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“Always Marked by Refinement & Musicianship”: John Wesley Woodward

"Always Marked by Refinement and Musicianship": John Wesley Woodward

John Wesley Woodward was 32 years old when he boarded Titanic with his "best cello."

Wes, as he was called, had been a maritime musician for some time. His most recent trip had been a longer-term stint on the Caronia, and he had even been on board Titanic's sister Olympic when she collided with the HMS Hawke on September 20, 1911. In fact, Wes and two of his bandmates had been playing checkers at the moment of impact.

Damage sustained by the RMS Olympic in a collision with the HMS Hawke, 1911. Taken by Robert John Welch for Harland & Wolff.

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Wes was born in England in 1879.

He was the youngest child in a brood of nine, although by the time Wes reached adolescence, he already suffered the loss of two brothers and his father, Joseph. Joseph worked as a manager at a holloware foundry, otherwise known as a factory that specialized in producing bowls, teapots, pitchers, and the like.

In 1900, Wes was granted a licentiate as a cellist, meaning that he was officially qualified to teach music. By the next year, at all of 21 years old, Wes is noted on the census as a musician, which meant he successfully earned his living as such.

Wes was by all accounts a dapper and convivial fellow, his countenance always focused and calm from behind his wire-rimmed spectacles.

He was highly sought after for his musical prowess, and was continually recruited into both solo and orchestral work. In 1910, he traveled to Jamaica to work at Constant Spring Hotel, where "his sunny disposition render[ed] him a favourite wherever he went." He later told friends that this stint in the Caribbean had done wonders to improve his health.

Once back in Southampton in 1911, Wes signed onto the RMS Olympic's maiden voyage alongside John Law Hume, a Scottish violinist who would later become his bandmate on Titanic.

When the RMS Olympic arrived in New York City on June 21, 1911, Wes seized the opportunity to expand his horizons. Since Olympic would not depart for England until June 28th, Wes spent the week educating himself on American music stylings. The periodical Brighton Advertiser later reported that Wes "had a very high opinion of the Americans as lovers of music."

Courtesy of the RMS Olympic, Wes Woodward visited New York thrice more that year.

 

Titanic's elder sister Olympic, arriving at port circa 1911. From the George Grantham Bain Collection, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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But after the Olympic was laid up due to the aforementioned incident with the HMS Hawke, Wes was forced to take work on the Caronia, a smaller Cunard vessel.

Between November of 1911 and February of 1912, Wes bounced between Liverpool, New York City, and Mediterranean locations like Gibraltar, Egypt, Monaco, and Italy.

So much travel presented Wes with an opportunity to indulge in one of his other, lesser known hobbies: photography, an art he also exceled in. Wes was also fascinated by engineering, and reportedly spent hours in his workshop studying and building the mechanisms of internal combustion engines.

Although Wes insisted to his friends that he enjoyed the spontaneity of a life lived at sea, he was ready to transition to a happy life on land. He hoped to join an orchestra in Eastbourne, and was reportedly intending to be engaging to an unnamed young woman from London.

He just needed to get through the summer of 1912.

Titanic docked in Southampton.

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Wes boarded Titanic on April 10th in Southampton along with seven other musicians.

He was already friendly with John Law Hume, whom he had not seen since the Olympic's accident in September of the previous year, and may have been acquainted with one of the pianists, Theo Brailey. Wes most likely had at least heard mention of the others--and they of him. The musical world was a small one, and he and several of his bandmates had a mutual friend in common: a musician named Edgar Heap who had played with at least five of them in the recent past.

Technically employed as they were via C.W. & F.N. Black out of Liverpool, all eight musicians boarded as Second-Class passengers with a shared ticket number of 250654. The group divided themselves between two cabins.

The musicians probably boarded and became acquainted with one another by the mid-morning; they had their first show all together at 11:30 a.m., when they were scheduled to play as First-Class passengers boarded and were greeted with champagne flutes.

They would then have to hustle to their next planned locations, to be in place for First-Class luncheon. A letter written by First-Class passenger Adolphe Saalfeld also confirms that some bandmembers later played that evening for First-Class teatime as well.

Their schedules and assignments throughout the voyage were distributed by bandmaster Wallace Hartley. Three of the musicians would remain rather stationary, playing primarily on B Deck near dining First-Class passengers. The remaining five men were to float to various locations for concerts in both First- and Second-Class.

On April 11th, Second-Class passenger Juliette LaRoche mentioned the musicians in a letter posted to her father.

"I am writing to you from the reading room ['salon de lecture'] and there is a concert next to me: a violin, two cellos [and] a piano."

As cited in © "The Band That Played On" by Steve Turner.

And since the band members were also boarded as Second-Class passengers, their fellow passengers would have also witnessed and interacted with the men when they were at leisure. Wes Woodward in particular appears to have been an object of admiration for his talent and gentility.

Contemporary promotional illustration of the Second-Class Library on both Olympic and Titanic, by Harland & Wolff.

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A Second-Class passenger named Kate Buss, who was traveling from England to California to meet her fiance, kept a journal while on board, in which she called other individuals by little nicknames.

And thus, throughout her entries on Titanic, the ever-genial Wes Woodward was called "Cello Man."

"The Cello Man is a favourite of mine. Every time he finishes a piece he looks at me and we smile...

Saw Doctor just after dinner and reminded him of his promise to ask our Cello Man to play a solo. Says he would if I'd go to Kentucky... too late to arrange, so going to ask for it tomorrow. Cello Man quite nice. Very superior bandsman, and he always smiles his parting to us...

