Elizabeth Anne Mellinger was a passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
She was born as Elizabeth Anne Maidment to the English pair of William Maidment from Wiltshire and his wife from Buckinhamshire: Sarah Neale. Their daughter, one of 6 children, came into this world in Pimlico, Middlesex, England in January 1870.
William Maidment did different jobs. He painted while also being a doorkeeper and later a debt collector. Sarah wed him in 1855. From their marriage, a son had sprung first in 1858: William Henry. He became the brother of Charles in 1859 and Louisa in 1864. Elizabeth arrived after John, who was from 1867 and Emily was her only younger sibling from 1873 onwards.
The home of the Maidments was in London in 1871. In 1881, they were at a different street. William passed away in 1889. After his loss, Elizabeth’s mother had taken their household to Walthamstow in Essex, where they were living in the 1890s, where she tried to get food on the table by making dresses.
On March 13, 1895, the future looked bright again, as Claude Leinard Deschamps Mellinger promised Elizabeth his loyalty as her husband on March 13, 1895. The wedding was at Saint Mary’s Church in Islington. Claude was from Wimbledon in Surrey but had a French background. He had lost his own parents before adulthood and was adopted by three women, a mother and two daughters who were spinsters. Deschamps did clerical work for a living and was also an extravagant journalist.
With him, Elizabeth first had Eugenie Claudine, the same year she was married. Another boy followed in 1896, Alexander Leinard Deschamps. Next up was a daughter, named Violet Madeline, born on the 22th of February 1899. Madeleine had a younger brother in 1900: Edmund Reginald, as well as a younger sister in 1904: Constance Sylvia.
Descamps had deserted Elizabeth and her 5 children after a financial scandal. The former couple couldn't be further apart, as he ended up all the way in New Zealand and Australia, while Elizabeth would later go west. His last letter arrived from New Zealand in 1909. After that, Elizabeth and her children received nothing but silence. The remainders of the formerly well-to-do family lost everything, including their home. When she was near penniless, Elizabeth became a maid to wealthy families. The children were divided among relatives, many lived in Vermont, a state in the USA just bordering on Canada.
Meanwhile, Violet lived at a boarding school outside London. One day, she had to leave it all behind and pack, as her mother came to fetch her from school in early 1912. She had good news. Elizabeth had taken a position as housekeeper to a relative of the ‘new money’ Colgate family and hoped to reunite with her children in Vermont. First, she had to go to Fillmore Farms, an estate in Bennington, Vermont. Mother and daughter set off on their voyage together, sure their luck had changed for the better.
Titanic[]
On April 10, 1912, Elizabeth and her 13-year-old daughter Violet Madeline boarded RMS Titanic on its ill-fated Maiden Voyage from Southampton, England to be sailing to New York in Second Class. Elizabeth was on her way to a new life in North America old when she set foot on the mighty liner, which was branded as unsinkable. They said goodbye to England and the crowd said ‘Good luck’ to the Titanic as she steamed off to her first ever voyage. According to Violet, their cabin was on E-Deck, at starboard side.
The barriers between First and Second Class would not stop one dashing man, who actually was a manager for the Fillmore Farms which had given the desperate Elizabeth an opportunity to work for them. His name was Charles Cresson Jones and he visited the women from his own First Class area to warm them up to their potential new hometown of Bennington, as the man showed them pictures of the place. The young Violet was impressed and was enthousiastic of the thought of having Mr. Jones as a stepfather.
On April 14, at evening, the women had a good day with a church service in Second Class and they took a walk on deck. They noticed the low temparatures and felt it was more comfortable to turn in for the night, so they headed back to their cabin. It was a moonless night, as Titanic saw a clear ocean in front of her, as did her crew. But the sight of calmness was deceiving. An iceberg was somehow not visible until the lookouts saw it right in front of the bow, very close by. If they continued like this, Titanic would ram it and her bow would be dented like a box of matches.
They addressed this issue by veering Titanic to port, which went too slowly. The Titanic didn’t slow down fast enough either, so that meant they had less than a minute to react from sightining. The iceberg was almost cleared, but the the starboard side of the ship still made contact. Parts of her hull had scraped alongside beneath cousing trouble for her double bottom as well as her compartments. Six were breached.
