George Achilles Harder was born on October 22, 1886 in Brooklyn, New York as the first child of plumbing supplies manufacturer Victor Achiller Harder and Wilhelmina Mehl. George had one sister, Hortense (born 1890) and 2 half-siblings, Victor Achilles (born 1869) and Emelia Julia (born 1872). He graduated from the Pratt Institute and in 1909 joined the Essex Foundry.
In his 1916 passport, George was described as a man with brown hair, gray eyes, a fair complexion, a small nose, and an oval face.
On January 8, 1912, George married Dorothy Harder and, after a 3-month honeymoon in Europe, they both boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg in First Class. He and his wife stayed in stateroom E-50.
The Harders with Sarah Maybel Beckwith onboard RMS Carpathia
On the night of April 14-15, 1912, when the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, George and his wife Dorothy managed to survive and escape in lifeboat 5. Following the rescue, the couple was the subject of a well-known photograph taken aboard the RMS Carpathia, in conversation with Sarah Maybell Beckwith.
This is what he told about the disaster:
""It wasn't heavy enough to wake many passengers, and I could tell right away that many of them never knew of the collision, and I think they sank in their sleep. Some women have said they weren't even called by stewards. Others , who make up the vast majority, were told there was no danger, not to rush and not to be in the least disturbed, however I went on deck as I did not like the scraping sound that followed the noise deaf, and when I got there, they told me I had better put on my lifebelt and I came back to my wife, both of us wearing lifebelts.
When I went to our bunk and told people that they had told me to put on my lifebelt, they laughed at me and said it was a joke. There was no more real understanding of the conditions or the danger than if we had run into a small rowboat. The steamer was actually making progress at the time. Once on deck, I found out that one ship had already been postponed and then my wife and I entered the second with about thirty others, including Karl Howell Behr. Mr Joseph Bruce Ismay helped us on the boat and he performed splendidly. In our boat was a large box and a barrel of water.
Unlike the other boats, we had no lights at all, and we steered away from the boat for some distance, then taking turns at the oars. It was on the starboard side, the ship had listed in that direction. I am told that lowering the ships to the other side was a much more difficult proposition... We moved away from the immediate vicinity of the Titanic when she was beginning to list considerably and her arc was tilting slowly, but all the while the lights were burning brightly and the band played. I didn't hear any pistol shots, and although we were gradually moving away from the boat, I think we should have heard them. Five minutes before she disappeared, the lights went out.
Then the bow plunged deeper into the water until she swamped halfway through the boat, when she suddenly plunged herself under and thus made less suction than would have occurred if she had sunk again. the usual way. Just before she went down, a hideous, hideous, piercing scream tore through the air, and it was caused by a handful of third-class passengers, women, who had huddled in the stern end of the boat."
Aftermath[]
As the couple returned to New York aboard the RMS Carpathia, George Achilles Harder joined Frederic Kimber Seward and other survivors in honoring the bravery of Captain Arthur Henry Rostron and his crew. They presented the Captain with a silver cup with inscriptions and medals to each of the 320 crew members. The group that honored the captain was made up of: Karl Howell Behr, Margaret Brown, Mauritz Hakan Björnström-Steffansson Frederic Oakley Spedden and Isaac Gerald Frauenthal.
Later, George and Dorothy Harder settled in Manhattan and had 2 daughters: Dorothy (born 1913) and Jean (born 1915). In 1916, he and his wife traveled to Asia, via China and Japan, returning home from Hong Kong aboard the Empress of Asia in December of the same year. In 1925, George traveled aboard the Olympic.
Unfortunately, in 1926, George suffered the death of his wife from kidney disease at just 36 years old. On February 28, 1928, George remarried Elizabeth Peebles Rhodes and had 2 other children: George Achilles (born 1930) and James D. Rhodes (born 1931).
George Achilles Hardes died on May 26, 1959 at the age of 72 in New York and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.