Marie-Eugenie Spencer (nee Adnot) was born in France on 16 February 1864 to an unmarried mother Pelagie Adnot, the father is thought to have been a boilermaker.
Pelagie later married Louis Demougeot on 7 May 1873.
Marie-Eugenie became an opera singer and sang with with the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso.
She married William Augustus Spencer in London in October 1884.
The Spencers had been in Paris and boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg with Mrs Spencer's maid Miss Elise Lurette.
She was rescued (the boat is unknown) but Mr Spencer perished.
Mrs Marie Spencer died in Paris in October of 1913 aged just 49. The fifth survivor to die.
Comment and discuss
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Having read the thread about the mix up of the Spencer Cabin in Cabin numbers, i began trying to find out a little more about Mr.and Mrs.Spencer. The cabin number thread was started by someone quoting a misprint in a book that said the couple were quoted as staying in C-78 and had refused to leave their room once the sinking began, and how they were really in B-78. I then had a look at the Cave list and saw that Mrs.Spencer did infact leave in a lifeboat (number 6). I found a curious obituary for her that stated she died in Paris just a little over a year later on October 1913! She didnt live very long after her husband died and she was only 46.Does anyone know anymore about this couple or have a picture, if they refused (supposedly) to leave, what made her go?
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Hello Gary, There are no lifeboat numbers on the Cave List. The lifeboat 6 information appears in a Passenger List complied by Michael Findlay. That information also appears on several web-sites. However, in a subsequent Passenger List that Findlay complied no lifeboat number is given. Some years ago I had a letter from Findlay in which he advised: "..... Mrs Spencer and her maid .... were thought to be in boat 6 but were not since they did not reach the deck until much later."
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Hi Gary, I am sorry to say that there is still uncertainty with regard to which boat Mrs. Spencer and her maid escaped in. Interviews attributed to Elise Lurette, Mrs. Spencer's maid, in several New York newspapers soon after the sinking, implied that she and her employer were in the same boat as Molly Brown - therefore they were placed in boat #6 originally. However, after comparing later interviews, and the testimony given at the American Inquiry, it seems likely that the Spencer party were stragglers to the boat deck. I believe the ladies left in one of the very last boats but wouldn't rule out the possibility of boat #4 altogether as some historians have done. Some researchers believe boat #4 is "overcrowded" with possibilities given the general number of occupants. I personally feel that the Spencer party was detached from the rest, and the ladies may have well entered one of the port-side aft boats....like boats #10 and #14 which contained several first-class...
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Michael, The added informations are appreciated. Lester
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Yea thanx Michael thats gr8
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Here is an list of Mrs. Spencer's lost belongings (in Fr. francs), presumably for an insurance claim. She certainly didn't travel light by our standards, but she's not in the Cardeza league. It seems she managed to get this lot into a large trunk (Vuitton
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I wrote a longer message in William A. Spencer subject. I am the grand-grand nephew of Elise Lurette, the "devoted family maid" of the Spencer family. I don't know a lot about Mrs. Spencer. She and her husband were booked and had their cabin on the deck B. In March 1912 William A. Spencer asked Elise Lurette to travel with him and his wife to New-York. It was said in our family that Mrs. Spencer was morphine addicted. This was the reason why William wanted Elise to accompany them to New York. Elise Lurette liked very much William A. Spencer so she accepted. After her return to Paris, she didn't have contacts with the Spencer family anymore.
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I am also interested in knowing the correct cabin number occupied bt the Spencer couple, albeit for different reasons to Gary Bell. Like him, I have read in one or two books (cannot quote the titles from memory) that they occupied C-78. But later sources including ET (other than the Cave List) have them occupying B-78 while their maid was in B-80. Then there is the Cave List, also quoted in ET, has them in B-76 while keeping the maid in B-80. My interest stems...
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Etches was in charge of some First Class cabins on B-deck, including Cabins B82 and B84 in which Benjamin Guggenheim and his valet Victor Giglio were staying. Etches clearly testified that he helped both those gentlemen with their life jackets and then advised them to go to the boat deck. He then...
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