Annie Kate Kelly was a Third Class passenger on the RMS Titanic.
Background[]
Anne Catherine Kelly was born in Cuilmullagh, the parish of Addergoole, County Mayo, Ireland, to John Kelly and Ellen Flaherty. She was often just called Annie Kate. Her date of birth was January 14, 1892.
She was from a family consisting of many girls. How many siblings Annie had is not clear. One brother was Patrick, born in 1896. Some of her sisters were Agnes, Margaret, Beatrice and Bridget.
Annie had cousins in America. They were Anna and Mary Garvey, living in Chicago, Illnois. She wanted to go there and join them. She became part of a group of 14 Addergoole residents, They were led by Catherine McGowan, a self-made woman, originally from Addergoole who had made it in America and was back to visit family. Annie was a cousin of Catherine. Annie and the other locals all wanted a better life and escape the tough, poor life in Western Ireland. Catherine had organised everything very well and used her experience to guide the new migrants.
Having said her emotional goodbyes to Addergoole, Annie and the others set about their 14 hour-journey which involved a simple carriage trip from Castlebar in County Cork. From there, a steam train would carry them to end up in Queenstown. A large passenger ship was going to be taken to get across the Atlantic Ocean.
Titanic[]
This ship was none other than the enthralling RMS Titanic. Titanic was greeted by Queenstown on April 11. The Addergoole 14, as the party was later named by Irish historians, had tickets for Third Class. The voyage was nothing but blissful for them. Annie had made herself acquianted to a likeable steward and they exchanged a few friendly words.
On the night of April 14, Titanic’s peaceful voyage came to a sudden halt. Danger had lurked as the ship had traveled at speed through an icefield, to meet an iceberg from too close. The conditions of the night had been too good to discern the iceberg from the scenery surrounding it. By the time the lookouts had warned the bridge seconds after they spotted it, she was less than 800 metres away from the unfortunate liner. Officer Murdoch tried his best to reduce her speed and veer around the obstacle but the ship scraped her starboard side against it, and crucially, below sea level. Tons of water rushed into the ship.
Kelly was in her bunk at the time of the incident. She woke and noticed the hum of the engines had stopped. The stewards were a bit neglectant, leaving the steerage passengers and telling the Irish men, who had gone up, that all was okay.
Moments later, after midnight on the 15th of April, a steward pounded on Anna’s cabin door and alerted her to the fact that something very serious had just happened, as well as telling her she should move to higher ground to save herself. Annie didn’t have the time to put on more clothes and was just in her nightgown. In the rush, she fell behind the others. Someone grabbed her by the hand.
It was the same friendly steward from earlier, who now made way for her, took her by the hand and brought her up to the Boat Deck. There, someone grabbed her and placed her in lifeboat 16, saving her from a potential cold death. She was one of only 3 Addergoole citizens to be rescued. The other 11 were lost. One of her fellow compagnians from Addergoole was Catherine Bourke, who didn’t want to abandon her husband, who wasn’t allowed to go with them, as he was a man. Instead, Kelly was put forward in her place when Bourke stepped out.
At 2:20 A.M, Titanic’s struggle was over. She had broken in two parts and now disappeared into the depths. The horrible scenes of the people dieing in front of her, was something that seriously impacted Katie.
After the sinking[]
She was not in great shape when she left the Carpathia on April 18 in New York and needed care in the Saint Vincent’s Hospital. White Star Line representatives took advantage of the fact this young girl was ill and very traumatised. They visited her room, persuading her to sign papers to settle with the shipping company for $25 dollars, which meant she could not sue them later. The doctors were very were worried about Annie. She couldn’t catch any sleep and had a high fever. They expected to lose her if she didn’t overcome this tough condition, but she did.
Upon release from the hospital, Annie went with Anna McGowan to Chicago. The protectorate of the Catholic Woman’s League, Dr. Mary O'Brien Porter, felt sorry for the two women and motivated the major to get charity for them.
Later life[]
It took a while to recover mentally from the ordeal. Ten years later, Annie Kate was still haunted by horrific memories. In 1922, she found solace in joining a convent. She had already felt the grace when the estemeed people of the local Chiagian community raised money for her and her friend.. She felt a calling and became a nun for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, where she was dubbed sister Patrick Joseph Kelly. She was a teacher. Inbetween her duties, she went to see her sister back in Ireland.
Patrick Joseph Kelly showed remarkable resiliance and strength, when, having become disabled party because of a fractured thighbone in the 1940s. This couldn’t stop her from teaching, nor from paying Addergoole a few visits over the next decades.
She kept her connections with the famous disaster and details of her short few days on Titanic to herself for the most part, as it had left emotional scars.
In 1969, she passed away on the 28th of December just after her retirement from the sisterhood. She was 77 years old at her death. Her last residence had been Adrian, Michigan.