Annie Moore Ward

Miss Ann Moore Ward was born in Calderhead, Lanarkshire, Scotland on 16 January 1874.¹

She was the daughter of Hugh Ward and Ann Dennis (b. circa 1855). One of four children,² her known siblings were Catherine (b. 1872) and James Moore (1876-1940).

The family had settled in Pennsylvania around 1880 but possibly as early as the latter half of the 1870s. What became of her father is not known but her mother was remarried in 1890 to an Irishman, John H. Craig (b. 1851), a house painter. Annie, her mother, brother and stepfather were shown on the 1900 census residing at 2416 Evergreen Avenue in Philadelphia and at that time she had no stated profession. By 1910 the family home was still on Evergreen Avenue but Annie was not shown there.

Annie came into the employ of the wealthy Cardeza family as the personal maid to wealthy widow Charlotte Drake Cardeza. In late 1911/early 1912 she had accompanied her employer to Africa and Europe where they had joined Mrs Cardeza's son Thomas, the two of them being big-game hunters. For the return to the USA Annie boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg on 10 April 1912 with Mrs Cardeza, her son Thomas and his manservant Gustave Lesueur and the entourage travelled on ticket number 17755 which cost the princely sum of  £512, 6s, 7d.

On the night of the sinking Annie did not take time to dress properly and threw a fur coat over her nightgown. She stuffed some bits and pieces from a table into the pockets, which included salt and pepper cellars and some jewellery. When she offered the things that she had taken, to Mrs Cardeza her employer said that she could keep them.

The Cardeza group was rescued in lifeboat 3.

Annie continued to work in the employ of Mrs Cardeza up until the latter's death in 1939, following which she worked as a housekeeper and appeared on the 1940 census living at Norton Street, Philadelphia.

She had been married to William S. Moynahan (b. February 1871), Mrs Cardeza's gardener, who was a native of Pennsylvania born to Irish parents(3). The couple had no children and William died in 1936. Annie herself died on 25 December 1955 aged 81 and she and her husband are buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. She is remembered by surviving family as an eccentric but interesting lady and upon her death left the jewellery and salt and pepper cellars that she had rescued from Titanic.

Her brother James was married to a German lady, Frieda Lobs (1876-1954) and raised a family in Springfield, Pennsylvania. One of their daughters (b. 1907) was named for Annie. Another child, James (b. 1909) lived with Annie on Norton Street, Pennsylvania in the early 1940s. James Moore Ward died in Pennsylvania in 1940.