Uncategorized - Soliloquism

“Our Brightest Star”: First Officer William Murdoch

In 1904, he met Ada Banks, a schoolteacher from New Zealand, while serving on board either the Runic or the Medic. Their fond correspondence led to their wedding in 1907.

Murdoch was described as a "canny and dependable man." Survivor Charlotte Collyer described him as "a bull-dog of a man who would not be afraid of anything."

Speaking even further to the content of his character, when Murdoch was asked to sign a menu on board the Medic in 1900, he quoted Scottish writer, Charles Mackay.

Will wrote, "Whatever obstacles control, go on, true heart, thou'lt reach the goal."

Murdoch was First Officer on Titanic when she set sail, but was originally assigned as Chief Officer before being bumped down by Captain Smith's abrupt installation of Henry Tingle Wilde as Chief Officer.

Will was therefore demoted to First Officer, and Charles Lightoller to Second Officer.

This change was so last-minute that Murdoch didn't even have time to alter the stripes on his uniform. This led to confusion even among crewmembers, with many referring to him as Chief Officer throughout the voyage and in their survivor testimonies.

Fatefully, Will was the officer on duty and on the bridge when Titanic collided with the iceberg. And according to Quartermaster Robert Hitchens, who was helmsman, Murdoch commanded, "Hard a-starboard."

Some have speculated that Murdoch's order was unclear or otherwise misinterpreted.

Will's less rigid approach, along with the perceived tensions between Lightoller and Chief Officer Wilde, led to Murdoch's lifeboats being turned out, hung, and sent off in a more efficient fashion: First Officer Murdoch launched multiple lifeboats in the time it took for Second Officer Lightoller to launch one.

First Officer Murdoch has been unduly criticized for this, as his early boats were not launched to capacity. But consistently across survivor testimony, Murdoch ordered those in charge of the boats to wait by the gangway to pick up more passengers, and to come back promptly when hailed.

Additionally, Willwas quoted as saying upon counting approximately forty in a lifeboat, "That’s enough before lowering. We can get a lot more in after she’s in the water. Lower away!" During the British inquiry, Lookout George Symons testified regarding a half-full lifeboat.

Will's priority was clearly getting the boats off the divets and into the water, and yet regularly held accountable for the dereliction of duty of his crewmembers once removed from his command.

By all accounts, First Officer Murdoch was unflappably cool and calm as he launched the boats, although he still had some absurd moments while loading. For instance, while launching Lifeboat 5, he saw Dr. Henry Frauenthal and his brother jump down into the lifeboat and land on Mrs. Annie Stengel, thereby breaking her ribs.

Following that misfortune, her husband Henry Stengel, who was a portly man, had approached Will Murdoch and was told to jump into Lifeboat 1. He obeyed and in so doing, rolled over into the lifeboat, which inspired some laughter. Mr. Stengel himself testified to as much at the American inquiry.

Then there's the issue of the supposed shootings of passengers as they rushed Collapsible C, and which officer pulled the trigger. Survivor Eugene Daly believed that First Officer Murdoch fired the shot, as Mr. Daly thought he recognized his voice.

Others, including Jack Thayer, believed Chief Purser Hugh McElroy fired warning shots using his own pistol.

And Fifth Officer Harold Lowe was quite clear in his own United States Senate testimony about the alleged use of pistols, stating, "I heard them and I fired them."

Which leads naturally to one of Titanic's most disputed mysteries: the reported suicide of an officer.

As was attested to by a few survivors and immortalized in the 1997 film, First Officer Murdoch shot himself through the temple.

Despite this, a number of witnesses also spoke to Chief Officer Wilde and even Captain Smith doing the same.

Even more witnesses speak to three steerage men being shot dead by an unknown officer. And while Titanicophiles could debate endlessly about whose character would lend itself more to suicide, since none of the main suspects were recovered, a definite answer will most likely never be determined.

It is most reasonable to turn to the most reliable of the firsthand accounts, such as those by Second-Class survivor Lawrence Beesley and First-Class survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie. Gracie said that he last saw First Officer Murdoch when he was washed away, while they were working in tandem to cut the falls to launch Collapsible A.

Furthermore, Second Officer Lightoller wrote the following to Murdoch's widow Ada.

Dear Mrs. Murdoch,

I am writing on behalf of the surviving officers to express our deep sympathy in this, your awful loss. Words cannot convey our feelings, - much less a letter.
I deeply regret that I missed communicating with you by last mail to refute the reports that were spread in the newspapers. I was practically the last man, and certainly the last officer, to see Mr. Murdoch. He was then endeavouring to launch the starboard forward collapsible boat...

...Having got my boat down off the top of the house, and there being no time to open it, I left it and ran across to the starboard side, still on top of the quarters. I was then practically looking down on your husband and his men. He was working hard, personally assisting, overhauling the forward boat’s fall. At this moment the ship dived, and we were all in the water.Other reports as to the ending are absolutely false.

Some dispute Lightoller's evidence because he was a company man, and because some insist that he would be disinclined to tell a newly bereaved widow that her husband had killed himself. But that is speculative at best.

Archibald Gracie, who had been in the immediate vicinity of First Officer Murdoch, also wrote in his account that, while Gracie and Second Officer Lightoller were both balancing for their lives on Collapsible B, that Lightoller actually spoke of seeing William Murdoch washed off the deck.

There is also, of course, the pervasive confusion about Murdoch being First Officer versus Chief Officer.

It should be noted that most passengers would not have known the names of the officers, their ranks recognized only based upon the stripes on their uniforms. William Murdoch did not have time to adjust his insignia due to his last-minute demotion upon Henry Wilde's installation as Chief Officer.

Multiple eyewitness accounts, therefore, appear to mistake Henry Wilde and William Murdoch for one another.

Moreover, some have proposed the Henry Wilde might have been more predisposed to suicidal tendencies under his personal circumstances. Specifically, Wilde was described thusly by John Smith, who wrote to his brother Hugh about what he overheard in Charles Lightoller's private conversations at the New York-located club of the International Mercantile Marine, in what is known by Titanicophiles as the Portrush Letter.

But no matter who may have killed himself that night--William Murdoch, Henry Wilde, or another officer entirely--it is imperative to remember that the nautical culture at the time was to die an honorable death at sea having fulfilled one's duties, and suicide often fell under that sentiment. It was not a character flaw nor even cause for much alarm, as it seems to be taken today.

It was considered a noble and gallant Final Act.

Take, for instance, the account by First-Class survivor George Rheims, who wrote to his wife on April 19, 1912, of an unnamed officer's suicide with effusive admiration.

