Charlotte Wardle Cardeza

Charlotte Wardle Cardeza
Birth date	April 10, 1854
Birth place	Pennsylvania, United States
Boarded at	Cherbourg
Escaped the sinking in	Lifeboat 3
Death date	August 2, 1939
Death place	Pennsylvania, United States
Death cause	heart disease

Charlotte Wardle Cardeza (April 10, 1854 – August 2, 1939) was a survivor of the RMS Titanic disaster.

Early life and Titanic

Charlotte Wardle Cardeza was born on April 10, 1854. Her father, Thomas Drake, was a British textile manufacturer. From 1874 to 1900 she was married to James Warburton Martinez Cardeza, with whom she had one child, Thomas Drake Martinez Cardeza. In 1912 she and her son were returning to their home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA on board the RMS Titanic, and boarded in Cherbourg. Charlotte was a lover of big game hunting, as well as animal protection, and she and her son were returning from a safari in Africa and a visit to Thomas' hunting reserve in Hungary. Charlotte and Thomas left the sinking ship in Lifeboat 3.

Charlotte was accompanied on the Titanic by her son, Thomas, and staff Annie Ward and Gustave Lesueur, all of who survived. The Cardeza entourage brought fourteen trunks, four suitcases, and three crates of baggage. Mrs. Cardeza would later file a detailed claim to the value of £36,567 for their loss. They stayed in the most expensive suite on Titanic (B-51/53/55), featuring two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a private fifty-foot promenade.

After the Titanic

Returning to Germantown, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Cardeza kept to her peripatetic ways, only settling down at Montebello in the late 1930s. She died of heart disease.

Montebello

Montebello was later demolished and turned into a parking lot.

Portrayals

Titanic: The Musical (1997)

Becky Ann Baker as Charlotte Drake Cardeza (renamed Cardoza) in the 1997 broadway musical.

Becky Ann Baker played Charlotte Drake Cardeza in the 1997 production of Broawday; in the musical the surname was changed to Cardoza.