Meyer Moore, an El Paso resident who survived the sinking of the Titanic, died Tuesday, 63 years after the ship's sinking.
Mr. Moore, who had been an El Paso resident for 27 years, was a member of Congregation B'Nai Zion, B'Nai B'rith and the Men's Club of B'Nai Zion. Survivors include his widow, Mrs. Henrietta Moore: sons, Ralph Moore of Austin, Texas., Carl Moore of Kent, Ohio, and Ira Moore of Holland, and four grandchildren.
Meyer Moore was 6 years old when he slept peacefully in his bunk throughout the sinking of the Titanic. Moore and his mother had booked passage at Southampton, England, a few days earlier for their trip to the dreamed of land of America. He and his mother, both Russian immigrants would be in their new home in a new land.
This was their second attempt to reach America's shores. A few months earlier they had traveled the long journey only to find the relatives with whom they would be staying had moved.
Sent back to England, they had been in that country more than six months and young Meyer had been learning to speak English while waiting for the second trip to America to materialize.
Meyer and his mother had almost had their plans changed again just before departure from Southampton. They had been scheduled to sail aboard the S.S. Adriatic, but at the last moment, and much to the pleasure of the lad, they found themselves climbing the gang-plank to the Titanic.
Meyer was tired that night, accounting for his peaceful sleep. He had spent most of the day asking his grown-up fellow passengers for the pictures of cowboys and Indians from their cigarette packages. In those days, in Europe, cigarette manufacturers included pictures of American cowboys and Indians to enhance the sales.
Suddenly he was awakened by his mother. Something was wrong. She had fallen from her bunk by a sudden movement of the ship and had gone up on deck from her steerage compartment berth to see what was going on.
People were running about the deck, some of the men with their pants rolled up and soaking wet. Large chunks of ice were on the deck and everything seemed to be in confusion.
Returning to her compartment, Mrs. Moore wakened her son and together they made their way to their lifeboat station. They didn't really know where their lifeboat was located, but high above on one of the upper decks they could see boats being lowered.
By the time they made their way through the milling crowds of passengers, all but one boat had left the great ship. Many boats had fallen into the sea, spilling their passengers into the icy waters.
As the boy and his mother stood on the crowded deck next to the lifeboat, a distinguished-looking woman stood up and asked for her husband. When she was informed her husband was elsewhere on the ship, the woman got off the lifeboat, saying her station in life always had been at the side of her husband. The woman was Mrs. John Jacob Astor who went down with the great "Unsinkable Titanic," at the side of her life's companion. The seat she gave up on the lifeboat was taken by a Russian immigrant mother holding her 6-year-old son on her lap.
They were picked up by the liner "Carpathia" early the next morning, having spent seven hours in the lifeboat. Moore said he vividly recalled seeing the giant liner, its lights ablaze, as its great stern lifted high in the air and it began to slide beneath the waves.
Mr. Moore kept a pair of collector's items, what might well be the only cancelled Titanic tickets in existence, plus a manifest identification tag. He also had his life--1,507 of his fellow passengers lost theirs that night of April 14-15, 1912.
A fatalist, Mr. Moore believed if "you're born to be hanged, you'll never be drowned or shot."
Services will be at 2 P.M. Thursday at the Harding-Orr & MacDaniel Montana Chapel. Burial will be at B'Nai Zion Cemetery.
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