“Eternal Father, Strong to Save”: Fr. Thomas Byles

Thomas was born with the name Roussel Davids Byles in 1870, the first of seven children to a Protestant minister.

Roussel had initially turned to Anglicanism while conducting his collegiate studies, but that did not quite suit.

So after his brother William had converted to Catholicism, and Roussel had reportedly had some formative encounters with the Jesuits, Roussel likewise elected to become a Catholic.

Roussel took the name of Thomas upon his conversion, which he chose in honor of his beloved saint: Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Byles was ordained on June 15, 1902, in Rome, just above Piazza Navona. He was eventually assigned to St. Helen's Church in Essex, England.

There, he was beloved as a kind religious leader and learned man by his small and disadvantaged congregation.

Though slight of build and often in ill health, Thomas even taught some of the men of the town how to box when they admitted to him that they wanted learn the sport.

Two weeks before setting sail, Thomas had a visit from his friend Monsignor Edward Watson.

Over wine, they discussed St. Helen's, as well as the size of Thomas’s luggage.

During this visit, Watson recalled that it was iceberg season, and that he'd heard they were dangerous to sea travel. As they said goodbye, Watson worried that his friend might not return to England for the opportunities and family that Thomas would find in America.

Watson told Thomas, "I hope you'll come back again."

Thomas boarded Titanic in Southampton as a Second-Class passenger.

He was destined for Brooklyn, New York, where he had been invited to officiate the wedding of his little brother, William—the same brother whose conversion had inspired Thomas’s own.

After electing to leave the religious life, William had moved to New York City to run a rubber business. There, he had fallen in love with a local girl named Katherine Russell, who was about to become his bride.

At some time on board Titanic, Thomas made arrangements with Captain Smith to say mass for the Second and Third Classes, using the portable altar stone and accessories Monsignor Watson had lent to him.

There were other priests on board with whom Thomas coordinated, namely a German cleric named Father Josef Peruschitz, as well as a Lithuanian priest named Father Juozas Montvila.

In spite of being unable to perform Mass on April 11, Thomas reportedly heard confessions from his fellow passengers every day

On the morning of Sunday, April 14, Thomas conducted Catholic mass for Second-Class passengers in the Second-Class Library; he is reported to have recited the Propers of the Mass, as was custom for the Octave of Easter.

Simultaneously, a Protestant service was being conducted by Assistant Purser Reginald Barker.

Thomas thereafter made his way to the lower decks and performed a service for the passengers in steerage, in both English and French.

His new acquaintance, Father Josef Peruschitz, followed Thomas’s homily with his own sermon, spoken in German and Hungarian.

During this steerage Mass, Thomas and Josef reportedly spoke of the desolation of a life without faith, and about seeking salvation—and the chosen imagery therein would haunt survivors of the disaster to come.

That same night, Reverend Ernest Courtenay Carter held an informal "evensong" in the Second Class Library, after lamenting the absence of options for evening worship.

It was a plan he had discussed earlier in the library with Lawrence Beesley, whom he had befriended during the voyage. Lawrence wrote that Reverend Carter enlisted his assistance in asking permission from the Purser to hold what he called ‘a hymnal sing-song.’

The gathering was, in essence, a sing-along. Those who participated could choose each song, which was introduced with a brief history of it and its author.

It ended, Mr. Beesley thought, about 10:00 p.m.

It was here, during this Second-Class evensong, that passengers sang "Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Thanks, no doubt, to the irony of its verse regarding salvation “for those in peril on the sea,” this hymn often misrepresented as having been sung during the First-Class service held that very morning by Captain Smith.

There is no record of Thomas Byles being present for Reverend Carter's evensong on the night of April 14.

But Thomas was present for the iceberg itself.

He was reportedly pacing either the upper deck or the Second Class promenade, reciting the Breviarium Romanum in full priestly garb, at the moment that Titanic collided with the iceberg.

Thomas immediately headed down to Third Class.

According to survivor accounts, he spent his time there offering Blessings of Absolution, praying the Rosary with the passengers, and hearing confessions.

When the crash came we were thrown from our berths... Slightly dressed, we prepared to find out what had happened. We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted, Father Byles. We knew him because he had visited us several times on board and celebrated mass for us that very morning.

'Be calm, my good people,' he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings... A few around us became very excited and then it was that the priest again raised his hand and instantly they were calm once more.

Thomas proceeded to lead these Third-Class passengers through the confounding mazd of hallways up to the boat deck. He no doubt knowing full well the negligence they would encounter as steerage passengers, particularly if they could not speak English.

He prayed aloud as he guided his charges up top.

Once on the boat deck, Thomas was steadfast. He ushered women and children into the lifeboats, offering prayer and consolation as they went.

And as the danger became more evident, Thomas went about giving absolutions.

Thomas died in the sinking. His body was never recovered.

Once it was determined that not among the saved, the bells of St. Helen's in Essex began tolling in unrelenting sorrow.

For weeks thereafter, it was reported that Masses were said almost continuously for the repose of the soul of Thomas Byles.

At St. Helen's Catholic Church, a window depicting St. Patrick, Christ the Good Shepherd, and St. Thomas Aquinas was installed to honor the memory of Thomas, his faith, and his bravery.

The inscription on the window reads as follows. "Pray for the Rev Thomas Byles for 8 years Rector of this mission whose heroic death in the disaster to S.S. Titanic April 15 1912 earnestly devoting his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers, this window commemorates."

In Brooklyn, the bereaved William Byles and his fiancee Katharine held their wedding ceremony on time. It was considered bad luck to postpone.

Having rescinded the invitations via phone and telegram, the ceremony was small and simple, and in a different chapel. It was solemnly performed by a lifelong family friend of the bride.

After they were wed, William and Katherine promptly left the church to return home to change their clothes.

Once outfitted in black mourning attire, the newlyweds returned to the same church to attend a requiem Mass for Thomas.

Later in 1912, William and Katherine Byles met with Pope Pius X.

The Pope declared Father Thomas Byles as a martyr of the Catholic Church.

In 2015, Father Graham Smith, the priest at Thomas’s former parish of St. Helen’s, launched a petition in honor of “an extraordinary man who gave his life for others.”

And so, Thomas Byles has been nominated for beatification, so that he might become a saint.

“Some Curious Things”: Charles Joughin

Titanic's food was truly luxurious, even for Third Class. Second Class was considered better than First Class on other vessels. And we're all aware of how opulent First Class was. Desserts on various class menus include apple tart, cornbread, currant buns, plum pudding, and soda & sultana scones.

Fresh bread and butter, as well as Swedish bread, were included on the Third Class menu.

