John Hugo Ross
John Hugo Ross was born on November 24, 1875 in Glengarry, Ontario. The family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba when he was two years old. He was the only son of Arthur Wellington Ross, a member of the Canadian Parliament for Manitoba in 1878. Arthur was also a real estate investor, he was involved in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He resigned his seat in 1882 to run for federal office and was elected deputy.
Early life and career[]
As a child, Ross was described by the Winnipeg Free Press as ‘a boy with a rosy face in breeches, riding his dog sled or skating. On Sundays and special occasions he was the little gentleman in kilt.’ Still a teenager, his father got him a position with the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, where he stayed for a year before moving to Toronto, where he got his start in the mining business. The venture failed and he had arguments with his father. In 1902, he went to look for gold in Klondike, but the fever there had already passed.
John Hugo Ross during the trip in Italy, where he and his friends were feeding pigeons on an Italian square.
When his father died, he inherited the family fortune and returned to Winnipeg to care for his widowed mother. Handsome and flamboyant, he had a sarcastic wit. He and his good friend, the real estate investor Thomson Beattie, had offices in the same building. Ross's secretary, Maud McCarthur, was Beattie's supposed fiancée. Then there was also his inseparable friend Thomas McCaffry. The three spinsters, Ross, Beattie and McCaffry called themselves "The Three Musketeers."
Titanic[]
On January 20, 1912, he departed aboard the Franconia with his close friends for a long winter vacation in Egypt and Europe. Two months later, Ross fell ill with dysentery and they decided to return home. "We're back from the old lands and ready for Winnipeg and business," Ross wrote in a postcard sent to friends there. They cancelled their tickets on the Mauretania to board the luxurious Titanic in Cherbourg on its Maiden Voyage, as First Class passengers. When he boarded on April 10, he was so ill that he was taken on a stretcher to his cabin, the A-10 and barely left it.
On April 14, the ship had struck an iceberg with a glancing blow, and the damage that had done caused her to sink.While Thomson Beattie and McCaffry aided in the preparation of the lifeboats, John remained behind on the ship.
Probably the last person to see Ross alive during the sinking was Major Arthur Peuchen. Climbing the Grand Staircase, Ross was found in his pajamas. When informed about the collision with an iceberg and that he should get dressed, Ross did not take the problem seriously. "That's it? It will take more than an iceberg to get me off this ship," he replied to Peuchen. It is assumed that he drowned in his bed. This is probably the reason his body was not recovered but a plaque in his memory was placed at Winnipeg City Hall.