Hilda Maria Hellström in 1912 at the age of 22.
Hilda Maria Hellström was a passenger on Titanic.
Early life[]
Hilda Maria Hellström was a native of Stora Tuna, Dalarna in Sweden where she was born on December 7, 1889. Her father was Pers August Hellström and her mother was Carolina Johnson.
Hilda had 1 older sister, 2 younger sisters and a younger brother. Ellen Carolina was born in 1887, followed by Hilda, Anna Paulina in 1894, Anna Thersia in 1897 and Nils Edvin Johannes Hellström in 1901.
Hilda was on her way to her aunt, the widow Johanna Eriksson at 1032 Florence Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. She had been thinking about traveling for a long time, but the plans had not come true because Hilda had to look after her ill mother and take care of the household. Carolina Hellström passed away in March 1912. One of her sisters came over to look after their father, so Hilda was now able to travel.
Titanic[]
She booked the trip with Carl Eriksson at the White Star Line office in Gothenburg and she was actually supposed to have take the voyage with the Adriatic, but because of the coal strike she was transferred to the Titanic. Her voyage on Titanic started in Southampton where she boarded on April 10. She was 22 years old at the time and unmarried.
As a Third Class passenger, she shared cabin #135 on D-Deck with other unmarried women. She was part of the group of about 17 emigrants led by Oskar Hedman, as he was the only one of them who knew English.
On the late night of April 14, at the time of the iceberg collision, Hilda had not yet gone to bed. When she noticed the vibration, she went out on deck but saw nothing alarming. When she had returned to the cabin she didn’t feel at ease.
She got dressed and went back up on deck. On April 15, at the late stages of the sinking, someone grabbed her and led her to a lifeboat; she arrived in one of the last, most certainly collapsible lifeboat C together with Velin Öhman, who took out a bottle of brandy and shared it with Hilda to calm her nerves. Hilda later said she was rescued in a boat with canvas sides and that some of the 35 or so passengers were ‘Italians’.
After the sinking[]
She wrote in a letter home about her rescue on the Carpathia were she was given cramped accomodation. Once arrived in New York, she was given temporary accommodation at the Lutheran Emigrant Home. Hilda received $25 compensation from The Women's Relief Committee. In New York she met a fellow Swedish Titanic survivor, named Anna Sofia Nysten. Anna was another young woman who also had traveled in Third Class and her basket was stolen as it had become a valuable item, but Anna refused to sell it. Anna and Hilda became friends who would later write eachother.
The Titanic disaster had given her a lot of fear for ocean travel, so she didn’t return home to Sweden or met her relatives again.
Later life[]
She lived with her aunt in Evanston until December 7, 1915. That day she married John Edward Larsson and they settled at 1870 Green Bay Road, Highland Park, Chicago, Illinois. The couple had a daughter named Ellen Maria. She was born on 21 April 1921, in Highland Park.
Through letter correspondence, Hilda had kept in touch with Anna Nysten, right up until her death.
Just a few weeks before Hilda died, she moved to Streater, Illinois, with her daughter. She died of cancer at her daughter's home at the age of 72 on March 3rd, 1962. She was laid to rest at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Cook County.