Irish Aboard Titanic (41 page)

Ellen Shine Callaghan died on 5 March 1993, and is buried in St Charles Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York.

A survivor of the
Titanic
Dies: Glen Cove woman was 101

Helen Shine Callaghan of Glen Cove, one of the last survivors of the sinking of the
Titanic
in 1912, died yesterday at North Shore University Hospital at Glen Cove at the age of 101.

Callaghan, who was a resident of the Glengariff Nursing Home in Glen Cove, was 20 when she left her native Cork County, Ireland, for a better life in the United States, according to her granddaughter, Christine Quinn [in 2011, the Speaker of the New York City Council].

‘She was from a big family and her parents were deceased and her sister was head of the family and decided that some of the siblings had to go to America,' said Quinn.

Like many of the survivors, Callaghan rarely discussed the tragedy. ‘I remember asking her questions as a girl. She never really answered them directly,' Quinn said. ‘My mother only found out about it when she was in school and the teacher passed around a list with the survivors' names on it and she saw her mother's name on the list.'

(Glen Cove Record-Pilot, 6 March 1993)

1911 census – Shine, Lisrobin.

Mary, widow (55). Had been married 21 years, nine children, eight yet living.

Maggie (30),
Ellie (18),
James (22), John (25), creamery manager.

Julia Smyth (17) Saved

Ticket number 335432. Paid £7 14s 8d.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Pottlebawn, Kilcogy, County Cavan.

Destination: 462 West 20th Street, New York city.

Julia credited her long legs with saving her – she was one of those who had to jump across a terrifying gap towards lifeboat No. 13 as the
Titanic
slumped deeper in her final death throes. In a letter home from New York to her family in Pottlebawn, written in a poorly educated hand, Julia described in a fleeting paragraph all the terror of the
Titanic
. She told how one of her shipboard companions, fellow Cavan passenger Kate Connolly, made the first leap of faith into a boat, prompting her to do the same:

I am sure that there is not one in Pottle, boys or girls, would make the fight I made. There was thousands before me, and Katie jumped ought [
sic
] into the boat. Only my legs was long, I would never made it.

Julia later also attributed her salvation to having some clay from a saint's grave with her on board the
Titanic
, which was reputed to protect one from death by drowning. Mary McGovern, Julia's roommate, had obtained the sacred clay as a precaution before sailing.

Mr P. O'Connor, agent to the White Star Line in Granard, has received a telegram stating that Miss Julia Smyth, Pottlebawn, was rescued. The passage issued to Miss Smyth was first issued to a Miss Lynch from Pottlebawn for the
Olympic
on the 21st September last, on which occasion the vessel collided with the Hawke.

Miss Lynch changed her mind about emigrating, and a few weeks ago her passage was transferred to Miss Smith.

(
Irish Independent
, 19 April 1912)

Julia was the daughter of Henry and Mary Smyth, of Pottlebawn, Kilcogy, County Cavan, one of seven children. She had been born in Dublin on 4 July 1894, the date perhaps a portent of her future emigration. When she chose to go, she was only 17 years old. She already had a brother in the United States, Henry, ten years her senior.

When she wrote home to her mother, Julia had already found work as a domestic in a house at 346 Lexington Avenue. The letter, undated but thought to have been composed in late May at the earliest, betrays her inadequate schooling:

My Dear Mother,

I suppose you thought you would never here tell of me again when the ship sank. I suppose youse were in a terrible fret. But if any of you see the site that we all had to go through your faces would never be seen again.

I cannot always be explain of it, for I am sick and tired of it talking of it all the time. Well mother I am not feeling so lonesome now because I have a good place for the start. I am learning everything. It is so hard to get a first-class place but I got it. But there is nothing but work. No matter where you go, every one say I am the luckeys one that ever struk New York to get in, because there is not a job to be got in the office. These people go to the country for the Summer. Nora Glean and me is left in the house for the Summer.

We will be doin nothing the holl Summer. I can have a good rest. I hope youse have all the work done home and not last. Hope youse have Larry McCoonarty again. Tell him for me I will send him what will give him a good wash down for the Summer.