I couldn't get near to ask our Cello Man for a solo... he is quite gentlemanly. He agreed [to a solo] and we chatted.

As cited in © "The Band That Played On" by Steve Turner.

Shortly after the iceberg strike, Second-Class passenger Lawrence Beesley witnessed an intent Wes Woodward rushing to the upper decks.

I saw a bandsman—the 'cellist—come round the vestibule corner from the staircase entrance and run down the now deserted starboard deck, his 'cello trailing behind him, the spike dragging along the floor. This must have been about 12.40 A.M. I suppose the band must have begun to play soon after this and gone on until after 2 A.M. Many brave things were done that night, but none more brave than by those few men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea and the sea rose higher and higher to where they stood...

Excerpt from "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic" by Lawrence Beesley.

Not everyone saw it this way.

An unnamed Third-Class steward reported to the publication 'Western Daily Mercury' that "as the musicians ran after their instruments they were laughed at by several members of the crew who did not realize how serious matters were."

A tribute to the musicians of the RMS Titanic. Originally published by the Amalgamated Musicians Union.

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Wes Woodward and his seven bandmates played, brave and tireless, throughout the sinking.

None survived.

Titanic's musicians were immediate lauded as heroes for their dutiful stoicism in the face of death. Among written memorials to Wes Woodward, the periodical Eastbourne Gazette mused, "To his relations and friends, and to all who knew him, grief at this young musician's death must ever be tinged with a glow of pride at the manner of it."

...A young man of an extremely agreeable and modest bearing, amiable, good-natured, of a sunny disposition, and an easy, equable temper that secured him many friends... his cello playing was always marked by refinement and musicianship; on several occasion he exhibited brilliant qualities as a solo excentant; but he excelled rather as an orchestral player than as a soloist. His orchestral playing was uniformly sound, steady and reliable; while these same invaluable qualities, conjoined with much natural taste and a cultured style, enable him to appear to utmost advantage in chamber music.

The body of John Wesley Woodward was never recovered.

SOURCE MATERIAL

Turner, Steve. "The Band That Played On." Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2011.

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/john-wesley-woodward.html

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mr-j-wesley-woodward.html

https://www.headington.org.uk/history/famous_people/woodward.htm

Beesley, Lawrence. "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic." Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912. Rpt. by Mariner Books, 2000.

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“Nobody Answered to the Lights Asking for Help”: Ramón Artagaveytia

"Nobody Answered to the Lights Asking for Help": Ramón Artagaveytia

Ramón Artagaveytia was born in Uruguay in July of 1840.

And then, in the wee hours of Christmas Eve, 1871, he was shipwrecked.

Ramón, who was 31 years old at the time, was on board the paddle steamer America. The vessel had reportedly been racing with another ship into Montevideo harbor in Uruguay.

In the midst of this supposed competition, passengers of the America heard an explosion somewhere deep within the ship.

Concerned passengers were initially told to dismiss the sound and get back into bed. Within a half-hour, however, fire had swarmed the ship from the inside out.

Ramón saved himself by jumping overboard and swimming for his life, and he was thereafter rescued. Many other survivors sustained horrific burns.

The disaster traumatized Ramón. By his own admission, the shipwreck of the America plagued him throughout the decades to follow.

Even four decades later, Ramón wrote a letter to his cousin, Enrique Artagaveytia. Therein, he detailed what might be characterized in the present day as post-traumatic stress.

The sinking of the America was terrible!... Nightmares keep tormenting me. Even in the most quiet trips, I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible nightmares and always hearing the same fateful word: Fire! Fire! Fire!...I have even gotten to the point where I find myself standing in the deck with my lifebelt on.

By all available accounts, Ramón went on from the shipwreck to pursue a serene life. In 1905, he inherited a farm in Argentina that had belonged to family, and he would thereafter appear to have lived voluntarily landlocked.

In 1912, Ramón was a noted businessman, and he made a choice at long last to travel by sea again.

It had been 41 years since he had escaped the fiery shipwreck that so relentlessly plagued him, and he desired a holiday in Europe. His nephew was employed in Berlin, Germany, at the Uruguayan consulate, and Ramón decided to visit him.

Berlin, Germany, on May 4, 1912, taken by an unknown photographer. Courtesy of Galerie Bassenge.

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It would surely be difficult to sail after so much time; even at the age of 71, Ramón Artagaveytia still suffered the emotional anguish of the shipwreck of the America.

But Ramón admitted to Enrique that his fears had been allayed by a thoroughly modern marvel: the telegraph.

You can't imagine, Enrique, the security the telegraph gives. When the America sank, right in front of Montevideo, nobody answered to the lights asking for help. The ones that saw us from the ship Villa del Salto, did not answer to our light signals. Now, with a telephone on board, that won't happen again. We can communicate instantly with the whole world.

"At last I will be able to travel," Ramon went on to write to Enrique. "And, above all, I will be able to sleep calm."

And so, Ramón Artagaveytia successfully sailed across the ocean to Germany.

In order to pay a visit to the United States before his return to Argentina, Ramón booked passage on Titanic for her maiden voyage. He boarded as a First-Class passenger at the port of Cherbourg, France, on the evening of April 10th.

The next day, Titanic made a brief afternoon stop at Queenstown, Ireland. While the ship was anchored there, Ramón wrote and mailed a letter to his friend, a man named Adolfo.

It would seem that Ramón had previously shared his fear of sea travel--or it was otherwise commonly known among his social circle--because in this same letter to Adolfo, he wrote with ease and familiarity about his initial reticence to board Titanic, and how he overcame his anxiety.

