Surviving

[Mike Poirier]

A great deal of passengers and crew had previously or would go on to survive various shipwrecks. I know I am missing many from this list and hope others could help me out.
Harry Molson- Scotsman and Canada
Henry Sleeper Harper- unamed ship that ran over reef and sank
Molly Brown- Quinneseco fire
Edith Russell- Celtic runs aground
Duane Williams- Guion line Arizona collided with iceberg
William Sloper- un named ship
Norman Chambers- Vestris fire 1919
Ramon Artegaveytia- America fire
Kate Gold- Suevic runs aground
Annie Robinson- Lake Champlain hits iceberg
Mary Roberts- Rohilla sunk in WW1
Archie Jewell and Violet Jessop- Britannic
( there were more for Britannic, but can't think of whom )

 

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

John Priest - Britannic, Alcantara and Donegal

Charles Lightoller - Holt Hill, Oceanic, Falcon

As you say there are many many more.

Phil

 

[Inger Sheil]

Archie Jewell who did not survive the Donegal...

And then there was Pitman's previous experience of a shipwreck - 'some minor affair' as he described it.

Inger

 

[Maureen Zottoli]

Mike,
You have included other typpes of diasters other than other ships disasters....are you also interested in priors? Molly Brown "claimed" to have been through an ordeal with a Mississippi boat of some sort (Mark Twain and all that).
But many say that the clim was not true and just a story.

Also isn't there a named woman who was a member of the crew that survived all three of the large ships and went on to volunteer for other duties and died in her like 60's or something like that. She wrote a lot about her own life. Can;t for the life of me remeber her name, but I know one of you remembers her. If I missed her name on your list I apologize. Mike.

Maureen.

 

[Phillip Gowan]

Violet Jessop.

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Michael,

I would add Lady Duff Gordon to the list as she survived a shipwreck as a young girl - she, her sister, and mother were on a ship that crashed into the Casquet Rocks (near Guernsey?) during a storm on their way to England from the Isle of Jersey. This was in around 1875. They were taken off with other passengers by a fishing boat which battled the storm and arrived just as the ship slid off the rocks and sank.

Even more interestingly, Lady Duff Gordon was scheduled to be on the Lustitania on its final voyage in 1915. She had become ill (she actually had suffered a severe uterine hemorhage & underwent an emergency hysterectomy) and so she did not sail on May 1. The news of her illness came out in the papers on April 29. On May 10, while Lady Duff Gordon was still convalescing (at St. Vincent's Hospital I believe) a committee calling themselves "The Friends of Lady Duff Gordon" (Elsie de Wolfe, Anne Morgan, etc) published in Women's Wear Daily a special notice of thanksgiving that she was spared. Lady Duff Gordon always said that if she had been taken ill on the Lusitania she would have been in sick-bay when the torpedo hit and would not have survived.

I've always thought it odd that no one has ever uncovered the info that Lady Duff Gordon was one of the many people who were to sail on the Lusitania's last trip but cancalled at the last minute. The fact is in the newspapers for any researcher to see. I'm assuming she was not registered on the original passenger list under her own name - much as she had done on the Titanic - which may account for no one being the wiser.

Randy

 

[Maureen Zottoli]

Prior incident with Molly Brown was several stories regarding Twisters and one where at 9 she was swept away on a Mississippi mudbank and was saved by Mark Twain.

These and other Brown missives to the masses are in Molly Brown Unraveling the Myth by Kirsten Iversen.
Maureen.

 

[Mike Poirier]

Hi Randy:
Hmmmm... Lady Duff Gordon survives the Lusitania. That could have been a great headline. Had she sailed, she might have had a great conversation with Leonard McMurray who survived the Republic disaster. Or Laura Ryerson whose cousin was lost on the Titanic.
Very good anecdote about her previous shipwreck. Fascinating stuff indeed. Hopefully you'll finish up your book on her.
Re Lusy passenger list. Perhaps Geoff Whitfield could furnish us with some passenger incognitos that could have been Lucile.

 

[Mike Herbold]

While looking for something else on the "Titanic Commutator" Publication List, I came across this description of the Special Commemorative Issue dated April 1964:

My experience on the R.M.S. TITANIC, George Kemish, a crewman who was also on the OLYMPIC when she collided with H.M.S. HAWKE and the BRITANNIC when she was torpedoed.

Don't have this back issue myself, but somebody out there must.