I am so very lucky to be on the land of the living at all. Every says to me I was not on the
Titanic
at all I look so good. Every say I must get good times in the old Ireland. I suppose I would look if I never got much. I was pretty shuck coming over. I was sick all the time on the Ship.

I nearly fell into the big sea when I was going up they ladder to the Carpatin that morning. I got wake [weak]. I was a few steps up. I fell back again but I said to myself I might as well strive and get in. Everyone for themselves that moment, life or death.

I am sure there is not one in Pottle, boys or girls, would make the fight I made. There was thousands before me and Katie jumped ought into the boat. Only my legs was long I would never made it. Everyone seems very nice to me. Bridget Ballasty bought me a nice waist. Bridget the neighbour bought me a lovely present. I saw all from home.

James told me that a lot of people went from home. He never told me there names. Tell him write and tell me. I am finished cleaning. Resting all evening. Write me soon. Pray for me, mama. XX Julia

I get oatmeal sturboat in the morning to ate. Tell the cricket I was asking for him. Is the gang in Pottle again.

346 Lexington Ave. This is my adres. America is no jock. Ireland is the place for everyone that can stay home. I am sure Henry crys the day he ever left Pottle.

The ‘start' is an Irish term for getting a job. Julia jokes that she hopes that her family at home have all the work done and are not last – a reference to saving the hay and local competition not to be the last family to have gathered it all in. Larry appears to be a hired hand for that purpose, and his promised good wash down has nothing to do with hygiene and everything to do with refreshment after labour. Her mention of the ‘Titinice' is a wonderful, if Freudian, conjunction of a
Titanic
that seems to have become enmeshed in ice.

It is noticeable that her friends in America bought her presents to console her, including a waist, which was a cummerbund-type of female apparel. But it also seems that Julia was sick for some time after rescue – she was pretty shaken coming over and ‘sick all the time on the Ship', being the
Carpathia
.

We know from American Red Cross records that Julia became more seriously ill upon landing, reason perhaps for her to receive sympathetic presents and plenty of visitors:

No. 428. (Irish.) Girl, 20 years old, soon developed scarlet fever, and needed hospital and convalescent care. ($150)

Julia seems to have later lost contact with her comrade-in-catastrophe Kate Connolly, whom she had met at the platform in Ballywilliam train station in Cavan and accompanied all the way to Queenstown, onto the
Titanic
, into a lifeboat, up the ladder to the
Carpathia
, and onto Pier 54 in New York. The pair had roomed together on the
Titanic,
along with Mary McGovern and Clare woman Mary Agatha Glynn. Julia later married twice, but never had any children.

Her first wedding was in 1917. On 30 November that year, she married US Army officer William Glover, a 26-year-old New Yorker. Julia was aged 23, and had been living at 97 Central Park West. The space for her occupation on the marriage licence was filled with a dismissive pen-stroke. How that marriage came to an end is not known, but Julia visited Ireland in 1962, fifty years after the sinking, as the wife of an Englishman named Thomas White. He was then aged 68, Julia a year younger. Thomas outlived her by six years, dying on 28 April 1983.

A United States Navy chaplain held a memorial service in an aircraft over the North Atlantic yesterday to mark the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the
Titanic
.

A wreath was dropped from the US coastguard plane on the icy waters where more than 1,500 people died after the liner hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912.

Several survivors of the sinking attended another memorial service in New York Seamen's Church Institute. Among them was … Mrs Julia Smith White (64), who was 14-year-old Julia Smith [
sic
] at the time of the disaster.

(Belfast Telegraph,
16 April 1962)

Miss Julia Smith White … recalled the legend of the man in woman's clothing. She said: ‘I remember him, he was a lad from Dublin, and he got into our lifeboat, No. 13, the last to leave the ship.'

She remembered not being able to leave the vessel immediately. ‘We went back and braided our hair, and said our prayers,' she said.

