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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Winnipeg lives lost in tragedy

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/12/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Mark Fortune (COURTESY MANITOBA MUSEUM)

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Thomson Beattie (COURTESY ROBERT A. STEVENS / VEHICULE PRESS)

Titanic trivia

The cost of a first-class ticket on the transatlantic voyage to New York was $2,500, about $57,200 in today's currency. The two most luxurious suites went for a staggering $4,500 -- about $103,000 today.

A third-class ticket cost $40, about $900 in today's currency. Up to 10 people shared third-class rooms. There were only two bathtubs for the more than 700 third-class passengers.

The ship's cargo included eight cases of orchids, a Renault automobile and four cases of opium.

The majestic ship hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, and sank two hours and 40 minutes later, at 2:20 a.m. on April 15.

The forward part of the boat deck was promenade space for first-class passengers and the rear part for second-class passengers. People from these classes had the best chance of getting into a lifeboat, simply because they could get to them quickly and easily.

Even if all 20 lifeboats had been filled to capacity, there would only have been room in them for 1,178 people. There were 2,228 onboard. About 1,500 perished and about 700 were rescued.

At first, most of the passengers did not believe the liner was really sinking, hence the low number of 19 aboard the first lifeboat, even though it could carry 65.

Journalist William T. Stead, who was on board, had written articles predicting a great maritime disaster if ships went to sea without enough lifeboats. When he realized he was not going to get on a lifeboat, Stead went to the smoking room and sat down to read a book.

Dorothy Gibson, a 28-year-old silent screen actress, was the resident movie star for the Titanic. She would later star in Saved from the Titanic, a movie made one month after the disaster. Her costume was the dress she wore on the night of the sinking.

The owner, the White Star Line, was not blamed for the sinking because the Board of Trade feared it would result in lawsuits that would hurt the line's profits, damage the reputation of British shipping, and cause thousands of customers to switch to German or French liners.

No skeletons remain at the wreck site southeast of the Newfoundland coastline, which was located in 1985. Any bodies carried to the seabed were eaten by fish and crustaceans. The wreck lies 2.5 miles beneath the ocean surface.

The last living survivor, Millvina Dean, died in 2009 at age 97.

Source: RMS Titanic Inc.

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- Tied to the Titanic

HERE are two of the enduring stories of Winnipeggers onboard the Titanic:

Mark Fortune was a Winnipeg real-estate millionaire. He was also a former city councillor, a trustee of what is now Knox United Church and an expert curler. He built the 1884 Fortune Block at the corner of Main Street and St. Mary Avenue, now the site of the Times Change(d) club.

Fortune, his wife and grown children lived in a recently built mansion at 393 Wellington Cres. They departed in January 1912 for a vacation to Europe and Egypt. They booked first-class passage to return home on the Titanic in April.

While they were in Cairo, a clairvoyant told daughter Alice, 24, "You are in danger every time you travel on the sea, for I see you adrift on the ocean in an open boat. You will lose everything but your life."

The senior Fortune, 64, never went anywhere without his moth-eaten buffalo coat. He had insisted on taking it on the trip because he considered it a good-luck talisman, though he never took it out of his steamer trunk and the others teased him about it. On the cold night when the Titanic hit an iceberg, he went to his cabin and jokingly put it on.

No one really believed the liner was sinking. As Fortune's wife and three daughters -- all in their 20s -- climbed into a lifeboat, the girls gave their 19-year-old brother Charles their jewelry for safe-keeping, and told him to take care of his dad.

The last time they saw Fortune, he was standing on the deck in his shaggy coat. Neither his nor Charles' bodies were ever found. The chimes of Knox United Church were installed and dedicated to the Fortune men's memory.

The Manitoba Museum is displaying three buffalo coats from its collection as a reminder of this story: one in the museum lobby, one as part of its exhibit Titanic: The Manitoba Connection, and one in the entrance area at the MTS Centre Exhibition Hall, where Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is showing.

"It's a poignant artifact," says curator Sharon Reilly. "What could be more Manitoba than a buffalo coat?"

-- -- --

Thomson Beattie, 36, was a Winnipeg realtor who lived on River Avenue. John Hugo Ross, also 36, was a real estate broker. Their offices in the Merchants Bank Building were across the hall from each other, and they became friends.

Beattie's best friend, Thomas McCaffry, 46, was a former Winnipeg bank manager who had recently been transferred to Vancouver. In January 1912, Beattie, Ross and McCaffry -- all wealthy bachelors, known as the Winnipeg Musketeers -- took a vacation together to Europe and Egypt.

By late March, Ross was sick with dysentery and the three booked first-class passage to return on the Titanic, with Ross in one cabin and Beattie and McCaffry sharing another.

Beattie wrote home, telling his mother that he was "coming home in a new, unsinkable boat." Ross was so ill, he had to be carried to his cabin on a stretcher.

On the night of the disaster, April 14/15, Toronto millionaire Arthur Peuchen saw Ross still in his pyjamas as Peuchen made his way up the grand staircase. Peuchen told Ross the ship had struck an iceberg and that he should head up to the deck.

Ross replied, "Is that all? It will take more than an iceberg to get me off this ship," and returned to his cabin, where he presumably drowned. His body was never recovered.

Inseparable friends Beattie and McCaffry climbed onto the roof of the officers' quarters just before the ship went down. When the Titanic slipped below the surface, both tried to swim to a collapsible lifeboat, but McCaffry drowned. His body was later recovered.

Beattie did reach the lifeboat, but a ship's officer later found him and two others in it, dead from exposure. The officer cut the canvas siding of the lifeboat, assuming the sea would swallow up the bodies.

But a month after the disaster, another ship, the Oceanic, found the lifeboat bobbing in the open sea, 320 kilometres from where the disaster had occurred. One man aboard the Oceanic, Shane Leslie, recalled:

"The sea was calm at noon when the watch called out that something could be seen floating ahead. The ship slowed down and it was apparent that the object was an open ship's lifeboat floating in the mid-Atlantic. What was horrifying was that it contained three prostrate figures.... Two sailors could be seen, their hair bleached by exposure to sun and salt, and a third figure wearing full evening dress, flat on the benches.

"All three were dead and the bodies had been tossing on the Atlantic swell... The three bodies were sewn into canvas bags with a steel bar at the end of each. Then one after the other the bodies were draped in the Union Jack, the burial service was read, and they splashed into the sea."

Author Alan Hustak wrote in his book Titanic: The Canadian Story, "Some books insist the Titanic's last victim, found in a lifeboat a month after the disaster, was from New Jersey; others say he was from Chicago. In fact, he was Thomson Beattie of Winnipeg."

Sources: Titanic: The Canadian Story by Alan Hustak and RMS Titanic Inc.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 12, 2011 H5

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