I closed my eyes and went onboard in this huge ship. One of the carriers took my suitcase, and brought it to third floor. We went to the dining room. saloon C. My cabin is very comfortable. It is heated by electricity...

I went through all the corridors to see all the rooms. Some of the furniture was made of tree. The green chairs were very nice. Now I can see Ireland, and now I am finished writing this letter.

Ramón's movements during Titanic's voyage are unknown.

And on the night of the sinking, he was spotted only once. According to survivor Julian Padron y Manent, he encountered Ramón speaking with two other First-Class passengers from Uruguay, named Jose and Pedro Carrau.

Julian Padron y Manent claimed that the group of three men laughed at him when he stated that he was seeking a lifeboat, chiding him that he would catch a cold.

But considering Ramón's elaborate and unguarded admissions about his emotional suffering due to the shipwreck of the America, this depiction of him seems uncharacteristically cavalier, to say the least.

Another survivor account by First-Class passenger Elmer Taylor also includes an encounter with the Carraus. It stands in stark contrast to that of Julian Pardon y Manent’s.

Whils this account makes no mention of Ramón Artagaveytia, he may still have been in their company. And even in the case that he was not, Taylor's account is still worth citing for the haunting differences in the reported behavior of the gentlemen.

They, perhaps like Ramón, were not English speakers. And so they may have had no one to inform them of what was happening.

About halfway up the flight (on the way up to the boat deck), there were two gentlemen, one on either side, leaning against the balustrade and, from outward appearance, looked more dead than alive... They were from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They could not speak English and we could not speak Spanish. As we casually met day by day, we would all speak our native language, smile and pass along, none of us understanding what the other one said. At this meeting, we repeated the usual salutations, shook hands and assured them there was no danger, smiled and proceeded on our way, to carry the fear they exhibited on their faces for the remainder of my life.

Ramón Artagaveytia did not survive his second shipwreck.

His was the 22nd corpse recovered by the Mackay-Bennett, and was listed as follows.

CLOTHING - Blue overcoat; blue suit; white dress waistcoat; black boots and purple socks; two vests marked "R.A."; pink drawers also marked "R.A."

EFFECTS - Watch, chain and medals with name on; keys; comb; knife; eyeglass case; 27 pounds in gold; $20 gold piece; $64 in notes.

1st Class. Name, Ramon Artagaveytia

On April 18, 1912, a contemporary newspaper headline proclaimed, "Uruguay's Richest Man a Victim."

He was Titanic's oldest First-Class gentleman to die.

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“Sunlit Hours of Those Spring Days”: Marie Grice Young

"Sunlit Hours of Those Spring Days": Marie Grice Young

Marie Grice Young was born well-connected.

A native of Washington, D.C., both of Marie's parents were so-called "Old Washingtonians" and thus boasted a number of political friendships resulting from their residence in the national capital. They eventually separated.

Marie's father Samuel, once a civil-servant-turned-affluent-mining magnate, was also profoundly gifted in the musical arts.

He was a noted vocalist and celebrated songwriter; he often performed in D.C. social circles, both as a solo act and in an esteemed choral society. Unfortunately, after suffering a fall from a carriage in 1891, Samuel Young's health and character was mortally compromised.

Within a ten-year span, Marie bore witness to her father's deterioration, including alcoholism, a suicide attempt and subsequent commitment to an asylum after he was "declared to be insane by a jury sitting at the city hall" in Washington D.C. In 1901, Samuel succeeded in taking his own life by ingesting laudanum.

Marie was 25 years old at the time.

The National Mall in Washington, D.C., circa 1901. Courtesy of the National Parks Service and the United States Commission of Fine Arts.

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Marie appears to have taken after her late father and by 1910, she had become an accomplished musician in her own right.

In her early twenties, she had studied with John Porter Lawrence, an acclaimed pianist who himself has studied at the Leipsig Conservatory. In 1904, she played piano on tour for a musical reading called "Enoch Arden," and she sometimes performed as a soprano vocalist.

Marie's talent brought her to the attention of the most prominent family in Washington, D.C., when she was solicited by the First Lady to act as the piano teacher to three of President Theodore Roosevelt's children.

One day, I received a call from Mrs. Roosevelt asking if I would give daily lessons on the piano to her sons, Archie, then 7, and Quentin, 10. I agreed and they came to my home for their lessons for more than two years. Their sister, Ethel, was also one of my pupils.

As reported in The Evening Recorder, February 12, 1955. Citation courtesy of Encyclopedia Titanica.

By 1907, Marie was cited as the go-to "for information regarding the present observances and management of the [Presidential] household."

Archie & Quentin Roosevelt circa 1902, taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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In 1910, Marie Grice Young was noted in census records as an unmarried piano teacher.

By 1911, the now-36-year-old Marie was found in the constant company of an older widow named Ella Holmes White. They had been introduced in the summer of 1910.

The Washington Herald reported that the two had elected to live together. In October of 1911, the women set off for a European holiday. As evidenced by contemporary reports, the two wintered in Paris and Rome, and spent their time collecting antiques, artwork, and shopping for clothes. They were also spotted touring the French countryside by automobile.

Marie and Ella boarded the Titanic as First-Class passengers on the evening of April 10, 1912, in Cherbourg, France. In their company were Ella's maid Amelia Bessette, as well as her manservant Sante Righini.

While boarding Titanic from the tender ship SS Nomadic, Ella White is reported to have sprained her ankle. She was consequently confined to her C-Deck cabin by one of the ship's physicians.

While Ella was stationary in bed, Marie spent her hours enjoying a good people-watch on Titanic's decks.