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Michael,

Great news that there may be a way to track Lady Duff Gordon's assumed name on the Lusitania's fatal voyage. By the way, you might find it funny that in letters to her family she called the Lusitania the "Luciletania" (kind-a corny, huh?)because she had taken the ship so many times. She was a very funny person that way - making up names for people & things, i.e., Miss Francatelli was nicknamed "Franks" and Lucile's cable name was "Lucilation."

Lucile's saying she crossed on the Lusitania a lot may be an exaggeration (she seems to have been prone to that!)because I have been able to track only two trips (not counting the aborted 1915 trip) she took on the "Lusy." The first was from England to NY in late February 1910 (she used her real name on the passenger list) and the next from New York to England in early May 1912 (w/ Cosmo just after the Titanic; possibly incognito).

I will hopefully be in touch with Geoff Whitfield soon & can find out further info.

Thanks, and good luck in your own work.

Randy

PS) I know that apart from the "Morgan" pseudonym she used on Titanic, when travelling Lucile also used at various times the name "Miss Ruffles" (no doubt a play on the then popular clothes-conscious cartoon character "Fluffy Ruffles") and "Mme. de Calincourt," the name of the dressy heroine of the 1902 novel "The Reflections of Ambrosine," written by her sister Elinor Glyn.

 

[Mike Poirier]

Good work Randy!
I have a 1910 Lusitania pass list, unfortunately it was for May.
I do have to wonder about people travelling incognito. I collect passenger lists and some of the names truly seem to have been made up. I have a 1908 Kronprinzessin Cecilie list with Ben Guggenheim. Also on the same list are some absurd names like Comtesse Castelmenardo and Madame Rose Ghio.
Did Lucile travel on the German lines or strictly British? She seems to be someone who flitted across the Atlantic at a moments notice.
Interesting she took the Luciletania after the disaster. I believe the Countess of Rothes took the Mauretania home after the disaster.
I'll have to look in some of my lists for a Miss Ruffles.
Anyway. thanks again.
Mike

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Michael,

Yes. Lucile traveled constantly. Poor Cosmo must have been very lonely indeed. He in fact never went with her when she was on business - except in the infamous case of the Titanic. It was his only trip to the US. Poor chap ought to have stayed home in Scotland - pleasantly fishing from the banks of River Dee! The DGs did travel to Italy together a great deal on vacation - Lago di Como, Venice - and to France - Normandy and of course Paris.

When Lucile crossed the Atlantic she sailed on all sorts of ships, British, French, German, American.

I can tell you the trips I know of. The ones with specific ship names & dates hopefully can help you find something in the various passenger lists:

Dec 1907 - Eng to US. No ship known.
Jan 1908 - US to Eng. No ship known.
Dec 1909 - Eng to US. No ship known.
Mid Jan 1910 - US to Eng. No ship known.
Late Feb 1910 - (landing Mar 3 or 4) Eng to US. The LUSITANIA.
Late Oct 1910 - US to Eng. No ship known.
Late May 1911 - (landing May 24 or 25) Eng (or Fr) to US. KRONPRINZESSIN CECILIE.
June or July 1911 - US to Eng. No ship known.
Apr 10, 1912 - Fr to US. TITANIC/CARPATHIA
May 7, 1912 - US to Eng. LUSITANIA.
Oct 1912 - Fr to US. No ship known.
Nov 8,1912 - US to Fr. PROVENCE.
Oct 6, 1914 - Eng to US. CAMPANIA.
May 1, 1915 - US to Eng. LUSITANIA (cancelled)
Oct 15, 1916 - US to Eng. PHILADELPHIA.
Late Nov 1916 - Eng to US. ST. PAUL.
June 16, 1919 - US to Eng. ADRIATIC.
Dec 1919 - Eng or Fr to US. No ship known.
Jan or Feb 1920 - US to Eng or Fr. AQUITANIA.
Aug or Sept 1921 - Fr to US. No ship known.
Sept 1921 - US to Eng. No ship known.

Randy

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Mike,

A correction on the CAMPANIA listing. The date of Oct. 6 1914 was the date of arrival in NY Harbor.
You may have seen the photo of Lady Duff Gordon taken on shipboard? It's been published in several books. That was one of several press pictures taken of her on the Campania's arrival. There are also NY newspaper photos of her on the deck of the Philadelphia (1916) and the Adriatic (1919). A Pathe newsreel recorded her boarding the latter.

Randy