Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  I was fast asleep when the ship hit the iceberg, he continued. So were the rest in my room. I got up and dressed in the suit I have on and my little girl put on her dress. I put on a life preserver and the rest of our party did the same. It was about 11 o’clock when someone woke us up. When we got to the top I could see that the forward end of the boat was sinking down and that there was quite a decline that way. There was a lifeboat lowered and I think that was the last one put down. They put my little girl down first, letting her down with a rope. Then they let me down. I do not know why they did this – perhaps it was because it was the last boat and there was still room for somebody. When I got into the boat I found that I was the only man there. All the rest were women and children. Of course the sailors were in the boat to pull it. I think that I was the last man to get off the ship. There were fifty-two people in the boat. There were seven babies in the company. Thirty passengers were on it.

  At a quarter to one o’clock, when we were about 300 feet from the steamship, it sank. Its forward end went down and it seemed to raise right in the air and dive.

  At this point Mr Korun took his drawing and lifted it up straight to indicate the position of the ship when it took the plunge.

  I heard two big booms, he continued. I think it was the boilers exploding. I did not see the ship break in two. An awful scene followed, people drowning and crying for help. I shall never forget the sight. I did not feel the suction from the ship when it went down.

  Then for four and a half hours we were in the boat. The sea was smooth but it was full of chunks of ice, some small and some large. It was cold like Christmas and we shivered from it. My little girl was in the same boat and was very brave. I tried to keep her warm.

  What became of my brother-in-law? I do not know. He went on top too, but I lost sight of him. You could not see much there. He went down with the ship.

  (Galesburg Republican Register, 23 April 1912)

  OVER £150,000 FOR WRECK VICTIMS

  ‘Money is pouring in.’ This announcement, made at the Mansion House last night, supplements the news that the Lord Mayor’s fund for sufferers by the Titanic disaster has now reached over £100,000.

  This huge total is an effective illustration of the full realization by the charitable public of the effect of the disaster. But more is required to meet the needs of the widows and fatherless and other sufferers by the wreck, and there is no doubt that it will be forthcoming.

  Elsewhere the relief funds are being liberally supported. At Southampton last night the Mayor’s fund had reached £12,380. Liverpool, New York and other cities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada are raising funds for the same noble purpose. Altogether it is estimated that over £150,000 has already been willingly subscribed.

  (Daily News, 23 April 1912)

  THE LAST PARTING

  Mrs Astor has told her experiences, bit by bit – because she is not yet strong enough to speak for any length of time – to her relatives in New York.

  She said that when Colonel Astor awakened her and told her that something was wrong with the ship he assured her that the Titanic could not sink. She dressed hurriedly, put on some jewellery, went with her husband to the boat deck, and they put on lifebelts. Noticing that she was lightly dressed, her husband sent to their state room for a heavier dress and helped her to change and wrapped a fur coat around her.

  Mrs Astor added that she got into the last boat but one.

  Colonel Astor said to me, she continued: ‘The sea’s calm. You’ll be all right. You’re in good hands. I’ll meet you in the morning.’ Then he kissed me affectionately and stood smiling down at me as the lifeboat was lowered. I noticed that the ship was settling as we rowed away, and I could make out the figure of Kitty, my favourite terrier, running about the deck.

  Then I saw the Titanic go down. We floated seven hours. It was very cold and the icy water was sweeping through the bottom of the boat up to my knees when the Carpathia’s men rescued us. I rowed part of the time, as I knew how to handle an oar, and so did Mrs G. D. Widener. We picked up eight or ten drowning men during the night.

  (Daily Graphic, 24 April 1912)

  LADY SURVIVOR

  Married in the Hospital at New York

  Miss Sarah Roths [sic], one of the Titanic survivors, who had been taken to St Vincent’s Hospital, New York, suffering from shock, was married in the hospital on Monday to Mr Daniel Michael Iles, a clerk in New York. Both were born in sight of the Tower of London, and had been companions in childhood. The bride’s trousseau and money are at the bottom of the Atlantic. She told her story to Mrs Frederick Vanderbilt and other charity workers at the hospital, and Father Grogan, of the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, was consulted.