In my thoughts I often lie again in my steamer chair, and watch the passing throng on the Titanic's promenade deck. After the usual excitement… the routine of life on deck was established. Two famous men passed many times every day in a vigorous constitutional, one talking always - as rapidly as he walked - the other a good and smiling listener.

Babies and nurses, dear old couples, solitary men, passed sunlit hours of those spring days on deck, while the Titanic swept on to the scene of the disaster; approaching what might not have been so much a sinister fate awaiting her...

Alongside their many trunks--packed as they were with the sartorial rewards of shopping trips in Paris--Ella and Marie had also brought aboard some noisier and infinitely more curious cargo: fancy French poultry.

In recent years, Marie's extended family has speculated that a shared interest in raising chickens was the element that brought their "Auntie Mary" and Ella together in the first place.

As it turns out, upon their meeting in 1910, Marie Grice Young had offered Ella White some advice when the latter spoke of French-bred chickens as a smart investment.

Ella eventually hired the younger woman as a consultant at her summer home, called Briarcliff Lodge, in Westchester County, New York. They became "fast friends," and soon thereafter fell in love.

And so, during their 1911 holiday, the couple purchased a collection of French roosters and hens of elite breeding. They intended to bring the birds home to Briarcliff Lodge.

On board Titanic, these newly adopted fowl were kept on F-Deck, in proximity to the kennels in which the passengers' dogs were also kept. The animals were looked after by Titanic's carpenters, one of whom was a 26-year-old named John Hall Hutchinson.

Throughout the voyage, Marie performed regular check-ins on their exotic pets on F-Deck.

Every day, she visited them in the hold and counted up their eggs to report back to Ella. In doing so, she quickly befriended Hutchinson.

It so happened that I took an unusual interest in some of the men below decks, for I had talked often with the carpenter and the printer, in having extra crates and labels made for the fancy French poultry we were bringing home, and I saw a little of the ship's life, in my daily visits to the gaily crowing roosters, and to the hens, who laid eggs busily, undismayed by the novelty and commotion of their surroundings.

I had seen the cooks before their great cauldrons of porcelain, and the bakers turning out the huge loaves of bread, a hamper of which was later brought on deck, to supply the life boats.

In accepting some gold coins, the ship's carpenter said, "It is such a good luck to receive gold on a first voyage!" Yet he was the first of the Titanic's martyrs, who, in sounding the ship just after the iceberg was struck, sank and was lost in the inward rushing sea that engulfed him.

According to Ella's testimony on the twelfth day of the American Senate Inquiry, she had remarked to Marie on the morning of April 14th that the chill in the weather was peculiar.

Ella stated, "Everybody knew we were in the vicinity of icebergs. Even in our staterooms it was so cold that we could not leave the port hole open. It was terribly cold. I made the remark to Miss Young, on Sunday morning: 'We must be very near icebergs to have such cold weather as this.' It was unusually cold."

Ella went on to describe the iceberg strike.

Senator SMITH.
Were you aroused especially by the impact?

Mrs. WHITE.
No; not at all. I was just sitting on the bed, just ready to turn the lights out. It did not seem to me that there was any very great impact at all. It was just as though we went over about a thousand marbles. There was nothing terrifying about it at all.

Despite the underwhelming description, Ella did not consider the sensation a matter of fleeting curiosity. In fact, she was gravely concerned, and insisted that the entire group leave the cabin to investigate.

Marie, Ella, and Ella's maid Amelia dressed and went up on A Deck. Ella stated that she dressed warmly and had demanded that Marie do the same.

Marie's resulting wardrobe choice was perplexing to say the least: a fur coat over her negligee, after which she took the time to put on a hat and gloves and grab her handbag.

With the assistance of Ella's manservant Sante, the group ushered Ella to the elevator up to A Deck. They then encountered Captain Smith. He warned them about lifebelts, and so they heeded him.

The party made their way to the boat deck, with Sante aiding Ella up the Grand Staircase due to her bound-up foot.

The view of the Grand Staircase from the boat deck on R.M.S. Olympic, Titanic's elder sister, circa 1911. Photo taken by William H. Rau for Harland & Wolff.

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Once on the boat deck, the four watched the preparation of the portside lifeboats under the supervision of Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

Ella was at this time in possession of a walking stick with a Bakelite end, which boasted the novelty feature of being electrically lit. And she was quite insistent on utilizing it.

Lightoller found it horribly annoying.

[The] deck lights on, which, though dim, helped considerably with the work; more than could be said of one very good lady who achieved fame by waving an electric light and successfully blinding us as we worked on the boats. It puzzled me until I found she had it installed in the head of her walking stick! I am afraid she was rather disappointed on finding out that her precious light was not a bit appreciated. Arriving in safety on board the Carpathia, she tried to make out that someone had stolen her wretched stick, whereas it had been merely taken from her, in response to my request that someone would throw the damn thing overboard.

Ella, Marie, and Amelia eventually boarded Lifeboat 8, presumably with the ongoing help of Sante.

The ladies would never see him again.

Even as Ella acknowledged the separation of loved ones from each other, she insisted that there absolutely no panic amongst the passengers that she saw.

There was no excitement whatever. Nobody seemed frightened. Nobody was panic-stricken. There was a lot of pathos when husbands and wives kissed each other goodbye, of course.

Watching the sinking of Titanic from Lifeboat 8, the women on board took charge of the tiller when they learned the ineptitude of a number of crewmen on board.

Marie took to rowing an oar alongside the Countess of Rothes.

