I have been at the White Star Line offices in New York for the last week waiting for news of our beloved Katie. The steamship Carpathia, which rescued the survivors, arrived in New York yesterday evening. I waited there for hours and hours until every last person was down the gangway and the doors were closed again.
Katie did not come to me Mammy.
She did not walk towards me and fall into my arms in the pouring rain. I did not scream her name in delight and relief as so many others did when they saw their loved ones emerge from that black night.
I have been to all the hospitals and anywhere where I am told that victims have been taken – still I cannot find her Mammy and I sit here with the heaviest, heaviest heart as I find that it has fallen to me, your eldest daughter, to tell you the terrible news that little Katie did not survive the disaster - she did not manage to escape on one of the few lifeboats which left Titanic.
With fifteen hundred others, Katie was lost to the ocean.
I think I have cried enough tears now to fill the depths of that ocean over and over and over again, because I cannot believe she is gone – cannot believe she didn’t walk off that mighty ship to the sound of ragtime bands and the sight of ticker tape and flags and the joy of seeing my face in the waiting crowds.
I wish I could be there to comfort you all Mammy, dearly I do. I will be making arrangements to travel home on the first ship I can secure passage for but for now I am so sorry that these words are all I can send.
I have enclosed a pair of gloves which I had bought for Katie as a birthday and welcome gift. They were bought in Macy’s department store – I think she would have loved them dearly and wish you to have them now to lay on her bed as you mourn her.
I know there will be much mourning in Ballysheen Mammy with so many of our loved ones dead. I cannot imagine the sadness there must be there. The whole city of New York seems to be in mourning – nobody can believe such a thing could happen.
Please forgive me for writing this terrible news and may God bless us and comfort us all at this terrible time.
Your loving, devoted daughter,
Catherine
*
New York
24th April, 1912
Edgar Selznick
Éclair Studios
Municipal Buildings
Main Street
Fort Lee, New Jersey
My dearest Edgar,
Apologies for my recent lack of communication – as you will be aware from the many radio and press interviews I have been giving recently, I was one of the many unfortunate victims of the Titanic disaster. Really Edgar, it was the most frightful business altogether – the stuff of nightmares. Mother is overcome with grief at the tragic loss of darling Robert and the ruination of all the wedding plans. I am wracked with guilt about deserting him on the deck of the ship, but what was I to do with the Officers insisting that the women and children fill the boats first – I had to go without him, he was quite insistent, and those poorly educated steerage people caused such an unnecessary panic and stampede it was almost impossible to hear oneself think, never mind pay any heed to one’s own survival, or to one’s fiancée’s survival.
So, I found myself in the lifeboat with little Edmund, being lowered into the Atlantic before I really had much time to think about it.
Thank goodness for the First Class Stewards for encouraging us to dress warmly or I think I may have frozen to death in the lifeboat waiting for rescue. I actually gave one of my topcoats to a wretch of a girl who sat shivering in a thin nightdress and light cotton coat which was drenched to the waist with seawater. I can only assume she was from steerage class – she was lucky, I don’t think many of them survived.
I suspect I will never see the coat again and I suspect it will be the nicest coat that she will ever own - it was from an exquisite little boutique in Rome. I quite liked it, but I suppose it was put to good use.
Well Edgar, now that Robert is buried and I have had chance to grieve and rest and recover my spirits a little, I have been wondering if the studio might be considering making a movie about the Titanic disaster. It would make for great drama and I would be willing to play a lead role, showing from first-hand knowledge what really happened that night. Perhaps Mr Francis might make a suitable Captain Smith and Mr Adolfi for the part of a crewman. With all the inquests and inquiries and haranguing of poor Mr Ismay, I am sure it would be welcomed by the White Star Line and might serve to put some of the more unpleasant rumours about the incident to rest.
In any event, I have arranged for the white silk evening gown I wore that night to be freshly laundered as I thought it might be a nice touch to wear the very same gown in the re-enactment if the studio was enthusiastic about the idea – we could perhaps print the information about the gown on the studio posters.