  The bridegroom was speedily found, and the Women’s Relief Committee saw that the necessary trousseau for the bride was forthcoming. The news of the impending wedding spread quickly through the hospital, and nurses, doctors, charity workers, patients, and survivors begged to be allowed to witness the ceremony. Some were wheeled to the door of the hall in invalid chairs, while others watched from the stairways. The hall was decorated with pink roses.

  Miss Teresa E. O’Donoghue, a member of the Women’s Relief Committee, stepped to the piano and played the Wedding March from ‘Lohengrin’. The bride was given away by Mr Gerald Redman, whose sister was saved with Miss Roths. Miss Redman, of course, was the bridesmaid. Mrs Vanderbilt was one of the first to wish the bridal pair a long and prosperous life.

  Mr and Mrs Iles will start housekeeping at the bridegroom’s address, in 24th Street.

  (Nottingham Evening News, 24 April 1912

  TITANIC’S SURVIVOR COMES TO ROCKFORD

  Having lost her brother and sweetheart and herself barely escaped death, Miss Dagmar Bryhl [sic], the Rockford-bound survivor from the mid-ocean tragedy of the Titanic, reached this city at 6.30 o’clock this morning in company with her uncle, Oscar R. Lustig, and is now rested at his home at 502 Pearl Street.

  Thus is ended what was to have been a summer visit of Miss Bryhl [sic], her brother, Kurt Bryhl [sic] and her affianced sweetheart Ingvar Enander, to Rockford relatives, and gloom has been cast over a number of families in this city to whom the brother and sister are related.

  The arrival of Mr Lustig and his niece has been anxiously awaited. They reached here much later than was expected but this was due to Miss Bryhl’s [sic] condition. Although she is reported to be gaining composure, she still is said to be feeble, and her uncle positively refused everyone permission to see her this morning.

  ‘Poor Dagmar!’ exclaimed Mr Lustig, the tears welling into his eyes as he spoke to a Republic reporter. ‘You cannot see her now. Nobody knows what the poor girl went through. Her nerves are all a-tremble, and I am afraid it will be some time before those awful hours will be effaced from her mind. I have not asked her a thing about it myself, but sometimes she would sit with her chin on her hand, brooding, and then she would tell me snatches of her terrible experiences.’

  Mr Lustig and his niece left New York Tuesday evening about 6 o’clock and arrived in Chicago last night. He was anxious to get back to Rockford and went to Rochelle hoping to get an early accommodation train out of there. They passed the night in Rochelle and the constant travelling so wore out Miss Bryhl’s [sic] strength that she was put to bed as soon as she reached her uncle’s home here.

  While the reporters were not permitted to talk with Miss Bryhl [sic] today, her uncle, who is a well educated man, told the account that his niece had given him from time to time since he met her in New York last Saturday.

  Dagmar and her brother, Kurt, and her sweetheart, Ingvar Enander, left their home in Skara, in Sweden, April 3. They all sailed second class, and none of them had any intentions of remaining in Rockford. It was simply to be a visit, although it might have happened that Kurt would have remained. Enander had taken a course in agriculture and expected to continue his studies and observations here.

  Dagmar told me that on the
Sunday evening when the Titanic hit the iceberg the weather was quite balmy. Several hours before the crash came Dagmar says that she was on deck wearing a light summer dress. She says it was a wonderfully bright night. About 9 o’clock or so, however, the air was recommended to be chilly and soon it was positively cold.

  ‘It was so cold,’ said Dagmar, ‘that I went after my coat and everybody else did. Finally it became almost too cold for the deck. The coldness, of course, indicated we were in the region of the icebergs and that warning it seems the ship’s officers should have taken.’

  The story of the crash and the subsequent happenings Mr Lustig says his niece has told him substantially as follows:

  I was in my berth when the Titanic hit the berg. I noticed the jar and soon I heard Ingvar knocking on the door of my cabin. ‘Get up, Dagmar,’ he said. ‘The ship has hit something.’ I put on a skirt and a coat as quickly as possible and hurried up to the deck. But the officers said: ‘Go back, there is no danger; you go to your cabins.’

