Georges Krins
Mr Georges Krins, 23, was born in Paris, 18th March, 1889. At the age of 12 years, he entered the Conservatoire de Liége, Belgium in the class of Mr. Dossin. Having gained 2nd prize in violin he decided to pursue a military career. However, he was persuaded by his parents to return to civilian life and one year later, having now obtained a 1st prize in violin, he took a place with the Spa Symphony Orchestra where he remained for two years.
After a season as 1st violin at the Lyrique Trianon in Paris he travelled to London, where he remained for two years, until in March 1911, working at the Ritz Hotel. His London address was 10 Villa Road, Brixton. Krins died in the disaster, his body was never recovered.
Source
Le Soir (Belgium), 5th May, 1912
Contributor
Jean-Francois Willame
Stanley H. Fox
Mr Stanley H. Fox, 38, was born on 13th April, 1876 and lived at 38 Gregory St, Rochester, NY. He had been on business in Birmingham, England before booking a return passage to America (ticket No. 229236, £13) with the Grand Trunk Co. He boarded the Titanic at Southampton.
Mr Fox died in the sinking, his body was later recovered by the MacKay Bennett (#236):
NO. 236 - MALE - ESTIMATED AGE, 60 - HAIR, GREYCLOTHING - Grey suit; grey overcoat.
EFFECTS - Letter credit case; memo book; card case; memo book; £2 in gold; $65; notes in case; watch and chain; pen; nickel watch; 11 shillings; 25c; and comb.
SECOND CLASS NAME - STANLEY H. FOX, 38 Gregory St., Rochester. N.Y.
When his remains were brought back to Halifax, NS a woman identifying herself as Lydia Fox and claiming to be his sister-in-law stated that as Mr. Fox's widow Cora was 'prostrated in Rochester' over the death of her husband, Lydia was authorized to act on her behalf. The officials saw no reason to doubt her story so they released the body and personal effects to be loaded on Lydia's train home. However, shortly before the train departed, they received a telegram from Mrs. Fox, instructing that the body not be released to Lydia Fox and to retain the personal effects.
While retaining the personal effects, they initially allowed the body on the train. However, while the train was enroute from Halifax, they recieved information that a possible insurance fraud was being perpetrated, so at the next stop, the body was off loaded; an ignorant Lydia Fox continuing on her journey. After an additional telegram from the mayor of Rochester, Mr. Fox's body and effects were finally routed home.
Contributors
Arthur Merchant
Alan Tucker
William Wellington Napier (great grandson)
Sources
Birmingham Daily Gazette, April 16 1912 - April 29 inc.
John Eaton & Charles Haas (1994) Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy
Cellist: John Wesley Woodward
Mr John Wesley Woodward, 32, was born September 11, 1879, and lived at 2 The Firs, Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford.
Woodward was the youngest son of Mrs. Woodward of Headington, and a brother of Mr. T. W. Woodward, a well-known tenor singer with Magdalen College choir who lived in Oakthorpe Road, Oxford. The Woodward family came to Oxford from West Bromwich in Staffordshire where John's father Joseph had been manager of the Hill Top Foundry, they had lived at Hawke's Lane, Hill Top and, as a boy, John had attended Wesley Sunday School.
Woodward became well known as a 'cello player appearing in solo and a member of several string quartetes. He left Oxford to join the Duke of Devonshire's band at Eastbourne but that enterprise fell through around 1909 so he joined the White Star Line, his first voyage being to Jamaica. He made a number of journeys across the Atlantic, and three across the Mediterranean. He was on board the Olympic when she collided with H.M.S. Hawke, and narrowly escaped injury as he was in the cabin with three colleagues just where the Hawke struck. Woodward had taken his best 'cello with him for the first time for the Titanic 's maiden voyage and on his return was due to perform at the May dinner of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Woodward and all the other musicians died in the sinking. The 'cellist is remembered on a small unadorned brass plaque in All Saints Church, Lime Walk, Headington which bears the inscription:
TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN MEMORY OF JOHN WESLEY WOODWARD BANDSMAN ON THE S.S. TITANIC WHO WITH HIS COMRADES NOBLY PERFORMED HIS DUTY TO THE LAST WHEN THE SHIP SANK AFTER COLLISION WITH AN ICEBERG ON APRIL 15 1912. BORN SEPT: 11, 1879. "NEARER MY GOD TO THEE."
Contributor
Stephanie Jenkins
Ms. Anna Sophia Turja
as told by Mr. John Rudolph (Mr. Rudolph resides in California and is Ms. Turja's grandson)
"I can never understand why God would have spared a poor Finnish girl when all those rich people drowned"
~Ms. Anna Turja, Titanic surviver , 1894 - 1982
Anna Turja was one of twenty-one children born in Oulainen, a small town located in northern Finland. The husband of her sister, Maria, had offered her a job in America working for him. He booked her passage on the Titanic.
