Read Online Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic by Daniel Allen Butler - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Allen Butler
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separated. Molly went east, where she was a hit at Newport, her vitality like a breath of fresh air, and soon she was an accomplished world traveler. After becoming proficient in several foreign languages—although she could revert to basic Anglo-Saxon and “swear like a pit-boss” when provoked—she finally acquired the veneer of culture and civility that the left-behind Denver elite craved, and lacked, so badly. Her decision to return to the United States on the Titanic had been made at the last minute, after she had spent the winter in Egypt, part of it in the company of the Astors.
There were many others: Isidor Strauss, former Congressman and advisor to the President of the United States, part owner of Macy’s and well-known philanthropist, returning with his wife Ida from a holiday on the French Riviera; George Widener, son of P A. B. Widener, the tramway magnate from Philadelphia; and his son Harry, who already had a reputation as one of the eminent bibliophiles of the day, having just purchased from Sotheby’s a very rare copy of Bacon’s Essaies, remarking as he slipped it in his coat pocket, “If I am shipwrecked it will go down with me.”
Philadelphia society was further represented by John B. Thayer, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, traveling with his wife and teenage son Jack. Another Philadelphia family preparing to cross on the Titanic was that of steel magnate Arthur Ryerson, his wife Emily, and their three youngest children, Susan, Emily and John. They had embarked earlier that month on what was meant to be a rather lengthy tour of Europe; their luggage amounted to sixteen trunks, each carefully packed by Mrs. Ryerson’s maid, Victorine, who had also come along. Their passage back to the States had been entirely unplanned, brought about because their eldest son, Arthur Jr., had been killed in an automobile accident near Philadelphia a few days previously. Mr. Ryerson cut their European trip short and booked passage for his family on the first available steamer to New York, which happened to be the Titanic. 6
Col. Washington Augustus Roebling was also returning home, but this was at the end of what could best be described as a working vacation. Roebling had served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the American Civil War and was now the president and director of John A. Roebling’s Sons, the engineering and steel firm founded by his father. Roebling was known the world over as the man who had completed the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, a project begun by his father, and he had been in Europe studying the latest engineering developments in suspension bridge construction.
The American theater was represented by producer Henry B. Harris, who, along with his wife Renee, had been in England hoping to find new British productions that he could introduce on Broadway to maintain his string of successes. Harris owned a half dozen theaters in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as part-interest in a number of others, and he was a brilliant theatrical agent as well. Over the years Harris had managed such international stars as Lily Langtree, Peter Dailey, and Robert Edeson, and he was always unusually mindful of the image his actors and actresses presented to the American public: he had been one of the handful of producers who had struggled to lift the American theater out of the pit of disrepute into which actor John Wilkes Booth had plunged it when he shot President Abraham Lincoln.
One of the better known Americans on board the Boat Train that morning was Maj. Archibald Butt, military aide to President William Howard Taft. A born adventurer, Butt in his time had been a soldier, a news correspondent, a novelist, and a diplomat. He possessed an easy charm and graciousness, equally at home with prince and peasant. An elderly black who worked at the White House once remarked of him, “There goes the man that’s the highest with the mighty and the lowest with the lowly of any
There were many others: Isidor Strauss, former Congressman and advisor to the President of the United States, part owner of Macy’s and well-known philanthropist, returning with his wife Ida from a holiday on the French Riviera; George Widener, son of P A. B. Widener, the tramway magnate from Philadelphia; and his son Harry, who already had a reputation as one of the eminent bibliophiles of the day, having just purchased from Sotheby’s a very rare copy of Bacon’s Essaies, remarking as he slipped it in his coat pocket, “If I am shipwrecked it will go down with me.”
Philadelphia society was further represented by John B. Thayer, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, traveling with his wife and teenage son Jack. Another Philadelphia family preparing to cross on the Titanic was that of steel magnate Arthur Ryerson, his wife Emily, and their three youngest children, Susan, Emily and John. They had embarked earlier that month on what was meant to be a rather lengthy tour of Europe; their luggage amounted to sixteen trunks, each carefully packed by Mrs. Ryerson’s maid, Victorine, who had also come along. Their passage back to the States had been entirely unplanned, brought about because their eldest son, Arthur Jr., had been killed in an automobile accident near Philadelphia a few days previously. Mr. Ryerson cut their European trip short and booked passage for his family on the first available steamer to New York, which happened to be the Titanic. 6
Col. Washington Augustus Roebling was also returning home, but this was at the end of what could best be described as a working vacation. Roebling had served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the American Civil War and was now the president and director of John A. Roebling’s Sons, the engineering and steel firm founded by his father. Roebling was known the world over as the man who had completed the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, a project begun by his father, and he had been in Europe studying the latest engineering developments in suspension bridge construction.
The American theater was represented by producer Henry B. Harris, who, along with his wife Renee, had been in England hoping to find new British productions that he could introduce on Broadway to maintain his string of successes. Harris owned a half dozen theaters in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as part-interest in a number of others, and he was a brilliant theatrical agent as well. Over the years Harris had managed such international stars as Lily Langtree, Peter Dailey, and Robert Edeson, and he was always unusually mindful of the image his actors and actresses presented to the American public: he had been one of the handful of producers who had struggled to lift the American theater out of the pit of disrepute into which actor John Wilkes Booth had plunged it when he shot President Abraham Lincoln.
One of the better known Americans on board the Boat Train that morning was Maj. Archibald Butt, military aide to President William Howard Taft. A born adventurer, Butt in his time had been a soldier, a news correspondent, a novelist, and a diplomat. He possessed an easy charm and graciousness, equally at home with prince and peasant. An elderly black who worked at the White House once remarked of him, “There goes the man that’s the highest with the mighty and the lowest with the lowly of any
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