  I returned to my berth and went back to bed. I had not laid very long before there was more knocking on my door and Ingvar was yelling: ‘Get up, Dagmar, we are in danger. I don’t care what the ship’s officers say, I tell you we are in danger of our lives. The boat is sinking.’

  Again I flung on my skirt and coat and ran up. Someone said we had hit an iceberg. The screaming and yelling was awful. They were putting women and children into the boats and lowered them into the sea. Men and women were kissing each other farewells. Ingvar and Kurt led me to a boat and Ingvar lifted me into it. I seized his hands and wouldn’t let go. ‘Come with me!’ I screamed as loud as I could and still holding his hands tight. There was room in the boat. It was only half-filled, but an officer ran forward and clubbed back Ingvar. This officer tore our hands apart and the lifeboat was let down. As it went down I looked up. There, leaning over the rail, stood Kurt and Ingvar side by side. I screamed to them again, but it was no use. They waved their hands and smiled. That was the last glimpse I had of them.

  The men that rowed our boat pushed away from the Titanic. The air was very cold and we all shivered. They rowed us around and we saw the great ship sink. Then came more dreadful screams. The water filled with crying people. Some of them climbed in our boat and so saved their lives.

  We were out in the lifeboat from 11 o’clock Sunday night until 6 o’clock Sunday morning, when the Carpathia came. Seven hours without any clothing thick enough to protect me from the cold benumbed my limbs. Oh, I can’t ever tell the thoughts that came to me out there. The sea was so still and clear as a mirror, it seemed, and over us was a clear and cloudless sky.

  When Miss Bryhl [sic] was taken aboard the Carpathia with the other survivors, her plight attracted the sympathy of a wealthy Jewish woman from New York. This kind-hearted woman’s generosity, however, gave Mr Lustig some hours of anxiety when he reached New York. Miss Bryhl’s [sic] benefactor took her in charge and, instead of registering her with the relief committee in New York, walked her down the gang-plank, placed her in an automobile and hurried her to the Hospital for Deformities and Joint Diseases, a charitable institution at 1915 Madison Ave., which is supported by Jewish philanthropists. The result was, although the Carpathia’s survival list included Miss Bryhl’s [sic] name, no one could tell her uncle where he would find his niece. Miss Bryhl [sic] wrote to Mr Lustig the morning after reaching the hospital, supposing that he was still in Rockford, but it was not until his relatives here telegraphed him the address at which the girl was stopping that he came in communication with her.

  The uncle had left Rockford as soon as the full details of the wreck and the rescue of his niece were reported. He intended to be on hand when she arrived and to take her in charge, and does not feel in the least satisfied with the treatment accorded him by some of the White Star Line officials.

  He says he was met with icy looks and chilly courtesy at the steamship office. No one seemed to know anything. The manager refused to talk with him. Then Mr Lustig threatened to go to the newspaper offices and tell the press about the treatment he was receiving, and he says that the effect of this threat was electrical. Even the manager then had time to see him.

  Miss Bryhl [sic], according to her uncle, has again and again declared between hysterical sobs, that if she had thought that her brother and her sweetheart would be lost that she would never have allowed them to put her in the lifeboat. She says that she would rather have died with them when the great ship settled into the deep than to live with the memory of all that took place graven into her mind for all the subsequent days to come.

  (Rockford (Illinois) Republic, 25 April 1912)

  MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN

  Mr Chiozza Money, M.P., has received from the President of the Board of Trade the following particulars showing the numbers saved and percentage of each class and sex of passengers on the Titanic.

  First-class passengers

  Men carried 173; saved 58; per cent saved 34.

  Women carried 143; saved 139; per cent saved 97.

  Children carried 5; saved 5; per cent saved 100.

  Total carried 321; saved 202; per cent saved 63.

  Second-class passengers

  Men carried 160; saved 13; per cent saved 8.

  Women carried 93; saved 78; per cent saved 84.

  Children carried 24; saved 24; per cent saved 100.

