Miss Madeleine Violet Mellinger

Miss Madeleine Violet Mellinger, 13, was born on 22 February 1899 in Essex, England.

She boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a second class passenger together with her mother Elizabeth Anne Mellinger. To reach their destination, Bennington, Vermont, they bought ticket number 250644 for £19 10s.

Miss Mellinger and her mother survived the sinking. They entered lifeboat 14 and were later transferred to 12 by Officer Lowe.

She emigrated to Canada in 1915, and in 1923 married a Welland, Ontario banker David Daniel Mann, They had four sons, Alex, Bill, Don and Carl.

In an interview with the Toronto Star on April 15, 1974 she said:

"We were asleep in our berths when a man banged on our door and told us to put on warm clothes and lifebelts and to get on deck."

She said she and her mother were hurled into a half empty lifeboat and she shivered in the drifting boat, the cries of the drowning all around her.

"I could see the lights of the ship starting to go under water, then soundlessly, perhaps a mile away, it just went down. It was gone. Oh yes, the sky was very black and the stars were very bright. They told me the people in the water were singing, but I knew they were screaming."

On 15 April 1939 she and mother daughter together with Emma Bliss and Samuel John Collins met for a Titanic reunion dinner at the Royal York Hotel, Toronto.

Madeleine Violet Mann (née Mellinger) died on 27 May 1976 in Toronto. Her cremated remains were interred in St. John's Ridgeway Anglican Cemetery near Welland, Ontario.

Sources
Contract Ticket List, White Star Line 1912 (National Archives, New York; NRAN-21-SDNYCIVCAS-55[279]).
Marriages, births, deaths and injuries that have occurred on board during the voyage (PRO London, BT 100/259-260)
United States Senate (62nd Congress), Subcommittee Hearings of the Committee on Commerce, Titanic Disaster, Washington 1912

Documents
Toronto Star, April 16, 1939, Rescued by the Same Lifeboat Titanic Survivors United Again

Sources
Toronto Star, April 15, 1974

References
Alan Hustak (1999) Titanic: The Canadian Story. Véhicule Press, ISBN 1-55065-113-7

Acknowledgements
Alan Hustak, Canada
Hermann Söldner, Germany

Travelling Companions (on same ticket)
Mrs Elizabeth Anne Mellinger