Intermittently, Marie found herself seasick, which she stated was worsened by the smoking of the stewards. "The men took out cigarettes and lighted them as we were being lowered into the sea," she said. "The man in front of me lighted a pipe and it was so foul-smelling that it actually made me sick."

Marie vomited about a half-dozen times, and that she had to rest at the bottom of the boat for a while to assuage her nausea. That, however, did not stop her from rowing.

Ella, on the other hand, could not row due to her condition--but that same condition did not dissuade her from waving her cane back and forth through the night air because, as she claimed, the lamp in the boat did not work.

Ella lodged further complaints regarding the seamen on board Lifeboat 8, which she expounded upon in her characteristically brusque tone during the American Senate Inquiry.

The American Senate Inquiry in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. New York City, 1912.

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This so-named "pathos" may have been a reference to the parting of young newlyweds Victor and Maria Peñasco, or the famed refusal of Isidor and Ida Straus to separate, both of which occurred at the launch of Lifeboat 8.

The Senate Inquiry was just one of many obligations with which Marie and Ella had to contend in the aftermath of the sinking.

Marie Grice Young had somehow found herself the subject of a falsified account regarding the last sighting of one of Titanic's most mourned passengers: Major Archibald Butt, who was a dear friend of President William H. Taft.

Marie is reported to have regaled the media with a dramatic scene in which Archibald Butt approached her to communicate his farewells back in Washington, D.C.

According to the reports in syndicated newspapers, Major Butt spoke kind words to Marie and even wrapped her in a blanket, calmly inquiring if she might share his final farewells to all of his friends back home.

Marie was also reported to have been the very last woman to leave Titanic, despite the fact that Lifeboat 8 left Titanic at approximately 1:00 a.m., over an hour before the ship submerged and before other lifeboats were launched.

President William Howard Taft (left) with Major Archibald butt (center).

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The multiple newspaper accounts that promulgated this fabrication eventually were addressed by Marie Grice Young herself in a letter to President Taft.

In said letter, she insisted that a whimsical journalist had concocted the entire account.

Dear Mr President:

I have read an account of the Memorial Service held in Washington recently in honor of Major Archibald Butt, at which service the Secretary of War alluded to a farewell conversation supposed to have taken place between Major Butt and myself. Had such a conversation taken place I should not have delayed one hour in giving you every detail of the last hours of your special Aide & friend.

Although a Washingtonian I did not know Major Butt, having been in deep mourning for several years. The alleged "interview" is entirely an invention, by some officious reporter; who thereby brought much distress to many of Major Butt's near relatives and friends... for when they wrote me of what a comfort the story was to them, I had to tell them it was untrue, as no such deception could be carried through...

With deep regret that I could not be his messenger to you,
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours
(Miss) Marie G. Young

In spite of the trauma they endured, Ella White and Marie Grice Young moved forward together.

Marie was determined to replace the French roosters and hens that she and Ella had lost in the sinking, so she returned to France to hand-select them once again.

This time, however, Marie traveled alone. And at the start of this voyage, she visited with her Grice cousins in Nottingham, England, who set aside a permanent room for her.

According to her living family, it was during this trip that Marie decided to abandon some artifacts of particularly painful memories.

Before departing Nottingham for France, Marie discarded the fur coat, hat, gloves, and purse that had accompanied her on the night of Titanic's sinking.

Her cousins hung the coat in a closet and boxed up the rest, where they remain untouched and unnoticed for decades thereafter.

Granting that the Titanic was a triumph of construction and appointments, even she could not trespass upon a law of nature, and survive.

Helplessly that beautiful and gallant ship struggled to escape from the hand of God, but was only an atom in the Hold of inexorable justice.

Majestically she sailed; but bowed, broken and crouching, she sank slowly beneath the conquering ocean; a hidden memorial shaft to the unburied dead she carried with her, and to the incredible wickedness of man, until the coming of the day when "there shall be no more sea."

The forgotten box of Marie Grice Young's Titanic effects was accidentally thrown away when the Grice family home was sold.

In 2019, Ella White's infamous cane sold at auction for over $60,000.

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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

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.

Excerpt from "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic" by Lawrence Beesley, published in 1912.

Despite the lackluster start, those crowds watching on the quay were no less likely to marvel at Titanic's magnitude, especially compared to other vessels docked in her vicinity.

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.

And it was shortly thereafter that Titanic nearly collided with the SS City of New York.

As Titanic left her berth, her size and weight caused water displacement, resulting in significant swells.

Nearby, both the RMS Oceanic and the SS City of New York were moored and lashed together alongside the dock. Both vessels had been "laid up" due to the coal strike that had immobilized so many of Titanic's peers.

The SS City of New York on or about August 9, 1914, carrying passengers fleeing the Great War. From the George Grantham Bain collection, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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Titanic passed by both ships, which caused an enormous bulge of water that lifted the Oceanic and New York to a height, before dropping them just as suddenly.

The Oceanic recovered from the jostle, but the New York did not fare so well. Its hawsers--otherwise known as the wrist-thick, steel mooring cables that bound her to the dock--snapped and flew backward.

The sound of the breaking hawsers, people said, was like the cracking of a gun.

 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. 

Excerpt from "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic" by Lawrence Beesley, published in 1912.

Unmanned and violently unmoored, the SS City of New York began drifting stern-side directly toward Titanic.

Captain Smith immediately ordered the engines "full astern", and Titanic's starboard anchor was partially lowered in anticipation of a collision. One of the tugboats nearby, called Vulcan, rushed forward and, with deft maneuvering, brought the New York under tow.

Happily the prompt action of the men in command and the quick use of a couple of steam tugs prevented a collision, and the mighty Titanic at last steamed away like a proud queen of the sea, an hour late but not at all worried.

