Beatrice Sandstrom
Beatrice Irene Sandström (August 9, 1910 – September 3, 1995) was one of the last remaining survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.
Beatrice Irene Sandström was born on August 9, 1910 in San Francisco, California to Hjalmar Sandström and Agnes Bengtsson. Beatrice had an older sister, Marguerite Rut, born March 23, 1908.
Hjalmar and Agnes had emigrated to the United States from Sweden in 1908 shortly after Marguerite's birth, and settled in San Francisco. However, they didn't enjoy the lifestyle too much and by 1911 they had saved up enough money to get by for a while and were planning to move back home to Sweden. Beatrice, her mother and sister had been visiting her mother's parents in Hultsjö as well as friends in Forserum before boarding the RMS Titanic to return to the United States.
Aboard Titanic[]
The Sandströms boarded the Titanic at Southampton, England on April 10, 1912 as Third Class passengers. The family shared cabin G6 with Elna Ström and her two-year-old daughter, Selma.
Shortly after Titanics collision with the iceberg at 11:40 P.M. on April 14, Agnes and Elna were woken by a steward and told to get up to the Boat Deck. The women dressed their daughters and made their way to the deck. In the confusion on the Aft Well Deck ladder, Agnes lost sight of the Ströms and never saw them again; Elna and Selma both perished.
The Sandströms were loaded into lifeboat 13 which was lowered shortly before lifeboat 15, and the women had a scare when a stream of water put them underneath lifeboat 15, which nearly came on top of them. They were picked up by the rescueship RMS Carpathia. The ship arrived in New York City on April 18. After its arrival, Agnes and her daughters were sent to St. Vincent Hospital, and then continued on their way to California. In the fall of 1912, the Sandström family moved back to Motala, Östergötland, Sweden.
Although Beatrice did not remember anything about the voyage, as a child, she used to say: "Look, the moon is falling down", perhaps in reference to the distress rockets fired as the ship went down.
After the sinking, Agnes and her daughters headed back to San Francisco for only a few months. They sold their house, packed up everything they owned and returned to New York. It has been said that because of what happened on the Titanic, Hjalmar bought their tickets from the Cunard Line and in August 1912, the family sailed back to England aboard the RMS Mauretania as Second Class passengers. From England they sailed on another ship for Sweden, where they remained for the rest of their lives.
Later years[]
Beatrice could not recall anything about the Titanic voyage; however, she said that once, as a child, she exclaimed, "Look, the moon is falling down," perhaps in reference to the distress rockets the ship fired. She earned her wages by running a bakery in Sweden.
In 1988, Beatrice returned to the United States for the first time since 1912, where she took part in a gathering of survivors organized by the Titanic Historical Society. She died in Östergötland, Sweden. on September 3, 1995, at the age of 85. At the time of her death, she was the tenth remaining survivor of the disaster.