident that later inspired a particular cinematic scene, which was documented by fellow First-Class passenger Martha Stephenson.

According to Martha, she had been “awakened by a terrible jar with ripping and cutting noise which last a few moments,” and that she and her sister Elizabeth had exited their cabin to investigate.

Before Elizabeth returned I decided to get dressed as I had seen a gentleman in one of the rooms opposite pull his shoes in from the passageway. When she came in she told of many people outside half-dressed, one woman having a thin white pigtail down her back and a feather hat; also that some man was fastened in his inside room unable to open his door. He was much worried, calling for help, and young Williams put his shoulder to the panels and broke it in. The steward was most indignant and threatened to have him arrested for defacing the beautiful ship.

'The ship seemed to give a slight lurch; I turned towards the bow. I saw nothing but water with just a mast sticking out of it. I don’t remember the shock of the cold water, I only remember thinking “suction” and my efforts to swim in the direction of the starboard rail to get away from the ship. Before I had swam more than ten feet I felt the deck come up under me and I found we were high and dry. My father was not more than 12 or 15 feet from me…'

“Jump,” Norris Williams yelled at his father.

'He started towards me just as I saw one of the four great funnels come crashing down on top of him. Just for one instant I stood there transfixed – not because it had only missed me by a few feet … curiously enough not because it had killed my father for whom I had a far more than normal feeling of love and attachment; but there I was transfixed wondering at the enormous size of this funnel, still belching smoke. It seemed to me that two cars could have been driven through it side by side.'

And at some point, when Richard broke the surface of the water, he was face-to-gasping-face with something unexpected in the ocean: a French bulldog in a panic and paddling.

This dog, named Gamin de Pycombe, was owned by First-Class passenger Robert Daniel. Since Mr. Daniel attested to locking his stateroom with his dog still inside, it remains a mystery who let Gamin free, and how the little dog came to where he was--meaning that in the course of the sinking, he likely had gotten all the way to Boat Deck from down below.

Richard also attested to a man behind him on the lifeboat, who was so weak that he pleaded to put his arms around Richard’s neck to keep from falling over.

Richard obliged and after feeling the man’s arms tense and tighten against his throat, Richard felt the man's grip relax, followed by a cold release as he died at Richard's back and slid down into the water.

Collapsible A was disregarded and abandoned by Fifth Officer Harold Lowe when he rescued its few and diminishing survivors, including Richard Norris Williams; the lifeboat floated off and was unaccounted for.

Until it was happened upon one month later by the SS Oceanic, on May 13, 1912.

There were three corpses still within.

Once on board Carpathia, Richard refused to leave the deck until the last boat had been unloaded, hoping in vain for the safety of his father, Charles.

He then found his way below deck and tried to get warm by settling into a spot between an oven and a galley. A doctor from Carpathia stumbled upon him and “cheerfully advised,” per Richard, that he would need to amputate both his legs in order to survive. In order to prevent gangrene, the doctor said, because Richard had spent hours standing waist-deep in arctic water.

Richard utterly refused. He said, “I’m going to need these legs."

And so, every two hours, round the clock, Richard roused himself and walked the decks of the Carpathia to restore his circulation. It's reported that for the rest of his life, Richard would only wear pants to hide the permanent discoloration of both his legs.

Later that same year, Richard Norris Williams won his first US Championship in mixed doubles, and went on to win many more championships in 1913, 1914, and 1916.

He also participated in the Davis Cup with none other than Karl Behr, who had also managed to survive Titanic.

“Very Fond of Playing Patience”: William Harbeck & Henriette Yrois

He was then hired by the Canadian Pacific Railway and its Department of Colonisation. His goal, it was stated, was “to put Western Canada on the motion picture screen in a scenic, industrial and comic form.”

William produced over a dozen reels for the Railway, and his work was used in promotional material to make Western Canada a destination spot and entice Europeans.

And entice them, his films certainly did—as evidenced by the renewal of his two-year contract.

The Railway then sent him on a trip to Paris to study with a French filmmaker named Leon Gaumont, who was the apparent master of outdoor, on-location shooting. So he left for Europe at the tail-end of February 1912, visiting London, Berlin, and Brussels. And Paris, of course.

