Eliina Honkanen

Eliina Honkanen was born in Saarijärvi, Finland, reportedly on 16 August 1882.¹

She was the daughter of Juho Honkanen (b. circa 1817; d. 1890) and Eva Sofia Poikanen, née Vähäkalmukoski (b. circa 1847; d. 1926), both on their second marriages.²

She had a younger sister, Josefiina (b. 1884) as well as numerous half-siblings from both her parents’ previous marriages. 

From around 1908 Eliina had been living in Helsinki, working as a maid. She boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a third-class passenger (ticket number 3101283 which had cost £7, 18s, 6d) and was travelling from Helsinki to 16 West Street in Quincy, Massachusetts where she may have had family. It appears she was accompanying Laina Heikkinen, also of Saarijärvi, but this is unclear.

Eliina survived the sinking but in which lifeboat she escaped is unknown, perhaps one of the aft starboard boats.

Following the disaster, Miss Honkanen journeyed to Quincy.  She later claimed for lost property amounting to $310 and sued for $5000 for her "conscious suffering, sickness and injuries".

She later found employment as a waitress.

In May, 1913, Miss Elina Honkanen of Quincy, who was also on the Titanic, was married to Victor I. Lunquist of the same city.  She was in the last boat that left the ship and endured many privations before she reached the rescue ship.

She was the first Boston woman to sue the White Star Line. Her suit is still pending. — Kansas City Star, 13 November 1914

Eliina was married in Boston on 21 April 1913 to Isaac Victor Lindquist (b. 1875), a native of Finland and son of Isaac Lindquist and Mary Gronholm.

Following this, the couple drop off of the radar and appear on no further records together. The only clues as to their later lives centres on a “looking for” article published in a Finnish-American newspaper Auttaja (June 1935), asking for the whereabouts of Eliina and stating that the marriage between she and Lindquist was later dissolved before she remarried to a German man.

Eliina’s final whereabouts remain a mystery. It has been speculated that she was still alive and well and living in the USA as of the early 1970s.