And the final dinner in First Class had Waldorf pudding, peaches in chartreuse jelly, chocolate and vanilla eclairs, and French ice cream.

As Chief Baker, these all would have fallen under Charles's purview.

Charles occupied what he called “The Confectioners Room,” as had been the case during his time on both the Olympic and Teutonic. He provided no explanation for his occupancy of these quarters other than “it is the better room.”

He was already off-duty and settled in his bunk when Titanic struck the iceberg, and he felt the impact. He said that he immediately understood the significance of the strike and went up on deck, but saw nothing amiss.

In time, he began hearing "general orders" filtered down from higher ups, and he prepared accordingly. He mustered his team in their shop, located on D Deck, and sent all 13 bakers up to boat deck with four loaves of bread each, as well as biscuits by some accounts, in order to stock provisions for the lifeboats.

He then backtracked to his cabin for, as he would later testify, "a drop of liqueur."

According to his testimony in the British Board of Trade inquiry, Charles recalled his name on a list in the galley, as the overseer of Lifeboat 10, in the case of an emergency.

But when he reported to his post by about 12:30 a.m., he was made to feel obsolete.

Chief Officer Henry Wilde had taken charge and was screaming at stewards to stay back. Charles interceded, because the men weren't actually pushing forward or causing chaos. Charles then assisted in loading women and children into the boat, but when all were aboard, he saw it was only half-full.

Joughin said a number of women actually ran away, prefering to stay on the ship--this may seem ridiculous in hindsight, but was actually a common phenomenon on Titanic. Without knowing how severe the damage was and how lethal the sinking would be, the liner felt much safer and more solid than a tiny little lifeboat, in the cold and dark, being slapped about the waves indefinitely.

Charles and some stewards ran down to A Deck, where they found some women and children confused, or immobilized by fear, and crouched on the deck.

Joughin and Co. more or less forced them up on top and "threw them in" the lifeboat.

The list to port had resulted in a yard-wide berth between the boat deck and the Lifeboat, and one woman actually slipped. By some miracle of God she was caught by steward William Burke, and hung upside down until she was pulled inside by people on A Deck.

When the boat was properly filled, Chief Officer Wilde ordered steward Burke and two other seamen in instead of Joughin, despite the lifeboat being his assignment.

He did not step in to save himself, insisting it would have set a bad example. They pushed off without him, and Charles went back to his cabin below deck.

To imbibe.

Now, it was against company policy to drink or have alcohol on board a White Star liner, so it’s been speculated that Charles's testimony at the inquiry about how much alcohol he'd thrown back may have been intentionally inaccurate.

Officially, he testified that it was a "tumbler half-full.”

With that in mind, depictions of Charles have probably exaggerated how drunk he really was.

Unfortunately, thanks in part to his own testimony, Charles Joughin’s legacy is one of comedic relief.

Charles stated that he was off-deck for nearly an hour. At some point while down below, he said he ran into the "old doctor" that is assumed to have been Dr. William O'Loughlin, who was Titanic’s chief surgeon.

Joughin testified that he saw Dr. O’Loughlin while he was having his “drop” in his cabin, which he stated was already awash in ankle-deep water.

According to Charles, they had a brief exchange, but there appears to be no primary documentation of the conversation.

While the assumption may be that Charles may have been inclined to understate his alcohol consumption to protect his livelihood or reputation, that is unproven.

Furthermore, even if Charles did fib a little, that does not necessarily mean he was drunk.

No eyewitness accounts speak to how much Charles Joughin actually drank.

We do know at one point that an unnamed drunk man stumbled past First-Class passenger Jack Thayer. And it is a myth often perpetuated that the inebriated man who young Thayer saw, was Charles Joughin.

It is generally agreed upon, however, that this is very likely false—that is, a speculation not supported by primary sources.

It is most probable that Jack Thayer saw someone else entirely. This is because, per his account, someone informed him that the drunk man was a Virginia senator. No passenger was serving in the Senate at the time, but one survivor later became one. Unfortunately, Jack Thayer didn't specify when he was told this fact.

Moreover, we don't know what Charles chose to drink.

In the unlikely event that Jack Thayer did encounter Charles Joughin, then Jack said he was drinking gin. Some others believe it was whiskey.

But in his testimony during the British inquiry, Charles kept it vague.

When you found your boat had gone you said you went down below. What did you do when you went down below?
- I went to my room for a drink.

Drink of what?
- Spirits.

The Commissioner:
Does it very much matter what it was?

Mr. Cotter:
Yes, my Lord, this is very important, because I am going to prove, or rather my suggestion is, that he then saved his life. I think his getting a drink had a lot to do with saving his life.

The Commissioner:
He told you he had one glass of liqueur.

(Mr. Cotter.) Yes. (To the Witness.) What kind of a glass was it?
- It was a tumbler half-full.

A tumbler half-full of liqueur?
- Yes

At all events, all the boats had gone?
- Yes.
Yes, what next?

- I went down on to "B" deck. The deck chairs were lying right along, and I started throwing deck chairs through the large ports.

What did you do with the deck chairs?
- I threw them through the large ports.

Threw them overboard?
- Yes.

They would float, I suppose?
- Yes.

I think one sees why. Just to make it clear, why did you do that?
- It was an idea of my own.

Tell us why; was it to give something to cling to?
- I was looking out for something for myself, Sir.

Quite so. Did you throw a whole lot of them overboard?
- I should say about 50.

Were other people helping you to do it?
- I did not see them.

You were alone, as far as you could see?
- There was other people on the deck, but I did not see anybody else throwing chairs over.

He then went up to an A Deck pantry to “get a drink of water”, and while there, Charles heard and felt a buckling of the ship as she split.

By early reports, Charles Joughin appeared to have jumped from A Deck.

But according to his own testimony at the inquiry, Charles alone climbed onto the outside of the stern railing, and was The Last Man to Leave Titanic.

He said that he saw no one else on the railing, and he rode Titanic's stern down until it submerged. According to Charles, he more or less stepped off the stern, barely even wetting his head as he entered the water.

How long do you think you were in the water before you got anything to hold on to?
- I did not attempt to get anything to hold on to until I reached a collapsible, but that was daylight.

Daylight, was it?
- I do not know what time it was.

Then you were in the water for a long, long time?
- I should say over two, hours, Sir.

Were you trying to make progress in the water, to swim, or just keeping where you were?
- I was just paddling and treading water.

And then daylight broke?
- Yes.

Did you see any icebergs about you?
- No, Sir, I could not see anything.

Did it keep calm till daylight, or did the wind rise at all?
- It was just like a pond.

Then you spoke of a collapsible boat. Tell us shortly about it?

