Mrs Elizabeth Anne Mellinger (née Maidment)

Mrs Elizabeth Anne Mellinger (née Maidment), 41, was born on 1 June 1870 in Walthamstowe, London. She married in 1898 but when she discovered she was pregnant with Madeleine Violet, her husband deserted her.

Elizabeth was enroute to the United States to work as an au pair in New York for the wealthy Colgate family. Her last residence was given as Wimbledon, Surrey.

She boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a second class passenger together with her daughter (ticket number 250644, £19 10s).

Mrs Mellinger and her daughter survived the sinking. They entered lifeboat 14 and were later transferred to 12 by Fifth Officer Lowe. According to one grandson, Elizabeth went deaf prematurely, and all her life suffered a nervous reaction from the shock of the sinking.

After arriving in New York, she went to Mrs Cresson Jones at Bennington, Vermont. Mrs Jones had lost her husband Charles in the sinking.

They returned to England after the sinking but emigrated to Canada in 1915.

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

Elizabeth Anne Mellinger died on 4 January 1962 and is buried in St. John's Ridgeway 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

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)
Miss Madeleine Violet Mellinger