Says Musicians Knelt as they Played Hymn
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mrs Ada M Clarke, one of the survivors, went to the White Star offices today to arrange for her passage back home to Southampton, England. Her husband, Charles S. Clarke, with whom she was on her way to California to make her home in San Francisco, was lost on the vessel when she sank. Mrs Clarke was one of the persons rescued from the last boat.
“I was in one of three boats lashed together,” said Mrs Clarke, “when one of the officers unlashed one of these and, taking all but two of the seamen, rowed off to rescue another boat in the distance which was crowded to the sinking point. ‘Be brave, women!” the officer said as they rowed away. And they were brave. The women and the two men manned the oars until we were rescued later. How long I don’t know, but it seemed many hours. We should have gone, unless they made us.
Saw Men on their Knees
“He made me leave him,” she said brokenly. “I shouldn’t have done it otherwise. Oh, they were brave and splendid, all the men. They died like brave men. At the last, all the men were kneeling and there floated out across the water the strains of ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ I could hear it and saw the band men kneeling, too.
“How long after we were launched in the lifeboat did the ship sink? Oh, oh, I can’t tell; I don’t know. How could I remember at such a time?”
Related Biographies:
Charles Valentine Clarke
Ada Maria Clarke
Harold Godfrey Lowe
Related Keywords
musicians band
