Nina Harper on a tricycle
Annie Jessie Harper was a child passenger on the RMS Titanic.
Early life[]
Annie Jessie Harper, often known as Nana or Nina, was born on January 3th, 1906 in Govan, Lanarkshire, Scotland as the daughter of John Harper, an evangelical pastor and a native of Renfrewshire. Her mother Annie Leckie Bell, also a native of Govan, had previously worked as a dressmaker.
John and Annie married in 1903 and Annie was fated to be their only child when Annie Lecker died following complications arising from childbirth on January 8th, 1903. Annie's niece, Jessie Wills Leitch, a Renfrewshire native who lived with Annie much of her life, stepped up to help take care of Nana in 1906. This was imperative as John worked and preached throughout Britain and Ireland, including North America.
Titanic[]
Nana, John, and Jessie boarded the RMS Titanic at Southampton as Second Class passengers. They were travelling to the Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois. She is listed in the passenger list as Nana Harper.
On April 14-15, around midnight, Mr. Harper came to their stateroom and told them that the vessel had struck an iceberg.
Niece Jessie remembers she was dressing while John went to learn further particulars and returned to say that the order had been given to put on the life belts. Everyone obeyed and John picked up Nana in his arms and he took her up to the deck. There, the women were ordered to the Upper Deck. Jessie had to climb a vertical iron ladder and Mr. Harper brought Nana after her up the ladder and the men at the top lifted her up to Jessie again.
There was no opportunity for farewell, and, in fact, even then they did not realize the danger, as they were assured again and again that the vessel could not sink, that her sister Olympic was steaming on its way towards them and would be alongside at any minute.
Jessie and Nana are believed to have been rescued in lifeboat 11. Lifeboat 11 was well manned, it was the 11th to leave the vessel. Forty-five minutes later, the Titanic went down. The boat was about a mile away at that point. Her father John was lost in the sinking.
Following their rescue by the RMS Carpathia they weren't given a cabin but slept in a library aboard her. Having arrived in New York on April 18, still wearing the clothes from when they were leaving the Titanic, Jessie and Nana were met by Reverend Ervine Wooley, the assistant pastor of the Moody Church.
Later life[]
Jessie elected not to not continue to Chicago and decided instead to return to England with Nana at the earliest available opportunity. They arrived in the UK aboard the RMS Celtic on April 25th. Sadly enough Annie didn't understand why her father wasn't with them. After returning to England, Annie was apparently raised by an uncle and aunt in London.
In 1921, she performed the opening ceremony of the Harper Memorial Baptist Church in Glasgow, which was dedicated to John's memory. However during her upbringing, talk of Titanic was discouraged by her family. She later worked at Richland's Bible College in London and it was there she met Phillip Roy Pont (born 1903), an alumnus of All Saints Bible College and a native of Heathfield, Sussex, who worked as a grocer.
They married in London in the closing months of 1934 and had 2 children: Gordon and Mary (Later Dr. Gurling). They moved back to Scotland around 1936 where Philip was the pastor at a Baptist Church in Denny, Falkirk before they moved to Shetland followed by Dundee and eventually Glasgow.
Philip retired around 1984 and they settled in Burnside, Lanarkhire. In her later years, Nana continued to live in Burnside but had few memories of her time on the Titanic. Nana's recollection was not complete but she later recalled sitting on Jessie's knee as she watched the Titanic sink and she later recalled the noise of those struggling in the water.
She spoke very little of her time on Titanic but kept in regular contact with Eva Hart who remembered playing with Nana on the Titanic as children. Nana had no recollection of their moments together.
Nana died in her home on April 10th, 1986 at the age of 80, on the 74th anniversary of Titanic's departure from Southampton for her Maiden Voyage. She was buried in Moffat Cemetery. Philip died in 1995.