I was away last week, so I don’t know if there had been a thread about this. Just in the last year or so, surivors of the Titanic and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory have died; and every so often a WWI vet still appears in the obits.
“Wilton, Conn.—Catherine Connelly, who as an 11-year-old in 1904 escaped the inferno that burned the General Slocum, an excursion boat in the East River, died Thursday. She was 109 and was one of the last two survivors of the disaster. Some 1,021 of the 1,331 passengers on the Sunday school cruise died. Every year in the weeks leading up to the June 15 anniversary of the disaster—New York City’s most lethal fire until Sept. 11, 2001—Connelly would become sad. She remembered a boy shouting ‘fire’ over a band and mothers and children with clothing on fire leaping into the swirling whirlpools of Hell Gate in the East River. Connelly lost her mother, brother and sister. Only the ship’s captain went to prison.”
That’s interesting. I’d never heard of this tragedy. 1904 was the year my grandmother was born though, and she has outlived everyone who came up with her. Last of her generation.
Baker, you may want to check out My Father’s Gun. The author’s grandfather was a member of the NYPD at the time and is said to have rescued the late Ms. Connelly. I saw the movie that the History Channel did, they managed to track down both of the survivors and the author was introduced to Ms. Connelly as being the grandson of the man who rescued her.
Those two sites have some conflicting stuff… from the first one:
“But it was a deathtrap, nothing but tinder and fresh paint and crumbling life preservers and the cheapest fire hose her owners could buy. It had not been inspected for years.”
From the second:
"Five weeks before the disaster, the Slocum was checked by the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service, which certified its 13-year-old lifebelts as ``up-to-date and of good quality.’’
I’d never heard of this disaster and I’m finding it interesting in a morbid way to read about it.
Also (from the second link) what was the ‘premonition’ that the first lady had that made her leave the ship before it left?
thank you for the links, mr olsen. very interesting.
thank you for the obit, eve.
i pulled out the one you linked to a bit ago when i was reading “the triangle fire” by stein last weekend. it was nice to have some proof that a few of the women had quite a bit of life to live after surviving the fire.
I guess the first site should say “It had not been properly inspected for years.” Corruption was rampant in NYC in the early part of the 20th Century and the Slocum’s owners had been bribing the inspectors.