Carl Jansson
*Not to be confused with another Swedish Third Class passenger, Carl Jonsson.
Carl Olof Jansson was a Swedish carpenter, contractor and socialist who was known as a survivor of the RMS Titanic. On the 17th of May in 1890, Jansson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, as the son of Alfred Jansson and Charlotta Svensson who originated from Korsberga (Västergötland). He had four siblings, Erik, Vitalis, Hanna and Ossian.
In 1912 he lived in Orebro until he boarded the RMS Titanic on April 10 as a Third Class passenger in Southampton to live with his brother in Saunders County in Nebraska. He left Sweden without permission from the authorities to avoid his military service. He bought travel papers and the boat ticket when transferring in Copenhagen. He traveled with fellow socialists August Wennerström and Gunnar Tenglin.
On the night of April 14, 1912, Jansson was already asleep when the ship collided with an iceberg at 11:39 PM. He hurried to the deck to get into a lifeboat, but crew members refused to give him a place because they were only for women and children. He returned to his cabin to collect his things, but because the water was already coming in, he left with only a watch.
According to a source from 1912, he has testified to have seen First Officer Murdoch stuck a gun to commit suicide amidts of the chaos, but there's no rebuttal from other sources or witnesses. Once all the lifeboats had departed at 02:07 A.M, and the water was washing over the Boat Deck, Jansson hurried to the aft deck with Wennerström before stepping over the railing and jumping into the water. In the ice-cold water, he and about twenty others clung to Collapsible A, that had been floated off, for hours. Jansson saw how one after the other died and thus let go of the boat. Once enough people had died, the raft could be turned around and the drowning people found a place in the Collapsible.
Carl Jansson with Gunnar Tanglin (far right) August Wennerström (right behind) and the salvation army workers
Other persons who made it out of the water into a dinghy were persons of different nationalities and classes. Another member was Rhoda Mary Abbott. At seven o'clock in the morning he was only taken out of the water and cared for on the Carpathia. At that time he was severely hypothermic. Jansson, like Wennerström, is one of fewer than fifty people who have been pulled alive from the water.
Once he arrived in New York, the White Star Line provided him with clothes and 10 dollars. He was taken to the Salvation Army's Cadet School, where he received an additional $25 from a committee.
On April 24, he traveled to Chicago with Oscar Hedman and Anna Sjöblom, eventually settling with his brother in Nebraska. He changed his name to Carl Johnson and resumed work as a carpenter, and later as a building contractor.
He never returned to Sweden. Johnsson married Edith Syverson on May 3, 1923. The couple had no children. He died of a cerebral infarction at the age of 87.