  Total carried 277; saved 115; per cent saved 42.

  Third-class passengers

  Men carried 454; saved 55; per cent saved 12.

  Women carried 179; saved 98; per cent saved 55.

  Children carried 76; saved 23; per cent saved 30.

  Total carried 799; saved 176; per cent saved 25.

  Crew

  Men carried 875; saved 189; per cent saved 22.

  Women carried 23; saved 21; per cent saved 91.

  Total carried 898; saved 210; per cent saved 23.

  Total passengers and crew

  Men carried 1,662; saved 315; per cent saved 19.

  Women carried 439; saved 336; per cent saved 77.

  Children carried 105; saved 52; per cent saved 49.

  Total passengers and crew carried 2,206; saved 703; per cent saved 32.

  (Cork Free Press, 25 April 1912)

  CAPTAIN SMITH DIED HERO’S DEATH

  Taking refuge on the bridge of the ill-fated Titanic, two little children remained by the side of Capt. Smith until that portion of the big ship had been swept by water. Survivors of the crew who went down with the Titanic but were saved by clinging to an overturned lifeboat, told of their gallant commander’s efforts to save the life of one of the children. He died a sailor’s death, and the little girl who had entrusted her life to his care died with him.

  He held the little girl under one arm, said James McGann, a fireman, jumped into the sea and endeavoured to reach the nearest lifeboat with the child. I took the other child into my arms as I was swept away from the bridge deck. Then I was plunged into the cold water. I was compelled to release my hold on the child, and I am satisfied that the same thing happened to Captain Smith.

  I had gone to the bridge deck to assist in lowering a collapsible boat. The water was then coming over the bridge and we were unable to launch the boat properly. It was overturned and was used as a life-raft, some thirty or more of us, mostly firemen, clinging to it. Captain Smith looked as though he was trying to keep back the tears as he thought of the doomed ship.

  He turned to the men lowering the boat and shouted: ‘Well, boys, It’s every man for himself.’ He then took one of the children standing by him on the bridge and jumped into the sea. He endeavoured to reach the overturned boat but did not succeed. This was the last seen of Captain Smith.

  (Nova Scotian, 26 April 1912)

  A BUSINESS DELAY PREVENTED TRIP ON THE TITANIC

  What I considered at the time a vexatious and unlooked-for delay in closing up some business affairs in London prevented me from embarking on the ill-fated Titanic, and I sailed the
following day on the White Star Celtic from Liverpool instead.

  This was the statement to a Star representative today by Mr John McDowell, general manager of the Frederick King and Co., Ltd, Belfast and London, and one of the prominent citizens of the former city.

  It was partly for the sentimental reason that they both belonged to the same city which made Mr McDowell anxious to be a passenger on the maiden trip of the Titanic.

  Up to the last minute there was doubt whether Capt. Smith would arrive in Belfast in time to take command of the Titanic. All the big steamship men in Belfast regarded him as one of the finest and most careful navigators on the high seas.

  The wireless operator on board the Celtic received the death call from the Titanic and informed the captain. We were far behind her, but full speed was kept up for some hours until word was received that the other vessels were much nearer and were hastening to aid the doomed steamer. Our course was then changed southward to escape the icefield, and we met no ice all the way into New York.

  (Montreal Daily Star, 26 April 1912)

  ‘DRESSED AS A SAILOR’

  Mme. Cardeza, whose husband and mother-in-law were among the survivors of the Titanic disaster, will go to New York today in order to accompany her husband on the homeward voyage.

  She has received, it is stated, a letter from her husband in which he says that he bribed two sailors to give him sailor’s clothing.

  He and his secretary, dressed in these clothes, with his mother and her companion, succeeded in gaining the lifeboat, as they were supposed to be sailors.

  (Daily Sketch, 26 April 1912)

  BELFAST VICTIMS

  News About Local People on Board Liner

  Nowhere did the grim details of the Titanic’s last moments create a more profound effect than in Belfast. The closer one approaches to the tragedy, the greater becomes its terrible significance and the narratives of the survivors have driven the awful truth home to the public consciousness.