Mrs Rhoda (aka Rosa) Abbott,1 was born Rhoda Hunt in Ludgershall, Buckinghamshire on 25 January 1873,2 the daughter of Joseph Hunt (born 1847), labourer, and his wife Sarah (née Green, born 1853). Her birth was registered in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. She was baptised on 5 October 1873 in Ludgershall.
She had two siblings, Thomas William (1870-1919) and Lizzie (aka Eizabeth Gertrude, 1880-1957).
On 7 Nov 1881, Rhoda was admitted to the Beethoven Street School, in nearby Queens Park.
In 1891 Sarah, Lizzie and Rhoda were living at 29 Oliphant St, London. Sarah is listed as a widow, working as a laundress.3 Rhoda is listed as a machinist shopwoman.
Rhoda settled in Providence, Rhode Island in 1892, and soon after met and married London-born George "Stanton" Abbott.4,5
Abbott was an accomplished boxer who turned professional early in his career. He had boxed in America in the early 1890s, but arrived to settle on 15 April 1893, aboard the SS New York; he became naturalized on 6 April 1894.
Abbott had been the lightweight champion of England, and he later worked as a freelance boxing promoter and referee, swimming teacher, boxing teacher, and physical instructor.
Rhoda and Stanton had two children, Rossmore and Eugene, both born in Rhode Island.
In May 1901, Rhoda, Rossmore, Eugene, and her mother Sarah, were recorded on the passenger list on the SS New England, travelling to Liverpool, from Boston, via Queenstown.
In 1906 Rhoda, together with Rossmore (10) and Eugene (7) made the return voyage. It is unknown whether they had been in England the whole time or if this was a different trip. They left Liverpool aboard the SS Saxonia on 4 September arriving in Boston on 13 September and travelling to their home at 132 Chestnut St., Providence, Rhode Island.
Rhoda and George drifted apart and were divorced by 1910.
Rhoda Abbott was of medium height, had a dark complexion, and long, dark hair. She supported herself and her sons by dressmaking and sewing. She was also active as a soldier in the Salvation Army.
In the 1910 Census, she was listed as living with her two boys, and a boarder named George Charles Williams. Williams worked as a silversmith, and it may not be coincidental that Rhoda's eldest son was apprenticed as an electro-gilder.
In August 1911 Mrs Abbott decided to move to England to live with her mother in St. Albans, Hertfordshire.6 She and her boys made the crossing to England on board the Olympic. It wasn't long, however, before Rossmore and Eugene became homesick for Providence, and Mrs Abbott eventually decided to return to the states for her sons' benefit.
In April of 1912, she booked her little family's passage back to America as steerage passengers on board the Titanic (ticket number C.A. 2673, £20 5s). Rhoda's cabin was close to that of Amy Stanley.
As the Titanic took her final plunge Mrs Abbott and her two sons jumped from the deck, she managed to get into Collapsible A but the two boys were lost. The boat had been swamped as it was launched and its occupants balanced precariously in knee-deep water until they were eventually picked up by Collapsible D. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe ensured the survivors were transferred. It drifted away with three bodies still in it, their faces covered by lifebelts.
Amy Stanley later recalled:
"We were very close since we were on the Titanic together. And her stateroom had been near mine. I was the only one that she could talk to about her sons because I knew them myself. She told me that she would get [sic] in the lifeboat if there hadn't been so many people around. So she and her sons kept together. She was thankful that [the] three of them had stayed with her on that piece of wreckage. The youngest went first then the other son went. She grew numb and cold and couldn't remember when she got on the Carpathia. There was a piece of cork in her hair and I managed to get a comb and it took a long time but finally we got it out."
During the voyage to New York Mrs Abbott stayed in a makeshift bed on a padded sheet in the smoking room because her legs were badly damaged from the effects of cold water. Indeed, according to one source (Pellegrino 1988) her injuries were so severe that she did not stir from her cot on the Carpathia until New York and then spent at least two more weeks hospitalized. She was looked after from there by her church (Grace Episcopal Church) in Providence, Rhode Island where her son Rossmore had once been in the boy's choir. It is thought that the Abbott's 3rd class passage back to the U.S. had been arranged by members of Grace Church.
On 16 December 1912, in Swansea, Massachusetts, she married her former lodger, George Charles Williams. On the marriage record it erroneously stated that it was her first marriage. He was listed as a brass worker, and she as a dressmaker.
On 29 January 1916, Stanton Abbott remarried to Edna Donohue (née Nelson). It was reported in the Boston Globe at the time that he had lost his first wife on the Titanic. He would later work as a machinist at a fire extinguisher factory. He died around 1941.
(Courtesy of Phillip Gowan)
Rhoda and George settled in Jacksonville, Florida where he worked as a bookbinder. In 1928 they moved back to England, originally intending to wind up George's father's estate and return to Florida, but after George suffered a debilitating stroke, they decided to remain living at their home in Barnes, Surrey. George died in 1938, and Rhoda was still living at their home in Barnes when she died on 18 February 1946.
FOUND DEAD.--About noon on Monday a neighbour found Mrs. Rhoda Williams (80), of 47, of 47 Cleveland-road, dead in bed. She had died from natural causes. — Richmond Herald - 23 February 1946
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