- Just as it was breaking daylight I saw what I thought was some wreckage, and I started to swim towards it slowly. When I got near enough, I found it was a collapsible not properly upturned but on its side, with an Officer and I should say about twenty or twenty-five men standing on the top of it.

Given the timeline we know, it would seem that Charles’s memory may have suffered from a misperception of time—understandable, given the immediate trauma of the sinking.

All things considered—including the science of human biology in regard to hypothermia—it’s may be realistic to assume that he swam for up to a half-hour before coming to Collapsible B.

Regardless of how long Charles swam, Mr. Maynard clung to Joughin by the hand until Officer Lowe arrived, at which point Joughin swam over and was pulled aboard.

Charles said he was colder in that lifeboat than he ever felt in the water.

Charles's cool and calm decision to break into the liquor stores was lauded as the act that saved his life, although scientists have stated that excessive alcohol consumption can actually accelerate hypothermia.

Sometimes life is stranger than science allows.

The truth is that, regardless of intoxication, Charles was savvy enough to stay out of the water for as long as possible.

Charles was found to be pretty much entirely unharmed.

"I was alright barring my feet; they were swelled," he said. It's reported that due to this small inconvenience, Charles climbed the ladder to Carpathia on his knees.

Joughin later wrote to Walter Lord, author of A Night to Remember, to commend Lord's more accurate presentation of the sinking. He described his departure from the ship and his survival in the water, and openly questioned his less dramatic, more pointless actions.

“I Trust That They Are Better Off”: Rhoda Abbott

Rhoda Abbott had long been an elusive Titanic survivor.

As it turns out, this was because her name, on Titanic's manifest and in contemporary articles, was inaccurately written as Rose or Rosa. Regardless, on her birth, death, and marriage certificates, her name is listed as Rhoda. And with that, a comparative wealth of information has been discovered.

Rhoda about was born in England, and emigrated to Providence, RI, in 1894. There, she met and married a fellow expat named Stanton Abbott, who rose to fame as a middle-weight boxing champion. This fame, however, accelerated the deterioration of their marriage, and in 1911, Rhoda and Stanton separated.

Rhoda returned to England with their two teenaged sons, Rossmore and Eugene, on Titanic's longest-lived sister ship, the RMS Olympic.

They struggled to get by in England. Rhoda worked as a seamstress and Rossmore as a bootmaker, while Gene was still receiving schooling. But Rhoda soon realized that her boys were homesick--she was English, but they were American. So she decided to take them home.

Rhoda Abbott boarded Titanic as a third-class passenger with her two boys. Rossmore was 16 by this point; Gene was 13.

It's been reported that the boys, excited to get stateside and dazzled by Titanic, almost immediately peaced out from their mom to explore the ship. Rhoda spent time conversing at length with fellow English women in adjoining cabins, particularly Amy Stanley and Emily Goldsmith.

As a whole, those in Third Class, being low within the vessel, felt the greatest shudder upon impact with the iceberg. After feeling the collision, the boys wanted to get up to the boat deck to see what had happened. But their mother wanted to wait for instruction from a steward, so she made them stay put and go to bed.

At a quarter past midnight, a steward threw open their door, yelling, "All passengers on deck with life jackets."

Rhoda, Rossmore, and Gene managed their way up to the boat deck with a little maneuvering. As they shuffled in the mass across the stern's deck, the last of the distress signals was launched above them. Eventually, they reached Collapsible C, the boat that some of Rhoda's cabin neighbors, including Amy Stanley and Emily and Frankie Goldsmith, got in. With the assertion of 'Women and Children First' in full effect, Rhoda's sons were too old to be considered children.

At around 2:00 a.m., when Rhoda was frantically offered a place in Collapsible Lifeboat C, she pressed her two boys to her and refused. It was about 2:00 a.m.

Twenty minutes later, Titanic submerged.

Water overtook the boat deck as the officers were desperately trying to launch Collapsible A, which Rhoda and Gene were waiting for--Rossmore, in accordance with Rhoda's worst fear, was put firmly back with the other men.

Rhoda grabbed Gene's hands, but when she surfaced, both Rossmore and Gene had been dragged away underwater.

She never saw her boys again, alive or dead.

Rossmore's corpse was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett and committed to the sea on April 24, 1912. He was listed as follows.

Soon the raft tilted and all slid off into the water. Many of them managed to get back on it and some did not. I managed somehow to get on it, but I don’t know how. We were forced to stand on the float in lockstep to keep our balance for over six hours. Had it not been for Officer Laws I would have been drowned. I was nearly exhausted when he lifted me into his lifeboat. It would have been impossible for an officer to show more courtesy and many of the criticisms that have been made against this man are very unjust.

"Officer Laws" was, in fact, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, of Lifeboat 14, the only lifeboat to return for survivors.

Officer Lowe left Collapsible A behind. It was recovered one month later, in May of 1912, with three corpses still within.

Rhoda had been practically unconscious when removed from Collapsible A, and was cared for by a fireman until taken aboard Carpathia. She had no memory of any of it. According to fellow survivor Amy Stanley, once on board Carpathia, Rhoda was mute and shellshocked.

We were very close since we were on the Titanic together. And her stateroom had been near mine. I was the only one that she could talk to about her sons because I knew them myself. She told me that she would get [sic] in the lifeboat if there hadn't been so many people around. So she and her sons kept together. She was thankful that [the] three of them had stayed with her on that piece of wreckage. The youngest went first then the other son went. She grew numb and cold and couldn't remember when she got on the Carpathia. There was a piece of cork in her hair and I managed to get a comb and it took a long time but finally we got it out.

Stanton Abbott, an Englishman residing at Providence, R. I., inquired at the White Star Line office yesterday for his two sons, Rosmore Edward, 17 years old, and Eugene Joseph, 13, who were passengers with their mother, Mrs. Rose Abbott, 45 years old, on the Titanic, and were lost. The mother, he said, is in the New York Hospital in a dangerous condition from shock and fever. He was told that the body of the older boy had been recovered, and Mr. Abbott said he would go to Halifax to claim it.

“Like Locusts on a Midsummer Night”: Jack Thayer

On April 14, at 11:40 p.m., Jack was winding his watch and preparing for bed when he felt the breeze coming from his open window stop altogether, and the engines ceased their turnings.

He wrote, "The sudden quiet was startling and disturbing. Like the subdued quiet in a sleeping car, at a stop, after a continuous run."

Throwing on a coat over his pajamas, Jack hollered to his parents he was "going out to see the fun" and went up to the boat deck, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He moved toward the bow and, as his vision became accustomed to the night, saw pieces of ice on the well deck.

Jack retrieved his parents. On the way, they all noted that Titanic was listing to port.

