Brian Ahern
Member
I had never known before that Paul Schabert was Emma's second husband. Her first husband was Rufus W. Blake of Derby, Connecticut, who was nearly four decades older than she was.
Blake was president of the Sterling Piano Company of Derby and the Huntington Piano Company of Shelton, CT, as well as being a director of the Birmingham National Bank and "interested in" the Derby Brass Company.
He left Emma a rich young widow in 1901. According to various New York and Connecticut papers, he and Emma were playing cards until he went upstairs alone. Shortly afterwards, Emma heard a shot. She ran upstairs and found that he had shot himself through the eye. The Daily News and other rather papers rather archly put it that "the story told by the family" is that it was an accident, and this seems to have been the official verdict. Blake died the following day without regaining consciousness. The Daily News also claimed that he had been ill for weeks and had at times been despondent.
His will was probated at $1.5 million, all of which went to Emma, except for $96,000 that went to his three sisters and a niece.
Emma's second marriage occurred in 1903. Papers claimed that Schabert had fallen in love with Emma ten years before, when she was studying in Germany as a girl of sixteen. It was supposedly when she was traveling in Europe in 1902 that they met up again. Papers described Richard Mock, Emma's father, as a restaurateur at West 42nd Street, NYC. The press seemed to enjoy the story of a rich young widow rediscovering her first love, who was described as a nobleman from a Hamburg family prominent in shipping and related to many titled aristocrats (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was some embellishing there).
Many interviews in April of 1912 were attributed to Emma just after she stepped off the Carpathia. Each story had her claiming that she had saved her brother's life by refusing to leave the ship without him, which may well be true.
Blake was president of the Sterling Piano Company of Derby and the Huntington Piano Company of Shelton, CT, as well as being a director of the Birmingham National Bank and "interested in" the Derby Brass Company.
He left Emma a rich young widow in 1901. According to various New York and Connecticut papers, he and Emma were playing cards until he went upstairs alone. Shortly afterwards, Emma heard a shot. She ran upstairs and found that he had shot himself through the eye. The Daily News and other rather papers rather archly put it that "the story told by the family" is that it was an accident, and this seems to have been the official verdict. Blake died the following day without regaining consciousness. The Daily News also claimed that he had been ill for weeks and had at times been despondent.
His will was probated at $1.5 million, all of which went to Emma, except for $96,000 that went to his three sisters and a niece.
Emma's second marriage occurred in 1903. Papers claimed that Schabert had fallen in love with Emma ten years before, when she was studying in Germany as a girl of sixteen. It was supposedly when she was traveling in Europe in 1902 that they met up again. Papers described Richard Mock, Emma's father, as a restaurateur at West 42nd Street, NYC. The press seemed to enjoy the story of a rich young widow rediscovering her first love, who was described as a nobleman from a Hamburg family prominent in shipping and related to many titled aristocrats (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was some embellishing there).
Many interviews in April of 1912 were attributed to Emma just after she stepped off the Carpathia. Each story had her claiming that she had saved her brother's life by refusing to leave the ship without him, which may well be true.
