Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...Mowbray, Jay Henry
History
Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...
Mowbray, Jay Henry
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
Oddly enough, a Swedish stoker and survivor, named Oscar Ingstrom, at
another hotel in the same vicinity, gave to one of the most prominent
Swedish newspaper men in New York City practically the same tale that
Senior told.
Wilson Potter, whose mother, Mrs. Thomas Potter, Jr., of Mt. Airy, Pa.,
was one of the survivors, told how she had urged Colonel Astor and his
wife to leave the Titanic before the vessel went down.
“My mother was one of the first to leave the Titanic,” he said. “As the
lifeboats were filling up, she called to Colonel and Mrs. Astor to come
aboard. Mrs. Astor waved her off, exclaiming, ‘We are safer here than
in that little boat.’
“Hundreds of other passengers thought the same way. So much so, that
the first lifeboat, which my mother boarded, was large enough to hold
forty persons besides the crew; still only ten came along. All were of
the opinion that the Titanic would remain afloat until aid came from
another steamer.”
Mr. Potter also related another version of how J. B. Thayer, Jr., and
his mother were rescued.
“As the crash came Mrs. Thayer fainted. Young Mr. Thayer carried her to
one of the lifeboats. As she was lifted in father and son lost their
hold and fell between the sinking steamer and the lifeboat.
“After struggling in the water for several minutes Young Mr. Thayer
was picked up by a raft. Two hours later the raft was found by the
Carpathia.”
A third remarkable escape as related by Mr. Potter was that of Richard
Norris Williams.
“Mr. Williams remained on the stern of the Titanic,” said Mr. Potter.
“He says the stern of the boat went down, then came up. As it started
to go down a second time Mr. Williams says he dived off and swam to a
raft, which was picked up two hours later by the Carpathia.”
UTTERLY EXHAUSTED FROM HER EXPERIENCE.
When utterly exhausted from her experience, Mrs. John Jacob Astor was
declared by Nicholas Biddle, a trustee of the Astor estate, to be in
no danger whatever. Her physicians, however, have given orders that
neither Mrs. Astor nor her maid, who was saved with her, be permitted
to talk about the disaster.
On landing from the Carpathia, the young bride, widowed by the
Titanic’s sinking, told members of her family what she could recall of
the circumstances of the disaster. Of how Colonel Astor met his death,
she has no definite conception. She recalled, she thought, that in
the confusion, as she was about to be put into one of the boats, the
Colonel was standing by her side. After that, as Mr. Biddle recounted
her narrative, she had no very clear recollection of the happenings
until the boats were well clear of the sinking steamer.
Mrs. Astor, it appears, left in one of the last boats which got away
from the ship. It was her belief that all the women who wished to go
had been taken off. Her impression was that the boat she left in had
room for at least fifteen more persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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