Titanic and New York avoided the crash by mere feet.

Ultimately, The New York was urged back to dock by a coterie of tugboats; Titanic, delayed by an hour but otherwise unbothered, "quietly glided, in brilliant sunshine" further and away.

Photo taken by the Odell family from the deck of the Titanic, during its near-collision with the SS City of New York, April 10, 1912.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Perhaps those who had the clearest view and grandest scope of the near-disaster were two assistant electricians named Albert Ervine and Alfred Middleton, both of whom had managed to mount Titanic's aft and fourth funnel. This is where they found themselves for the duration of the calamity.

Albert Ervine later wrote the following in a letter posted back home to his mother Helen.

As soon as the Titanic began to move out of the dock, the suction caused the Oceanic, which was alongside her berth, to swing outwards, while another liner broke loose altogether and bumped into the Oceanic. The gangway of the Oceanic simply dissolved.

Middleton and myself were on top of the after funnel, so we saw everything quite distinctly. I thought there was going to be a proper smash up owing to the high wind; but I don't think anyone was hurt.

Albert George Ervine was born in Belfast the summer of 1893. He was named after his father, and called "Bertie" by his family.

Young Albert Ervine was educated at the Belfast Royal Academy, thereafter studying at Methodist College and the Municipal Technical Institute. His apprenticeship then commenced at Coombe, Barber & Coombe, before he moved on to Harland & Woolf, where he studied so-called "marine electronics."

By 1911, the census reflects Albert Ervine as an unwed electrician.

Electrical plant of the Titanic's elder sister RMS Olympic. Taken in May of 1911 by Robert John Welch for Harland & Wolff.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

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.

Titanic docked in Southampton on April 10, 1912.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

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.

(Have just been away attending the alarm bell.)

This morning we had a full dress rehearsal of an emergency. The alarm bells all rang for ten seconds, then about 50 doors, all steel, gradually slid down into their places, so that water could not escape from any one section into the next.

So you see it would be impossible for the ship to be sunk in collision with another...

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.

What scenes were enacted to immortalize forever the engineers who kept the ship lighted, and afloat, giving a last chance of escape to passengers and even officers? How can we ever realize what it meant to find courage to reject the thought of beloved dependents on shore, and to face death in stoke-hold and engine room?

Bertie Ervine was the youngest member of Titanic's engineering crew. His remains were not recovered.

He was 18 years old.

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

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

It is a truth universally assumed that Halloween adopted its banner colors because autumn is nothing if not very, very orange.

And that assumption is not false.

There's just more to the story.

In agricultural societies, particularly those within the northern hemisphere, autumn is essentially The Dying Age.

Historically, as temperatures fell, nature decayed amidst the harvest, and livestock animals were slaughtered before winter. Even the hours themselves died off earlier and earlier each day.

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

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.

When the stock of any considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of the charm-doctors, to superintend the raising of a need-fire... By constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the needfire, would be accomplished... A fire kindled from this needfire... and the cattle [were] brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them

The bonfires of Samhain are also believed to have served purposes of so-called sympathetic magic, wherein the fires imitated the protective elements of the sun.

And when the bonfires were sparked against the darkness, they burned, bright and oh-so-orange, in the black of night.

The black of night, in which the ghosts of the dead stepped through the permeable boundary to the living world.

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

In the light of a force-fire, all of its surroundings, too, would glow: the flickering ground, the bats tumbling down to hunt the insects drawn by the light; the celebrants themselves.

All cast in lively orange and shades of black.

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

COPYRIGHT © Soliloquism 2022

The color orange dominates the autumn harvest season beyond the ancient fires of Samhain, of course. Just uttering the word 'October' invites mental images of fluttering orange foliage and grimacing orange gourds.

The latter, however, is a tradition grown up from American farmlands.

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.

‘There is something new in the old and delightfully spooky Eve of All Saints. It is paper… this sounds simple enough, but in reality it is almost magic.’

From ‘Some New Hallowe’en Magic’ by A.W.R. and published in Harper’s Bazaar, October 1912

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.

"The natural colors they had to work with in late October were largely orange and yellow: pumpkins, chrysanthemums, marigolds, corn, hay bales... But Halloween party décor was also about creating an otherworldly atmosphere — eerie, spooky, ghostly — and for that, you needed a measure of darkness."

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.

HALLOWE’EN COLORS. Orange is a bright and glowing color, well suited to decorating for Halloween. Black and white give sharp contrast and gray has a softening influence.

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.

Weird designs and bright orange in contrast with black make it possible to create very striking costumes for the Hallowe’en party with very little work.

The ongoing success and novelty of Dennison's Bogie Books set forth the iconic color palette of modern Halloween.

As other companies, such as The Beistle Company, took their cues from Dennison, they also promoted the orange-and-black color scheme for their own seasonal products.

Other publications also followed suit, contributing their own decorating advice to Halloween hostesses.

Dennison’s Bogie Books were published annually from 1912 until 1935. Only two years halted its production--the Great World War in 1918, and the onset of the Depression in 1932.

They remain some of the most highly sought-after Halloween ephemera among collectors, even today.

And thanks to the Dennison Manufacturing Company, Halloween and its allure is anything but ephemeral.

Some [superstitions] have been added—some lost; but we today, in America, celebrate the night for its weird mystery and flavor of romance, and because its games foretell the future.

Even if it turns out that Hallowe'en is made of crepe paper.

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

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

When Edith Rosenbaum boarded Titanic as a First-Class passenger at Cherbourg, she brought pretty much her life on board with her in her trunks.

