Assāf Jirjis Tu'mah al-Sayqalī was a passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
Assāf Jirjis Tu'mah al-Sayqalī was born to Jiryas Tu'mah in the mountain village Kafr Mishkī, probably in 1883 or a few years later or earlier. This village, now part of Lebanon but back then under Ottoman rule as it was conscripted by the Turks to Syria.
Assāf grew up as a farm helper. In the 20th century, he had a wife, Sa’idah who was more than a couple of years younger than him. She gave him two girls: Adma and Amaline.
Two of Assaf’s cousins, Mariyam Assāf Khalīl and Sleiman Khalīl Attala, had come back from Canada in 1909. They had settled in Ottawa, Ontario many years back and sold their own goods. After a three year visit in Syria to see their family, they were about to return to Canada in 1912. There were many others from Kafr Mishkī who wanted to go to North America as well and migrated for the first time. Assāf went with his cousins and a large group from the village took off to travel to Beirut. A crossing was then made to Marseilles. Before they could continue north, they had to be examined by officials to see if they had no contagious diseases as migrants. The news of Titanic’s arrival and her grand status already preceeding her, reached Marseilles and the Syrians were interested in going for passage on that ship, especially as it was the earliest ship to go to America.
Titanic[]
Holding Third Class tickets, Assāf and the others went onto Titanic via a tender in the harbor of Cherbourg, on the evening of April 10.
On April 14, at 11:40 P.M, Titanic had found an iceberg in her way and she hit it. They tried to dodge it on the last moment as it was sighed too late and with the engines reversed, they couldn’t get clear enough. The damage was done on starboard side and water leaked through the gashes.
On April 15, five minutes past twelve, the Captain felt it was time that the ship should be evacuated as he and Thomas Andrews had taken a look at the damage and it was too serious to not act. Titanic was going to sink.
It is unclear what Assāf and Sleiman were doing at the collision and afterwards. Mariyam had gotten to the Boat Deck fast as soon as she knew a disaster was taking place and realised that the liner was doomed. Her cousins were left behind while she was pushed into Collapsible C and was thus saved. Assāf and Sleiman could not get off the ship, which sank at 2:20 A.M, which left many casualties as the water was freezing cold and many souls hadn’t found a lifeboat, including the two men. They were among the many deceased and their bodies couldn’t be found later.
After his death[]
Mariyam Assāf Khalīl was deeply affected by the loss of her two cousins and several other Syrians who were closely related. She was sure that they were not killed by the sinking but by an Officer who shot them just before she was put in Collapsible C.
Sa'īdah, the widow of Assāf, went on with her life and found a new spouse not too long after his death and the confirmation of his passing in the news. She lived in Ottawa and was naturalised to Sadie and lived till 1983 while delivering 7 more children.