Mrs Renee Irene Harris' strange encounter

[Richard Paola]

Is it true that Mrs. Harris was approached by a strange man and warned to disembark at Cherbourg, never to see him again ?

 

[Daniel Klistorner]

Richard,

It is true, she mentioned this in her 1932 Liberty account. This occured after the near collision when Titanic was departing at Southampton.

Daniel.

 

[Richard Paola]

thanks Daniel...i don't think it could have been as dramatic that this man actually cancelled his trip to New York, more like a cross channel traveller ? ;so it would have been one of the 23 passengers listed who disembarked at Cherbourg; which one, we'll never know i guess...

 

[Deborah Russes]

I read about that in Maiden Voyage too.

 

[Inger Sheil]

Marcus used the Liberty article as a source for a couple of incidents he describes in The Maiden Voyage. I have that issue of Liberty sitting at my elbow here at the desk, so here's the passage in question:

quote:

A neigbour ship, the New York, I believe, was fast moving toward us. I learned from a stranger standing next to me that the cables of the New York must have been broken by the force of the suction created by our giant engines.

He turned toward me and said, "This is a bad omen. Do you love life?"

"I love it," I replied.

"Then get off this ship at Cherbourg, if we get that far. That's what I'm going to do."

I laughed it off and quoted the glowing accounts I had read of the unsinkability of our steamer. I never saw him again. He may have landed at Cherbourg.

The danger was over inless time than I am telling it, and we went proundly on our way.

Rene Harris, 'Her Husband Went Down with the Titanic', Liberty pp. 26 - 27, 23 April 1932