And much of it was what one would typically expect of a young woman working in the fashion industry: lovely dresses and fine jewelry.

Edith Russell, photographed by Henri Manuel.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

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.

 

My mother gave me this pig as a mascot a year earlier. I'd been in tornadoes and fires and floods. I was always in trouble. Then I was in a motoring accident, and was thrown into the tyre on the back of the car. I rolled clear as it crashed into a tree. Everyone else was killed but me.

"My mother brought me this pig and said "Look here, you crazy thing, I'm giving you a mascot.

"Promise me you'll have it with you always."

Edith had originally booked passage on the George Washington, which was set to depart on April 7th, as she was keen to arrive in New York. But her editor wired that she was needed to cover the Paris-Roubaix races. Edith consequently bumped her passage out to April 10, and exchanged her ticket for one on Titanic.

Movie star Gene Gauntier with luggage, circa 1912.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Later, Edith would say that she should have known better because a fortune teller had warned her. Per an account of her experience that she wrote in 1934:

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.

On board, Edith Rosenbaum found her First-Class suite on A Deck. It is rumored that she had also booked a secondary cabin on E Deck to accommodate her 19 trunks.

Edith claimed that she had inquired about luggage insurance with a man named Nicholas prior to boarding at Cherbourg, but she had been assured that it was an unnecessary precaution because Titanic was “unsinkable.”

Edith stated that she spent the majority of the trip doing the usual things for a First-Class girl.

The first few days of the trip were uneventful, marked by the usual making of acquaintances, promenades on deck, dinners in the Ritz, tea in the Winter Gardens, etc. As a matter of fact, it was only by looking out at sea; that one realized that one was on the ocean.

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.

Frankly, I was overjoyed. I had always wanted to see an iceberg, from the time of my geographical school days; not realizing the danger of the encounter. I remember one man commenting that if icebergs were supposed to be two-thirds below water, and one- third above, ‘this must be a corker.’ We all regarded it as a joke, and ran to the forward part of the deck, picking up bits of ice scattered about. Someone suggested a snow-ball fight.

An unspecified officer advised the party that they had struck an iceberg but all was perfectly fine and they should get back to bed. Edith said she had returned to her room and was undressing when a steward knocked on her door and told her that all passengers had been instructed to put on lifebelts.

Edith hastily put on a dress and her fur coat, grabbing anything to hand that she could think of. And then, for reasons even she never fully understood, she locked her trunks and tidied her room.

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.’

Edith left her room soon thereafter.

I shall always remember the last view of my stateroom – the rosy, soft light of the table lamp, the red reflection of the radiator. Everything so cozy and still: I little thought it was my last look.

On her way out, Edith asked Wareham to go back to her suite for her beloved mascot, which he did gladly. According to her account titled, "I Survived the Titanic," the exchange went something like that. "I said, “Well, don’t you think it would be a good thing for me to keep my mascot with me?” He said, “Yes, it would be rather a good thing.”

She said that as Wareham proceeded down the corridor, she recalled saying that the ship was distinctly aslant.

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."

On board Carpathia, Edith set out to send a telegram to mother that began with “Lost all.” But she took in the decks of the Carpathia, crowded with widows and orphans and the bereaved, and crossed it out. Instead, she wrote, “Safe. Carpathia. Notify Mother.” In 1934, she wrote, “My losses were only material, while there were so many who lost those whom they loved.”

“I survived Titanic,” Edith once said. “But I never really escaped it.”

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.

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“Immeasurable Sorrow and Unending Grief”: The Allison Family

“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

PUBLIC DOMAIN

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.

[I] here met Mr. Allison outside the cabin but he seemed too dazed to speak. I handed him some brandy and asked him to look after Mrs. Allison and Loraine and I would keep Baby [Trevor]… some confusion occurred outside as to which deck we should go and that is how [Mr. Allison] came separated, afterwards I learned from one of the staff that Mrs. Allison was hysterical again and that Mr. Allison had difficulty with her…

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:

No sooner was I on deck that I was bustled to the first class deck and pushed into one of the boats and I found nurse (Alice Cleaver) and the baby (Trevor Allison) were there. It was awful to put the lifebelt on it, seemed as if you really were gone.

Mrs. Allison, meanwhile, had already been seated in Lifeboat 6 with her little daughter, Loraine.

But Bess Allison jumped out of the lifeboat.

Per their friend Major Peuchen, who was interviewed by the Montreal Daily Star:

Mrs Allison could have gotten away in perfect safety, but somebody told her Mr Allison was in a boat being lowered on the opposite side of the deck, and with her little daughter she rushed away from the boat. Apparently she reached the other side to find that Mr Allison was not there. Meanwhile our boat had put off.

In a separate interview, Major Peuchen elaborated upon Bess’s actions.

She had gone to the deck without her husband, and, frantically seeking him was directed by an officer to the other side of the ship. She failed to find Mr. Allison and was quickly hustled into one of the collapsible life-boats, and when last seen by Major Peuchen she was toppling out of the half-swamped boat.

Bess and her daughter, possibly alongside Hudson, were last seen together on deck near the officers quarters.

Mr. and Mrs. Allison, their little girl, and George Swane all died in the sinking.

Young Loraine Allison was the sole child of all in First and Second Class to die. Her mother was one of only four First-Class women to die.

Hudson Allison’s body was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett and noted.

NO. 135. - MALE.

CLOTHING - Leather coat; blue suit; grey silk muffler.