My Grandmother was 18 years old when she boarded the Titanic in Southampton on her way to America.
To her, the Titanic was literally a floating city. The main deck, with all its shops and attractions was bigger than the main street in her home town in Finland. She was a steerage (third class) passenger. She had two roommates on board who were also young Finnish women. One was married, traveling with her baby, the other was traveling with her brother. In steerage, the men were kept apart from the women, in the front part of the ship.
"The atmosphere in third class was quite lively: a lot of talking, singing, and fellowship". ~Anna Turja - about the voyage
Late that Sunday night, she felt a shudder and a shake. Shortly thereafter, her roomate's brother knocked on their door. "Something is wrong" he said, "You should all wear warm clothing and put on your life jackets." A crewman tried to keep them down below. He ordered them back, but they refused to do so and he didn't argue with them.
She clearly remembers that the doors were closed and chained shut behind them to prevent others from coming up. The other two women continued up to a higher deck, but out of pure curiosity and chance she remained on what turned out to be the boat deck. She thought it was too cold to go up further, and she was intrigued by the activity and by the music being played by the ship's band, though she didn't know the names of the tunes.
On the boat deck, she met another woman from Finland, a Mrs. Panula, on her way to Pennsylvania with her five children to meet her husband. "Do we all have to die by water?" Mrs. Panula asked. She had apparently lost a teenage son in a drowning accident back in Finland.
Grandma believed the hype of the ship being unsinkable, and she didn't understand what was going on because she didn't know the language. She remembers the band coming out of the reception room, and the doors being locked after everyone had gotten out.
She also remembers seeing the lights of another ship from the deck. Eventually a sailor physically threw her into a lifeboat. Her lifeboat was fully loaded when it was launched; it was not one of the ones that got caught up in the cables. They immediately rowed away from the ship, fearing that they would get sucked down with it when it went under. The sailors were so well trained, very instrumental in keeping the boats afloat.
She heard loud explosions as the lights went out. The lifeboat was so full that as she held her hand on the edge of the boat her fingers got wet up to the knuckles. For the first five or ten minutes they had to beat people off who were trying to get in the lifeboat.
They were in the lifeboats for eight hours. Though the night was what she refered to as a "brilliant, bright night," they had to burn any scraps of paper they could find -- money or anything else that wouldn't cause a flash fire -- so that the boats could see each other and stay together.
Her most haunting memory was the screams and cries of the people dying in the water. Every time she would get to this part of the story she would start crying. "They were in the water, and we couldn't help them." she said.
On board the Carpathia, the people were wonderful. They gave up their blankets and coats, anything that could help. She kept looking for her roommates, but she never saw either of them again. She later found out that the entire Panula family had been confirmed lost.
The survivors did not have to go through Ellis Island, as all other immigrants did in those days. Instead, they were taken straight to New York Hospital, and then sent on their way. Because of the language problem, she was literally "tagged" and put on a train to Ashtabula, Ohio. Years later, my uncle Butch, was trying to get a security "crypto clearance" in the Army. The FBI investigated why there was no record of Grandma's citizen registration from entering the country. (He got the clearance.)
She was greeted by a crowd in Ashtabula, as she was somewhat of a celebrity by this time. She soon met my grandfather; they fell in love and got married. She never did go to work for her brother-in-law. Somehow, her name had appeared on the list of passengers lost, and it wasn't until 5 or 6 weeks later when her family received a letter from her, that they found out she was alive.
She was a special guest when the 1953 movie "Titanic" starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, first came to the new theater in Ashtabula. It was the first movie she had ever seen in her life. When reporters asked her afterwards (through my uncle as translator) if she thought the movie was realistic, all she could say was, "If they were close enough to film it, why didn't they help?" The reporters took that as a "Yes" to their question. Family members tried to explain to her that it was a re-creation. She just kept saying, "No, no."
Years later, on July 20, 1969, when they were watching the first moon walk, she wouldn't (and never did) believe that it was really happening. "No, no", she would say. "If they could re-create the Titanic, they could re-create this, too."
Over the years she was interviewed regularly by the local newspapers when the anniversary of the sinking came around, but she turned down appearances on I've Got a Secret and The Ed Sullivan Show, partly because of her physical condition, her age, and the language problem. (She never felt strongly enough about it to learn English.) She also refused many times to join in any lawsuits over the loss. She and my grandfather felt that they didn't need to go after money, Grandma had her life, and that was compensation enough.
Every year on the April 14 -15 anniversary, she would sit her seven children down to tell them the story again. The phrase she would always close with, and repeated throughout her life was, "I can never understand why God would have spared a poor Finnish girl when all those rich people drowned."
Mrs. Anna Sophia (Turja) Lundi passed away in Long Beach, California in 1982 at the age of 89.