Berta Olivia Nilsson was a passenger on Titanic.
Early life[]
As a Sweden native, Berta Olivia Nilsson was born in Ransbysäter, Lysvik, Värmland to her father Nils Nilsson and mother Ingeborg Jonsson. Her date of birth was February 22, 1894. Both parents stemmed from Lysvik. Her family further consisted of 2 elder brothers and an elder sister as well as 3 younger sisters and brother. Per Johan was the first child born to the Nilsson pair in 1888, followed by Nils Adolf in 1890 and Maria Karolina in 1891.
Berta’s younger siblings were Selma Emilia, born in 1896, followed by Johan Helmer in 1899, Hanna Fridgeborg in 1902 and finally, Hilma Sofia in 1904.
Somewhere in her teenage years, Berta was engaged to Edvard Larsson-Rondberg, who was already living in the United States, so, at some point, he had come home and pick her up from his former home country. He was a cook and a far-away cousin of Berta and had migrated to the USA in 1908.
Titanic[]
Upon meeting Edvard, they traveled together on the Titanic to settle in Missoula, Montana. Her sister Maria Karoline had moved there one year prior and lived there. They were probably gonna meet up with her. Berta and her fiance departed from Southampton on 10 April 1912 aboard the finest ship in the world. Their tickets provided them with two seperate cabins in Third Class. Berta would sleep in the aft part and Edvard in the bow part. She was 18 years old at the time of the voyage.
On April 14 at the late night, Titanic would meet her tragic fate when she found herself scraping her hull againt an inevitable iceberg. Berta seemingly had slept through the collision but Edvard must have felt it. On April 15, shortly after midnight, water entered the G-Deck in the bow and Edvard’s cabin was now starting to flood. He got out and made his way to the aft part of the ship where Berta’s cabin was. He woke her up and told her what had happened. She put on some heavy clothes to ensure she could stay warm. Together they gathered at the Third Class’s waiting areas with other passengers to await further information.
What exactly happened to the unlucky pair during the fatal night is not sure, but she survived by climbing up to the A-Deck or Boat Deck somehow and getting a seat in one of the lifeboats. Which one is still speculation, but likely and often mentioned candiates are lifeboat 16 or Collapsible D. Edvard had not followed her to safety sadly, becaues he died in the disaster. Titanic sank after 2 hour and 40 minutes from the collision, taking 1503 souls with her. Apparently she had prayed for his survival while being lowered away, but it was to no avail.
After the sinking[]
Her lifeboat would be picked up in the morning of the 15th by the resuce ship Carpathia, led by the noble Captain Arthur Rostron. The Cunard Liner had come as soon as she picked up Titanic’s distress calls and now she would transport the former Titanic passengers to New York in the best possible care. They reached Titanic’s planned destination on April 18.
After she landed in New York, Berta was taken care of and given $50 by "The Women's Relief Committee". In the end, she ended up on the same train as other Scandanavian Titanic survivors such as the Swedish Carl Olof Jansson, Oskar Hedman and the Finnish Anna Sjöblom. On April 26, they passed St. Paul in Minnesota.
Later life[]
Berta was too traumatized to ever cross the Atlantic again so she stayed in the US. Kalispell, Flathead, Montana. She found a new husband, who was also from Lysvik. He was Lars Oskar Persson. Their marriage took place in 1 Jul Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana on the first of July, 1916. They had a son that same year in September, Leonard. One infant daughter had not made it through her first year sadly.
Berta’s life had become more difficult in the following years as she lost her father back in Sweden in 1917 and in 1918, influenza killed her husband. Tough times lay ahead as it wasn’t easy to sustain a living for herself and her son without his support.
In 1920 she had picked up a job as tray servant at a hospital. She luckily found a new love in carpenter and fellow Swede Hans Aron Christensen. She married him on December 16 of that year in Kalispell, Flathead, Montana. She had fallen for him after he helped her son against a bunch of his tormentors. They lived in Missoula, Montana, where their first son and daughter were born: Carl Arthur on June 1st, 1921 and Marian Bernice on May 14, 1923.
They moved to Chicago in 1924 and remained there till 1976. During the rest of her life she never came back to visit Sweden once, because she still didn’t dare to ever travel across the Atlantic again. Berta and Hans had 2 more children in Chicago: Ruth Lorraine on January 21, 1925 and Dorothy June on July 29 in 1926.
Her family was left in the dark that she was an actual survivor of the Titanic disaster. The truth came to light in the 1950s when the movie ‘A Night to Remember’ was on TV and Berta watched it. It brought her to tears and the trauma was still deep, so she told her daughter all about it. She couldn't keep her story to herself any longer. She would later grant some interviews to those that were interested.
More sorrow came for Berta during those years, as she was widowed when Hans became a lateral victim of a horrific car accident, Berta lost Hans after he spent some time at a hospital.
Berta Olivia Christensen was 82 years old when she passed away on December 27, 1976 following a stroke in a hospital.
Her grave is in Chicago’s Mount Olive Cemetery.