Anna Sofia Sjöblom
Miss Anna Sofia Sjöblom was a young passenger on Titanic.
Background[]
Anna Sofia Sjöblom was born in Oravais, Finland to Gabriel Gustafson and Johanna Nilsdotter on 14 April 1894. Her father was a woodworker. She was the first child and had two siblings: Katharina Johanna who was born in 1897 and Andrew Blane who was born in 1904.
In 1912 she was on her way to her father in Olympia, Washington in America and had to make a transatlantic voyage.
She was with a group of other Finns, who stuck together on their journey to England: Karl Wiklund, Jakob Wiklund and Jakob Alfred Johanson. On March 30, Anna and the men left Hankö in Finland aboard the SS Urania, a ship that carried several Finnish emigrants. Some of them would later become passengers of the new White Star Liner. The Urania made halt at Copenhagen on April first. From there, she made her way to Hull, England and docked on April 3. Sjöblom and the other Finns then took a train which went to Southampton via London.
Titanic[]
She and the others were supposed to board the Philadelphia, but the coal strike made this impossible, so she and another group of Fins were transferred to the new liner. She and her compagnions came aboard Titanic in Southampton on April 10 and had tickets for Third Class. Anna was a single girl, she slept in cabin #134 with several other Finnish women, like Velin Öhman. The cabin had berths for 6 people and was in the aft part of D-Deck.
Her time aboard Titanic was not particularly pleasant as not only could she not speak English but she was seasick. April 14, 1912 was Anna's 18th birthday. At night, when Titanic made the collision, she woke up and collected her most valuable attire. She made her way from Third Class to the Boat Deck. During her ascend to the higher decks, she got lost somewhere in the hallway while water came in but somehow she managed to escape.
She was shown an emergancy staircase by a young Swedish girl that she talked to. They marveled at first, seeing the luxury of the Second Class and they also arrived at the First Class Dining Saloon at one point. Anna felt like having a taste of the goods, but feared she would have to pay for it all later. It took a while to realise that she needed to get off the ship because of the language barrier. The listing and slanting deck then finally made her aware of the sinking and was able to enter lifeboat 16 which was almost full when she got in.
From the lifeboat, she saw an officer shoot himself through the head. She has said to have witnessed other shocking things as well, such as the story of a young couple dieing right in front of her when the girl fell out of the boat. The woman was dead when she was picked up, and her spouse was so stricken by this loss, that his hair turned white, and then he suddenly died as well on Carpathia. She's even said that a fellow train passenger she knew from the journey to Southampton, had survived for 6 and a half hour in the icy waters and could disembark in New York from the Carpathia just fine on his own. Those sound like pretty improbable stories.
When Carpathia reached New York on April 18, Anna was given in the care of the Lutheran emigrant home for a week. From there, she left to Mount Olympia with a train. A few Swedes, also former Titanic denizens, were on her train. They were Carl Olof Jansson, Oskar Hedman and Berta Nilsson.
Later life[]
Sjöblom gave an account to the 'Tacoma Daily News' of April 30, 1912 (partly reprinted in The Visitor's Guide to Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit by the King County (Washington) Journal Newspapers, reprinted in full in The Titanic Commutator Vol. 19 No. 4). A full vesion of her account was published in the Olympia Daily Recorder, of April 30th, 1912.
Anna had her first marriage with Anton Nils Peterson. From their bond, a daughter arrived in 1914, Evelyn Eleanor. Anna's brother and mother were still in Finland but in 1915 they migrated to the USA as well. Anna and Anton had a son as well in 1916: Harold William . Her relationship with Mr. Peterson ended in 1920, after which she took a job in a hotel, as a seamstress, in Tacoma.
She later made the promise to Gordon Kinkaid from Calorado, on 18 July 1923. He was an electrician.
On May 4, 1954, she lost Gordon. As a widow, Anna Kinkaid lived in Saint Olympia from 1956 until her death in 1975, at the age of 81.