The Thayers returned immediately to their stateroom and dressed. Jack, in a fit of clarity, put on two vests and a coat to try to safeguard himself from the cold.

Jack, his parents, and Miss Fleming banded together on boat deck until the Women-And-Children-First decree, when they parted ways with Marian and her maid at the top of the Grand Staircase.

Jack and his father assumed Marian and Margaret were safely off the ship, until a steward informed them otherwise. They chased the ladies down, and while John, Marian, and Margaret wandered off looking for a lifeboat, Jack was left behind.

It's possible that Jack was caught up in conversation with Milton Long, an acquaintance he'd only made earlier that same evening over coffee.

Jack and Milton went searching for boats, but the boys were impeded by the melee and missed out. At one point, they paused in between a set of empty lifeboat davits and traced a star's movement as it rose in between the davits, to determine how quickly the ship was going down.

Two collapsible boats were available, but the boys felt uneasy, having seen how precariously the traditional, all-wood lifeboats had been launched.

So they elected to remain on board Titanic instead of seeking placement in any of the collapsible lifeboats.

As Jack and Milton went back and forth on how to proceed, a man came out through a nearby door and staggered by, pounding down an entire bottle of gin as he went. Jack recalled thinking, "If I get out of this, that's one man I'll never see again."

[Titanic's] deck was turned slightly toward us. We could see groups of the almost 1,500 people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs or singly...

Here it seemed to pause, and just hung, for what felt like minutes. Gradually she turned her deck away from us, as though to hide from our sight the awful spectacle.

We had an oar on our overturned boat. In spite of several men working it, amid our cries and prayers, we were being gradually sucked in toward the great pivoting mass. I looked upwards — we were right underneath the three enormous propellers.

For an instant, I thought they were sure to come right down on top of us. Then, with the deadened noise of the bursting of her last few gallant bulkheads, she slid quietly away from us into the sea...

I don’t remember all the wild talk and calls that were going on on our boat, but there was one concerted sigh or sob as she went from view.

Probably a minute passed with almost dead silence and quiet. Then an individual call for help, from here, from there; gradually swelling into a composite volume of one long continuous wailing chant, from the 1,500 in the water all around us. It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night, in the woods in Pennsylvania.

The men prayed.

They sang hymns.

And when daylight finally broke, the Carpathia followed slowly. The men moved to stand, shifting their weights to and fro to the counter the swells as the air pocket that kept the lifeboat afloat continued to diminish. Every moment, more water overtook it.

Finally, hearing the cries from Collapsible B, Lifeboats 4 and 12, which were lashed together, crept over to take the surviving men on board.

Jack's mother was on Lifeboat 4.

He did not notice her. She did not notice him.

My dear Sir:

I received your letter this morning. Mother and I were very touched by it. Words cannot express how much we sympathise with you and Mrs. Long.

...Your son was perfectly calm all the time and kept his nerve, even to the very end. I wish I had more to tell you, but I hope this will be of some comfort to you. I am sending you my picture, thinking you might like to see who was with him at the end. I would treasure it very much if you could spare me one of his.

With our heartfelt sympathy, believe me,

Sincerely yours, John B. Thayer, Jr.

Jack went on to graduate from UPenn and pursue a banking career, get married, and have six children: three daughters and three sons, although one boy did not survive infancy. Both of Jack's surviving sons, Edward and John, served in the Second World War.

Edward Thayer had signed on as a bomber pilot, and was lost in the conflict when his plane was shot down in the Pacific theater in 1943. His remains were never recovered.

And the following year, on April 14--the anniversary of Titanic's collision with the iceberg--Jack's mother died. Doubly and profoundly bereaved, Jack's depression deepened.

He went missing in September of 1945, when he was 50 years old. He hadn't been seen for days. When he was finally found, he was dead in his car, parked alongside a trolley loop in Philadelphia.

He had slit his wrists, as well as his own throat.

When Jack's belongings were posthumously sorted, a small booklet was discovered; produced in 1940, it was one of 500 copies made for family and friends.

“My God, Don’t Ask Me Too Much”: Daniel and Mary Marvin

We don't know how Daniel and Mary met. What we do know is that when they fell in love, Daniel was only 18, and Mary was still in school at 17. They wed in a civil ceremony on January 8, 1912, without their parents' knowledge.

Young Mary found herself pregnant almost immediately thereafter. Once found out, Daniel and Mary had a staged do-over wedding in her parents' home on March 12, 1912, which was filmed. It's reported that this ceremony was the first wedding ever "cinematographed".

Mary's wedding gown was designed, of course, by Farquharson & Wheelock, and Mary was featured in Vogue.

Daniel and Mary elected to honeymoon in Europe, departing on the Mauretania. And in a twist of cruel, even maniacal fate, they were set to return to New York on the Carpathia--the very ship that rescued Titanic survivors--but were persuaded by Captain Smith, a friend of the family, to take the trip on Titanic with him.

Before they departed, Daniel's father gave him a hand-crank camera.

The young Marvins took to suite D-30. It's reported that they were fairly private during the voyage, and spent a significant amount of time filming around the ship.

After the collision at 11:40 p.m., a steward knocked on the couple's door around 12:25 a.m. He advised that lifeboats were being loaded as a precaution.

Mary dressed in a life-vest and a fur coat, and Daniel led her up to the boat deck. Mary was sent off in Lifeboat 10, which contained a number of very young children, including Titanic's youngest and last-to-die survivor: Millvina Dean, who was only two months old.

We know of Mary and Daniel's last exchange thanks to Mary herself.

Mary gave birth to Daniel's daughter in October of 1912. On Christmas Day of 1913, Mary married her late husband's best man, Horace de Camp. Together, they had two children, and Horace adopted Daniel's daughter.

Mary spent the remainder of her life in the Adirondacks.

Mary's first daughter disclosed that tensions between Mary's family and the grieving Marvin family were heightened in the wake of Daniel's loss. Specifically, she said that Mary was determined to keep the Marvins from ever learning too much about their son's final days on Titanic. I doubt we'll ever know why.

Mary was reportedly reticent to talk about Titanic, going so far as to decline multiple invitations to survivors' reunions. She did assert, however, that she had seen a man use a revolver to force his way into a lifeboat.

As she progressed in years, Mary relaxed her sense of privacy just enough to confide a small amount of things in her young grandson, Stuart de Camp. According to Stuart, he eventually eased his grandmother into discussing Titanic--he recalls that he was around 9 years old at the time.

Around that time, Mary asked Stuart to row out in a family boat with her to the center of Moose River in upstate New York. She brought with her two items completely unknown to Stuart.