EFFECTS - Keys; letters; photos; stock book; three pocket diaries; one C. P. Railway ticket book; two pocket books; card case; $143.00 in notes; chain with insurance medals; £15 in gold; $100.00 Thomas Cook & Sons travellers' cheque; £35 in notes; gold cuff links; diamond solitaire ring; gold stud; knife; silver tie clip; $4.40 in odd coins; traveller's ticket.

FIRST CLASS.
NAME - H. J. ALLISON

Thereafter, George Swane’s body was also found.

No. 294 - MALE - ESTIMATED AGE, 18 - HAIR, DARK

CLOTHING - Blue suit; grey socks; low shoes.

EFFECTS - Chain; sovereign case, empty; 33s 5d in cash; one tie pin; two motor licenses.

NAME - GEORGE SWANE, 73 Little Cadogan Place, London, S.W.

The bodies of Bess Allison and little Loraine Allison, if ever recovered, went unidentified.

Upon their arrival in New York City, Alice Cleaver relinquished custody of the now-orphaned Trevor Allison to his uncle and aunt, George and Lillian Allison.

Trevor Allison died in 1929 from food poisoning. He was 18 years old.

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.

The Allisons never accepted Mrs Kramer’s claim, but the stress it caused was real. It forced my ancestors to relive painful memories described to me as immeasurable sorrow and unending grief… I would like to thank Deanne Jennings and Sally Kirkelie for offering their DNA to stop this harassment. This was a courageous, selfless act, and I will remain forever indebted for their act of kindness.

David’s sister, Nancy, also said the following.

These DNA results have uncovered a colossal fraud that has haunted my family for years. It was all about the money …. Debrina [Kramer’s granddaughter] wants to write a book and no doubt there are others out there who want to profit from our story. It is our story. Leave us in peace.

Tantalizing though some may find them, dear reader, it is only kind to remember: conspiracy theories do harm to  innocent people.

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

"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.

Clarence Moore’s dear friend, Major Archibald Butt, had also boarded Titanic that day. Archie, being a military aide to President William Howard Taft, was a fellow Washington elite. They sometimes played golf together.

Archie had arrived to the dining saloon promptly after boarding, it is said, in order to permanently reserve a table for the voyage—for himself, Clarence, and Archie’s housemate, painter Francis Davis Millet, who would board later in the day at Cherbourg.

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.”

Colonel Archibald Gracie also offered praise for the conduct of Major Archie Butt. It is reasonable to deduce that Clarence Moore aided similarly in the company of his friend.

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."

Neither Clarence nor Major Butt survived. And their bodies were never found.

Clarence's wife, Mabelle, was repeatedly described as prostrate with grief "about Mr. Moore, who was aboard the Titanic and whose death seems certain."

Their conclusions have not been communicated to Mrs. Moore, who is prostrated.

Yesterday, Mrs. Moore attempted to make arrangements to have a steamer sent out to aid in the search for the lost and was only dissuaded with difficulty by friends of her husband, who assured her that everything possible was being done to save passengers, give the survivors comfort, and to obtain a complete list of the names of the survivors.

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

"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. 

George was the co-owner of Rosenshine Brothers, a prominent importer of exotic materials, and Rosenshine’s specialty was ostrich feathers. Much of George’s fortune was made, in part, in fancy millinery—that is, in really big hats. 

Ostrich feathers, however, were not the sole plumes that Rosenshine employed. The New York Times reported on October 18, 1911, regarding a robbery in the Rosenshine factory in which tropical bird feathers were also taken.

The best men in the Detective Bureau have been set on the trail of a band of burglars who escaped with $3,000 worth of ostrich plumes and bird of paradise feathers from the warerooms of Rosenshine Brothers, 57 and 59 East Eleventh Street, after they had gained an entrance to the store, which is heavily wired with burglar alarms, by coming down the chimney like Santa Claus.

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.

Maybelle was saved in Collapsible D. On board Carpathia, she sent a hopeful telegram, although one would not be surprised if that hope was false.

Am safe - Pray God George was rescued by another boat with rest of men. Arrive Carpathia. Mabelle Thorne.

Sadly, George Rosenshine did not survive the sinking.

His body was the 16th recovered by the crew of the Mackay-Bennett and noted as follows.

NO. 16. - MALE. - ESTIMATED AGE, 50.

CLOTHING - Dark grey overcoat; black suit; black gloves; underclothing; marked " G. R".

EFFECTS - Gold watch; memo book; bunch of keys; letter of credit; Guaranty Trust Company, New York, No. 9899; notes in pocket book; $430; U. S. A. Bond in memo book; affidavit of personal prop. For Mrs. G. M. Thorne, N. Y.; letter of indication for above.

PROBABLY FIRST CLASS

ADDRESS IN POCKET BOOK

GEO. ROSENSHINE., 57 & 59 East Eleventh St., N. Y.

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.

On April 13, 1913, Maybelle and Renee, as well as the widow of Jacques Futrelle, sailed out from Boston to the site of the Titanic’s foundering. Flower baskets were laid on the water following  a memorial by the ship’s chaplain.

As the ship moved away, the three women sang “Nearer My God to Thee.”

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

"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.

While I do agree that the sinking led to great loss and devastation, the Titanic was also a vessel of hope to so many that were fleeing persecution, or searching a better life.

Upon her arrival in Canada, Mary Vartanian was met by an Armenian friend of her husband’s. He escorted her to the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls.

According to her great-granddaughter, “They told [Mary] to walk across the bridge, to keep a good pace, and not look back, because she was obviously entering the country illegally at the time.”

And at the other end of Rainbow Bridge, waiting for his lost bride, was David Vartanian.

They had not seen each other for ten years.

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