Widow of Patent Leather Manufacturer Dies; Was Survivor of Titanic Disaster
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Special to Newark News
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NORWALK, Conn.---Mrs. Annie May Stengel of Montclair, widow of Charles E. H. Stengel, Newark patent leather manufacturer and a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, died here Sunday. She was in Connecticut on a trip with her granddaughter, Mrs. Inez Horton Gay, with whom she had lived many years.

Mrs. Stengel was born in Brooklyn 88 years ago and went to Newark when a young girl. She and her husband, who was a member of the former Newark firm of Stengel & Rothschild, lived for many years at 1075 Broad Street, Newark. Mr. Stengel died in 1914. Mrs. Stengel moved to Montclair in 1927. In recent years she lived with her granddaughter in Montclair, Spring Lake and New York.

The Stengels were aboard the Titanic when the ship struck an iceberg April 15, 1912. They were among the 711 survivors. There were 1,513 lives lost.

Mrs. Stengel was among the first passengers to leave the Titanic. Her husband helped her into the third lifeboat launched. Mr. Stengel refused to leave until the last lifeboat was in the water. He jumped into the sea and swam to a small emergency lifeboat. Eventually, the rescue ship Carpathia picked up both the small boat carrying Mr. Stengel and the lifeboat carrying Mrs. Stengel.

In an interview many years later, Mrs. Stengel remarked: “The nearest thing I’ve ever known to Heaven on earth was meeting my husband again on the deck of the Carpathia.”

Besides her granddaughter, Mrs. Stengel leaves two sons, Karl Raymond Stengel of Spring Lake and Henry Ivan Stengel of New York, and two other granddaughters and a grandson, all in California.

The funeral will be today at 8 a.m. from the Paul A. McDonough Funeral Home, 637 Broadway, Newark, to Good Counsel Church, where a Solemn High Requiem Mass will be offered at 9.