Erik Gustaf Collander

Mr Erik Gustaf Collander was born in Mikkeli, Finland on 19 April 1884.

He was the son of Paul Collander (1848-1922), a medical practitioner, and the former Augusta Erika Montin (1854-1931) who had married in 1880.

He had five known siblings: Estrid Hanna (1881-1955, later Mrs Viktor Rafael Schauman), Erik Karl Robert (1882-1883), Einar (1885-1909), Ruth Angelika (1888-1893) and Paul Runar (1894-1973).

Collander was trained as an engineer and worked as technical director at a large paper mill near Helsinki. He left Finland on 1 April 1912 and was travelling to the United States to study and to visit his cousin Paul Josef Collander (b. 1874), a doctor who had emigrated just eighteen months beforehand; the visit was reportedly to have been a surprise.

He boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a second class passenger (ticket number 248740 which cost £13); it may be surmised that he befriended and spent time with the handful of other Finnish passengers travelling in second class.

Erik Collander died in the sinking and his body, if recovered, was never identified.

His parents remained in Finland; his father died in 1922 and his mother in 1931. His last surviving sibling Paul died in Helsinki in 1973. His cousin Paul in the USA remained in Ashtabula for the rest of his life where he continued to practice as a doctor; he married and raised a family and died on 10 February 1966.