On the first day of April, William wrote back home to his wife, Catherine; he planned to travel from Amsterdam, to London, to Southampton. Then homeward bound on Titanic.

He already had another project lined up for when he was back in the States: to film the beauty of Alaska and the Yukon.

Furthermore, it’s believed that William had also been hired by White Star to film Titanic’s maiden voyage, owing to the claims of “Moving Picture News,” a trade periodical that asserted that he had, had a contract to the tune of $10,000.00.

But when William Harbeck boarded Titanic in Southampton on April 10, he did not do so alone.

He took to Titanic with a young woman on his arm.

She was a French model, 22 years of age, named Henriette Yrois. They had evidently become acquainted in Paris, where she lived.

But Henriette was not his wife.

Fellow passengers, however, certainly were under the impression that she was, possibly because William went ahead and told them as much, or maybe just because it was assumed because there was no other reasonable explanation for a May-December couple to be traveling together with no companions.

The sole evidence of a romantic relationship between William and Henriette exists in implication: they boarded jointly, and their sequentially issued tickets (and thus, cabins) neighbored one another.

Lawrence Beesley wrote in his survivor account that he saw them on board at one point, and he was evidently under the impression that they were married.

Lawrence wrote that he did not encounter them again.

Other than that, there seems to have been very little documented about William and Henriette while on Titanic.

And neither of them survived.

Henriette’s corpse was never recovered.

William’s body, however, was. It was identified by his “Moving Picture & Projecting Machine Operators Union” membership card.

William was pulled fron the ocean still clutching a lady’s purse, which contained jewelry and a wedding band. It was later confirmed to have belonged to Henriette.

The recovery crew of the MacKay-Bennett listed William H. Harbeck as follows.

NO. 35. - MALE. - ESTIMATED AGE, 40.

CLOTHING - Black coat; grey mixture tweed trousers and vest; red tie; black boots.

EFFECTS - Cheque books; travellers' cheques; lady's bag; gold watch and chain; two lockets; gold time meter; fountain pen; diary; false teeth; pencil; knife; diamond ring; union card. Moving Picture and Projecting Machine operators' union; 15 in gold, £15 6s. in silver, 10s. in purse in lady's bag; wedding ring in bag; pearl and diamond pin.

SECOND CLASS PASSENGER.

NAME - WILLIAM H. HARBECK. 114 24th Avenue, N. Y

When William’s widow, Catherine, arrived in Halifax to claim her late husband’s corpse, she was initially turned away by theauthorities because “Mrs. Harbeck” had died on Titanic alongside her husband.

But reason eventually won out, and Catherine was permitted to transport William’s body home for burial in Toledo.

There was another mystery, however, that still has yet to be solved.

Catherine Harbeck solicited White Star for the items that had been recovered with William’s corpse, but White Star informed her that they had passed them on to the Provincial Secretary of Halifax because they were valued at over $100.00.

Catherine proceeded to provide the proper documentation to prove that she was the administratrix of her husband’s estate, and the effects were relinquished.

But it turns out that Catherine wasn’t the only person who wanted them back.

Months later, another letter arrived to the Provincial Secretary of Halifax, claiming ownership of the effects of the late Mr. Harbeck. The letter, from Seattle Washington, was signed by “Mrs. Brownie Harbeck."

The Secretary informed Brownie that the effects had already been expressed to Mrs. Catherine Harbeck, to which Brownie replied.

She inquired further about the specific amounts of money found on his body, both in gold and travelers checks. She continued, to much surprise, to claim that she was aware of Henriette's presence on the ship, and that she "knew the lady well."

After that, William’s son, John Harbeck, somehow discovered that the Secretary’s office was offering information about his dead father’s effects, which were legally in his mother’s custody.

When the Secretary confirmed via letter that communication had occurred in fact between themselves and Brownie, John was irate.

The web of letters, still in the possession of the Nova Scotia Archives, end unceremoniously there.

To date, the identity of Brownie Harbeck remains unknown.

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Category: Titanic Week

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