Eventually, Mary instructed Stuart to cease his rowing.

As she waited for the boat to still, she revealed the mystery items one by one.

The first was the film reel of her wedding to Daniel Marvin; that is, the staged version her parents had arranged after discovering their elopement.

The second, said Stuart, was the reel Daniel had filmed while he and Mary sailed on Titanic—that same reel that young Mr. Marvin had thrown down into the lifeboat, for his beloved wife to safeguard.

And then, before the eyes of her bewildered grandson, Mary threw both reels into the river.

Launch Day

No, not April 10, 1912.

May 31, 1911, when liner-in-progress SS401 took its first bath.

It seemed that all of Belfast came to witness Titanic's so-called baptism in the River Lagan; some estimate up to 100,000 in the crowd, elbowing for space wherever it could be found. Recall from last year's post about the Harland & Wolff shipyard that the building of any ship, but especially the White Star liners, required the masterwork of thousands of citizens over a period of years. It forged a deeply personal connection, and was an accomplishment for the entire community. It bound them in elation and, less than a year later, in unbridled grief.

It's a challenge to underestimate just much the Titanic meant to Belfast.

As the design and dimensions of the Titanic and the Olympic are practically identical it is not now necessary to say much on this point, seeing that a detailed description of the latter - which would apply equally to her sister ship - has already been published in our columns. The vessels mark a new epoch in naval architecture. In size, construction, and equipment they represent the last word in this science...

Every detail had to be judged with mathematical accuracy if accidents had to be averted, and the preparations had therefore to be made with great care and caution. Over the bows of the vessel the White Star Company's flag floated, and there was displayed a code signal which spelled the word "success". If the circumstances under which the launch took place can be accepted as an augury of the future, the Titanic should be a huge success.

Titanic was not complete by any means--just its hull. It had none of its iconic four funnels, and the opulence that we associate with the ship was not yet installed. This was the day that Belfast would see if its newest baby could float.

An inch-thick coat of soft soap, tallow (id est, animal fat), and train engine oil slicked the tracks to allow the Titanic to slide down Slipway 3 into the waters at Belfast Lough, amounting to 23 tons of what must have been truly putrid grease. A daunting 80 tons of cable and multiple anchors were used to moderate the speed.

White Star was not the break-a-champagne bottle-on-the-hull sort of company. But it still knew how to get its pomp on. At least 90 members of the press were in attendance. Shipyard workers were given holiday without pay--unless they were assisting the launch.

Company dignitaries and those shipyard workers with ticketed admission took to stands that were built above the crowd. Lord William Pirrie, the Harland & Wolff chairman who was also celebrating a shared birthday with his wife that day, returned from inspecting the hydraulic rams shortly after noontime. At approximately 12:05 p.m., a pair of rockets were fired to warn other crafts in the vicinity. After ascending the stands with White Star chairman J. Bruce Ismay and financier J.P. Morgan, Lord Pirrie finally gave the signal at 12:13 p.m.

Another red rocket was set off.

And as little white flags bearing "Good Luck" shuddered en masse, an exclamation of "There she goes!" echoed in the crowd.

It took a total of 62 seconds for the bow to take the water as the crowd chased its descent, after which the empty hull floated serenely to the other side of the Lagan. From there, five tugboats dragged what would become Titanic to the deep water berth where it would be fitted for its maiden voyage next year.

And in the chaos of all this, yes, someone did die.

James Dobbin was what was called an 'old hand'--an established and well-known shipwright about the Yard. On Launch Day, he was assigned to knocking out the wooden support beams as the ship groaned forward. He was cross-sawing one of these shoring timbers when it collapsed and crushed him.

Dobbin was extricated by his colleagues and sent to the Royal Victoria Hospital--and in the company car, no less--where after surgery, he died from his injuries on June 2, 1911, two days following the launch of Titanic. His cause of death was listed by the coroner as "Accidentally crushed under a piece of timber... Shock and haemorrhage following fracture of pelvis."

Jimmy Dobbin was 43, and married. It's reasonably speculated that his wife Rachel and their only child, 17-year-old James, were most likely there that day, witnessing the launch alongside all the rest of Belfast... with no concept of what was happening to Jimmy as Titanic slid away.

And hardly did anyone else. Not Lord Pirrie, who hosted Ismay and Morgan at a private lunch afterward. Not any of the jollymakers celebrating through the day and into the evening. And all the while Titanic bobbed and whispered in its berth, awaiting its engines, its fittings, its crew and its passengers.

In 2014, a family photo album containing over 100 before-unknown photos of Titanic and Olympic were auctioned by the family of John Kempster, who was a director and senior engineer at Harland & Wolff; thirteen of those photographs were taken May 31, 1911. On that day, Kempster was acting as the master of ceremonies at one of the celebratory luncheons hosted by Harland & Wolff at Belfast's Grand Central Hotel.

A haunting handwritten caption of the newly discovered photos reads 'Going, going, gone.'

A Stake of Holly Through His Heart: Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”

Charles Dickens was an established author and an ardent advocate of the people.

In the springtime of 1843, Dickens read the 1842 report published by Royal Commission of Inquiry into Children's Employment, which detailed the abominable and grotesque conditions of ongoing child labor.

Therein, it was detailed that girls sewed for 16 hours a day and took shelter just above the factory floor, and young boys pushed coal carts through choked, lightless corridors for 12 or more hours. They suffered; they were ill. They often died.

Dickens himself had been forced to leave school and work in a bootblack factory at only 12 years old, after his father was thrown into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in London in 1824.

It was a nightmare he carried with him--and often wove into his prose--for the rest of his life.

Dickens had also visited America in 1842--and he really, really hated it.

In fact, he only traveled to the Northern states, too enraged and appalled by slavery to dignify the South with even the thought of a visit.

But despite the nightmare of American manners, or lack there of, he took a great interest in industrial cities and working conditions of the poor; he even visited The Five Points. Yes, the "Gangs of New York" Five Points.

When Dickens got back, he wrote a series called "American Notes" about how awful America was--to Americans' great offense--and also a novel. This book bombed so badly, he ended up having to pay his publisher.

Dickens also famously visited and later wrote about the Field Lane Ragged School for children, which directly influenced another of his most famous novels: Oliver Twist.

But regarding Dickens' advocacy: what to do with this horrific child labor?

Not unlike arguments made today by certain parties, many argued that sure, it was awfully sad, but honestly, they were poor because they were lazy, and to help them would only encourage them to continue to be lazy; it was best to turn them away to prevent enabling their needy poverty. Or, you know, if you fed them, it would lead to an increased population of poor, malnourished malcontents.