(
Evening Press
, 16 April 1912)

Niece Diana Ylstra Maher, the two-year-old in the photograph, said: ‘My memories of Julia are of a very strong, outspoken woman who always stood up for what she believed. When my mother or I had to handle a difficult situation, we used Julia as our model.'

Julia Smyth White died on 27 April 1977 in Manhattan, at the age of 82. She is buried in St Raymond's Cemetery, the Bronx. Her long legs and determination had saved her for over sixty-five years since the
Titanic
's sinking.

1911 census – Smyth. Pottlebawn.

Parents: Henry (68) and Mary (50), married 30 years, 9 children, 7 surviving.

Children: Mary Anne (29), dressmaker; Henry (26), James (23), Agnes (20), Delia (19),
Julia (17)
, Maggie (12).

Thomas Smyth (26) Lost

Ticket number 384461. Paid £7 15s.

Boarded at Queenstown. Third Class.

From: Chapelfinnerty, Caltra, County Galway.

Destination: Long Island, New York city.

Thomas Smyth was a talented groom. He loved working with horses in the stables of Lord Clonbrock's estate close to his home. But slowly, the white horses of the sea began to exert their own beguiling influence.

Tom was 26 years old and was the last of the offspring left at home. He alone had to look after his widowed father, Patrick, who was aged 77 by 1912. He worked all day, coming home to cook, clean and wash for the pair of them, and a concern grew that the best years of his life were slipping away. He struck a remarkable pact with his older brother Patrick, an electric streetcar driver in New York, to come home to relieve Tom in the filial duties, allowing the youngest sibling to sample life in America.

Patrick, aged 30, bought Tom his ticket and received a promise that Tom would return after two years in America. Two sisters, Bridget and Margaret, were already in Long Island, and it was to these that he would initially journey as the bargain was put into effect.

Patrick came home to Ireland at the end of 1911 and the following spring an American wake took place for Tom and four neighbours with whom he made the long trip to Queenstown by train from Ballinasloe. At the end of the night he walked home with his close friend, fellow Clonbrock estate worker, Johnny Tully. As they parted, Tom told the labourer: ‘I might never see you again, Johnny.'

Smyth had gone to school with Tom Kilgannon, and a letter from the latter, posted in Queenstown, showed that the group were having ‘great fun' as they headed on their merry way to America – even if overnight accommodation in Cork had been expensive at seven and six apiece. Smyth signed aboard the
Titanic
as a general labourer and said he was 24 years old according to the embarkation records. His name has been mistakenly rendered Emmeth in some White Star records.

The two Toms shared a cabin with Martin Gallagher, separated by a ship's length for reasons of decency from the two single women in their group, Ellen Mockler of Currafarry and Margaret Mannion from Loughanboy. All five were from neighbouring townlands in the small parish of Caltra. The loss of the three men, ordained to die by their class and gender, is marked by a tablet at the Marian grotto in the village, unveiled in 1996.

One claim in this locality was that Tom made it into the water as the ship was sinking, and struck out for a nearby lifeboat. But he was struck with oars to prevent his boarding and, thwarted in his attempts for survival, gave up and died. This story is impossible to verify.

Word of the wreck reached his home place within a few days, but there was to be no firm news until the
Carpathia
docked. Patrick, the brother who had swapped places at home with Tom, told their father: ‘Tommy is not lost. He's too clever for that. He's stuck somewhere in another boat.'

Grim confirmation came a short time later in the form of a White Star Line telegram to Noone's post office in nearby Ahascragh. Patrick would have to stay longer at home than his intended two years. He farmed the family's miserable 10 or 12 acres of land and rented another holding to make his work a paying concern. In 1918 he married Mary Kate Delaney and had three children, the first of whom he named Tommy after his lost brother. The last reminders of
Titanic
Tom were lost when the homestead caught fire and burned to the ground in 1952 after a mishap when trying to smoke out an unwanted crow's nest.

Tommy now says of the uncle he never knew: ‘My father told me that Tom just wanted to see the world.' The
Titanic
victim's supposedly frail father meanwhile lived another twenty years, dying at the age of 97 in 1932.

1911 census – Killeen, Clonbrock.