The collision hadn’t disturbed Elizabeth and her daughter much, so they went back to their sleep. It was the ruccus on the hallways, with a steward drumming loudly on their door that they got out of their slumber again. He advised them to get up and move upwards, while being dressed warmly.
The girls did as they were told and navigated their way to the highest deck, in a hurry, as Violet saw that her mother had no shoes on and she also forgot her doll. The two arrived on the main deck, where the lifeboats were, but didn’t panic. They had no time to think, as they were quickly hurled into a half-empty lifeboat, which turned out to be lifeboat 14. It was lowered at 1:15 A.M.
The bow of the ship went under and Elizabeth’s daughter described how she saw the portholes disappear. The shocking experience of seeing Titanic’s last stand, being engulfed by the sea to be then taken to the depts, leaving hundreds of people helpess and screaming in the water and dieing, must have been too much to bear for the women.
After the sinking[]
Fifth Officer Lowe, who manned boat 14, then wanted to look for more people in the water to rescue, so they made room as several lifeboats were tied together and had still some spaces, as many were lowered half full. Elizabeth and Violet were asked to move over to lifeboat 12, as lifeboat 14 needed to be cleared to pick up potential swimmers.
Lifeboat 12 later came across Collapsible B, which was overturned when the ship had made a dive as her bridge submerged. On that boat, there were all kinds of men, among which was Second Officer Charles Lightoller. Elizabeth felt sorry for the poor Lightoller, who had been through a lot, as he nearly drowned, had been in the water for long while never having been properly dressed with his nightgown still on, until he got to boat B, where he took command and balanced it to save as many men as possible. He was exhausted. Elizabeth lended him a cape and tried to rub him warm.
All they could do now was wait. Luckily, Titanic’s wireless operators had come into contact with Carpathia, who had promised them to make their way to Titanic as fast as they could. After a speedy tracking of 58 miles, she was there at 4:00 A.M. Later, Elizabeth’s lifeboat was picked up with all the occupants in it. Elizabeth was unconscious at that time. She also had frozen feet from leaving her cabin without shoes. It had been very cold in the lifeboat.
Elizabeth was taken to the ship’s hospital in the hope of recovering, which had caught Violet off guard as she suddenly couldn’t find her mother, who had to be treated for frostbite. Onboard, Lightoller wanted to thank Mrs. Mellinger for her kindness, but all he had was the tin whistle he had blown to attract other rescue boats. They were lifeboats 4 and 12, who had come to relieve the surviving men from their predicament on the overturned collapsible.
The Carpathia then set course for New York, to deliver Titanic’s former crew and passengers there. It was April 18, when the Mellingers could disembark to feel the safety of the mainland under their feet again. Charles Cresson Jones was lost in the sinking of the TItanic however. He was married, so once they were in Bennington, Eliazbeth and Violet went to see Ida Amelia Garfield, now a widowed woman. It looks like Elizabeth left her potential job for what it was to get back to England with Violet.
Later life[]
The disaster had taken a great toll on Elizabeth, both mentally and physically, as her body had experienced a kind of shock. Her hearing went backwards gradually as she was exposed, which had also done her nerve system no good.
In 1915, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean again, this time, in the hope to find their luck in Canada. Toronto became their new place of residence, their district being The Beaches. Violet changed her named to the frenchified Madeleine Violette. In 1921, she was given the hand of David Daniel Mann from the Canadian city of London in Ontario and 4 children were born from their marriage.
There was a special occasion on 15 April 15, 1939. Elizabeth and her daughter were at a reunion with two former Titanic people who also lived in Toronto. They were Samuel Collins, a Fireman on the Titanic and Emma Bliss, one of the stewardesses. They dined together at the Royal York Hotel, Toronto.
Elizabeth always cherished the silver whistle that Officer Lightoller had given her. In the 1950s, Madeleine donated the whistle to Walter Lord, the historian who had kept the memories of that night alive by collecting firsthand accounts from the survivors. He made a book out of it, called: 'A Night To Remember'. The prized whistle and Elizabeth’s hooded woolen cape are now on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.
Elizabeth Anne Mellinger was 92 years old when she died in 1961. her death date was Thursday, January 4.