So the solution was, sure, there was technically help to be found in the form of workhouses, but if you went there, you were separated from your family, made to live in squalor, and were barely fed.

Essentially, they created refuge, but refuge that was intentionally horrific in order to dissuade those same needy people from seeking it out.

Dickens wanted to write a pamphlet to enlighten the masses. But he realized that doing so would compel very few, and would make exactly no one want to listen to him.

Instead, he decided, he needed a narrative, and a character made of spite and redemption, to be his vessel.

Tiny Tim was originally "Little Fred" and then "Tiny Mick."

Dickens had two younger brothers named Fred (Frederick and Alfred, ok?) but they were not the inspiration for Tim, although the name Fred stuck with the novel in character of Scrooge's nephew.

It seems that Tiny Tim was based on Dickens' own nephew, Henry Burnett, Jr., the ailing little boy of Dickens' sister, Fanny. Henry had "tuberculosis of the bone" or renal tubular acidosis. He died in 1849, just shy of 10 years old and only a year after his own mother, Fanny.

It's been speculated that the character of Tiny Tim did have RTA, or rickets, given that he uses a crutch and leg braces, and that his health rebounds due to Scrooge's loving intervention and belief in good health being found in one's diet. This is most likely because certain foods, such as citrus, would have aided in RTA, whereas medicinal approaches of the time would have exacerbated the symptoms.

As for Scrooge, a lot of theorizing's been done about the character who even today personifies the reformative potential of the human spirit.

Anyway. Dickens's publisher, Chapman & Hall, gave him hell over the whole thing; do recall that his last effort had been a bust.

Dickens finally came to an agreement with them that he would pay for production, which he would be reimbursed for via the profits if "A Christmas Carol" sold well, a fact of which he had no doubt.

So Chapman & Hall bungled the book by producing it with supremely ugly olive-colored endpapers, which Dickens hated.

They updated to yellow endpapers, but those didn't suit the title page, which subsequently had to be reworked.

Charles Dickens has often been credited as the Inventor of Modern Christmas.

His novel appeared to turn the holiday into a one-day family feast, instead of the manorial Twelvetide of celebrations long past. Because those had been left behind in the wake of poverty and cruel industrialism.

But even with workhouses and child labor in the world and Twelvetide an ancient and unobtainabld memory, people could still have at least a single day of Christmas.

In fact, "A Christmas Carol" was a lauded as a "sledgehammer to the ills of Industrialism."

It was in Dickens' Christmas that the world discovered the warm and humble spirit of celebrating with the nuclear family, in one's own parlor.

Dickens turned Christmas from a jolly festival to an almost sanctified act of familial love. That, married with Dickens's depictions of new-fangled Christmas trees, as well as carolers and the sumptuous Christmas-Day turkey, was instrumental in the concept of the Christmas so dear (and Dickensian) to us today.

Christmas thusly became a holiday of togetherness and forgiveness.

In addition, the greeting "Merry Christmas" had been around for centuries, but Dickens is credited with its universal popularity due to its use in "A Christmas Carol."

"But that queer old head took on a sort of beauty, bye and bye, and a fascinating interest, as I thought of the wonderful mechanism within it, the complex but exquisitely adjusted machinery that could create men and women, and put the breath of life into them and alter all their ways and actions, elevate them, degrade them, murder them, marry them, conduct them through good and evil, through joy and sorrow, on their long march from the cradle to the grave, and never lose its godship over them, never make a mistake! I almost imagined I could see the wheels and pulleys work. This was Dickens — Dickens. There was no question about that, and yet it was not right easy to realize it."

This is Halloween: The Headless Horseman

Unlike the Green Knight, however, the Dullahan's ink-black horse breathes sparks and flames from its gaping nostrils, and the Dullahan holds his head--which sometimes described as having the color and/or consistency of moldy cheese--aloft, which aids his supernatural sight.

His head, with its deep hollows for eyes and its rictus grin, is sometimes secured beneath his leg instead. He rides with a long whip... made of human vertebrae.

Celts are morbid.

He rides in pursuit of a single mortal soul: a particular person doomed to die at the Dullahan's gruesome whim. But the dullahan is also afflicted with limited speech, and is only able to utter one name--this one person's name--per journey.

And this one person cannot escape the Dullahan, because all locks, no matter the gate or door, will open to him.

If another unfortunate soul happens to see the dread Dullahan, he will blind one or both their eyes--striking it out with his grotesque whip--or throw a bucket of blood in their face.

Celts are really, really morbid.

This grim rider reportedly originated in the worship of Crom Dubh, a fertility god who demanded human sacrifice. This sacrifice, undertaken by a certain ancient Irish king, was best made by decapitation.

But when Catholicism galloped in to change the world, Crom Dubh still demanded headless sacrifice, and manifested in so-called corporeal form, as the Dullahan.

The Dullahan's counterpart in other regions of Ireland is the Coiste Bodhar, or Death Coach.

The Coiste Bodhar's headless coachman reigns four or a half-dozen pitch black horses, who pull a coach made of coffins and/or human bones.

The Death Coach moves at such unnatural speed that the brush lining the road it barrels down are often set to flame. The rickety rumbling of its wheels is often accompanied by a banshee's wail.

Scotland has its own death coach: a pale shade, ringing for and collecting the dead, that haunts the cobbled Royal Mile in Edinburgh. As in Ireland, to witness the Death Coach is an omen of your demise.

We know the tale by our modern Dullahan: the Headless Horseman. He is an agile rider bearing a carved pumpkin as his severed head. And after a harvest festival rife with ghost stories and punctuated by refused marriage proposals, the Headless Horseman pursues schoolmaster Ichabod Crane into the deep autumn night, toward the Old Dutch Burying Ground.

Ichabod Crane is never seen again.

All that is left of him is his hat, his horse's tramped saddle, and a pumpkin shattered on the ground. His ghost, old wives have said, wanders melancholy throughout the village of Sleepy Hollow, "spirited away" as he was "by supernatural means."

This Is Halloween: Honoring the Dead

I've never met anyone who doesn't have at least a passing familiarity with Samhain (but seriously, it's pronounced SAW-ehn, ok?)

It's, like, Protohalloween.

One of four time-passage (i.e., seasonal) festivals of the Celtic calendar, Samhain began on October 31 and marked the end of the harvest period and the onset of winter. This was also when livestock were selected for slaughter.

During this eerie transitional time, the veil between the natural world and the otherworld was lifted, and various rituals were performed in response, some varying by region.

Hilltop bonfires are a popular example. Sometimes a bonfire was used for protection via"sympathetic" magic, by imitating the sun and thereby enveloping the revelers in light as darkness dominated the year; many people would steal this protective flame and circle their home with torch in hand, to trace a protective circle. Other rituals used the fire for divination and games.

Fire was also a staple of cleansing rituals, such as inhaling smoke, or walking one by one between a pair of bonfires.

Some speculate that bonfires having drawn in bats led to the creatures' primitive association with Halloween. Because firelight attracts bugs, and bats wouldn't have been far behind, regularly sweeping in for dinner. So in an electricity-less age, a Samhain bonfire would have been one of the few opportunities to see this strange, shrieking creature dart in and out of the light.

Accounts of so many different Samhain rituals float around without ever citing a time period, coz frankly, we don't really know. What we do know is that the liminality was celebrated and feared. The Otherworld invited the visits of fairies and the dead into our human realm, as passage was free and easy on this in-between day.

Some, like your ancestors, you welcomed to your dinner table with an empty chair and reverent silence; some, you tried to ward away from your home with glowing, carved gourds, or trick by disguising yourself so they could not find you. It's said that this eventually became "guising,: or putting on a costume and going door to door to recite snippets of poems or plays in exchange for food.

But if you wandered out into the night, there was a chance you could find yourself lost in the Otherworld. To propitiate these sprites and ghosts, offerings of food, usually a portion of the crop, or drinks would be left outside for them.

Honoring the dead is, of course. a pan-cultural phenomenon.

And then there are the forgotten festivals.

Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival, had massive influence over the Catholic calendar. According to Ovid, it began when Romulus, the surviving twin founder of Rome, was haunted by the angry ghost of his murdered brother Remus (Remuria became Lemuria, you see).

Lemuria was celebrated on alternating days mid-May (Maius): May 9, 11, and 13.

The grimmest of all those days was the last. The ghosts of those poorly departed never given proper rites were called "lemures" would wander the mortal world, seeking to bond with the living, usually a household. But they could not necessarily be trusted, since they were not family.

For those ghosts who weren't your forebears, you left offerings of leftover food, coins, or water or milk--sometimes at a crossroad--to ease their journeys, but on broken platters, so they knew they were not welcome to stay. I've also heard of milk being poured on graves to quell these ghosts.

But during Lemuria, there were also the larvae--the restless, vengeful dead who would haunt the living.

To dispel the larvae from a home, the family patriarch would rise in the night and wash his hands three times. Then--barefoot, or at least with no bounds or knots in his clothing or shoes--he throws beans over his shoulder, or according to some, spits them out. As he goes, he recites an incantation to "redeem him and his" from the evil larvae.

He would do this in every room, nine times each, and at the end, he or the family made a freaking racket with bronze pans or gongs (or whatever) while banishing the larvae with another incantation.

In 609 A.D., the Pope turned Lemuria into All Saints Day. And some historians speculate that All Saints Day as we know it, a.k.a. All Hallows Day, was moved to its current place in the calendar by the Church specifically to remove focus from the pagan ritual of Samhain.

This made October 31 All Hallows Evening--the night before All Hallows Day.

Then All Hallows Even.

Then Hallowe'en.

And in case you were wondering: yes, the lemurs of Madagascar were named after the lemures. Because of their wide eyes and ghostly faces.

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Category: Uncategorized

“Our Brightest Star”: First Officer William Murdoch

"Our Brightest Star": First Officer William Murdoch

“Eternal Father, Strong to Save”: Fr. Thomas Byles

"Eternal Father, Strong to Save": Fr. Thomas Byles

“Some Curious Things”: Charles Joughin

"Some Curious Things": Chief Baker Charles Joughin

“I Trust That They Are Better Off”: Rhoda Abbott

"I Trust That They Are Better Off": Rhoda Abbott

“Like Locusts on a Midsummer Night”: Jack Thayer

"Like Locusts on a Midsummer Night": Jack Thayer

PUBLIC DOMAIN

“My God, Don’t Ask Me Too Much”: Daniel and Mary Marvin

“My God, Don’t Ask Me Too Much”: Daniel Warner Marvin & Mary Farquharson Marvin

A portrait of Mary, originally published in the Butler Citizen (Pennsylvania) in 1914. Courtesy of Encyclopedia Titanica as provided by Gavin Bell.

Daniel Warner Marvin.

Still from Daniel & Mary's "cinematographed" wedding, filmed on March 12, 1912.

As reported in the New York Times dated April 19, 1912. © Citation: Holman, Hannah. "Titanic Voices: 63 Survivors Tell Their Extraordinary Stories," 2011.

Titanic survivors on board the rescue ship Carpathia. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Moose River in the Adirondacks, as taken by Anne LaBastille in May 1973 for the Enivronmental Protection Agency.

Launch Day

Launch Day

© Adam Jones, Ph.D. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Lord Pirrie (left) and J. Bruce Ismay on May 31, 1911, prior to Titanic's launch. Taken by Robert John Welch for Harland & Wolff.

From the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

SOURCE MATERIAL

A Stake of Holly Through His Heart: Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”

A Stake of Holly Through His Heart: Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol"

This is Halloween: The Headless Horseman

Watch Your Head: Dullahans & Death Coaches

This Is Halloween: Honoring the Dead

Our Dearly Departed: Samhain, Lemuralia, & the Evolution of Hallowmas

"Our Brightest Star": First Officer William Murdoch

"Eternal Father, Strong to Save": Fr. Thomas Byles

"Some Curious Things": Chief Baker Charles Joughin

"I Trust That They Are Better Off": Rhoda Abbott

"Like Locusts on a Midsummer Night": Jack Thayer

“My God, Don’t Ask Me Too Much”: Daniel Warner Marvin & Mary Farquharson Marvin

A portrait of Mary, originally published in the Butler Citizen (Pennsylvania) in 1914. Courtesy of Encyclopedia Titanica as provided by Gavin Bell.

Daniel Warner Marvin.

Still from Daniel & Mary's "cinematographed" wedding, filmed on March 12, 1912.

As reported in the New York Times dated April 19, 1912. © Citation: Holman, Hannah. "Titanic Voices: 63 Survivors Tell Their Extraordinary Stories," 2011.

Titanic survivors on board the rescue ship Carpathia. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Moose River in the Adirondacks, as taken by Anne LaBastille in May 1973 for the Enivronmental Protection Agency.

Launch Day

Lord Pirrie (left) and J. Bruce Ismay on May 31, 1911, prior to Titanic's launch. Taken by Robert John Welch for Harland & Wolff.

From the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

SOURCE MATERIAL

A Stake of Holly Through His Heart: Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol"

Watch Your Head: Dullahans & Death Coaches

Our Dearly Departed: Samhain, Lemuralia, & the Evolution of Hallowmas

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