Mansour Hanna was a passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
His name was originally Mansūr Ḥannā Al-Hāj, a native of a small Roman Orthodox village in the lower Beqaa Valley of Syria, Kafr Mishkī. Kafr Mishkī was then part of the Ottoman Empire but lies in modern day Lebanon. He was born around 1877 and grew up to become a farmer. In 1899 he left his motherland for Canada. He became an inhabitant of Ottawa, a place where other Syrians had made their living too. We could deduce that Masnour Hanna became his new, naturalised name there.
He revisited Lebanon twice inbetween his year of settling and 1912, the year he left the mountain village for his voyage back to Canada. It’s probably during his first trip that he married to Nasmīyah Antūn with who he had two girls: Fawzīyah was the first to be born into the Hanna family in 1909. In 1911 they were blessed with Ramzīyah.
There was a group of others from Kafr Mishkī who were going to migrate to America or some who were to return as they already had their home there. It’s not unlikely that Mansour had tagged along. Many of Kafr Mishkī went to Beirut, from were they had to board a ship to Marseilles in France and get through to health inspection.We could assume that Mansour was going that same route. From the South of France, they had to be on a train to take them to the north of the country, as the next part of their journey was again on a ship, to travel over the long distance across the Atlantic and one city was close to the Channel, where a vessel of transport would be that was scheduled for New York.
Titanic[]
Hanna was in Cherbourg on the evening of April 10 where he left France on the Titanic in Third Class along with the other villagers.
On April the 14th, a disruption occured in the Maiden Voyage of Titanic. On that night, the Titanic had big problems. She had struck an iceberg on the starboard side when the berg, not visible till it was too late, had been directly in her way but Titanic couldn’t turn around it enough or slow down completely. As her broadside scraped against it underneath the water line, small openings appaered, where the sea could enter the ship at various parts of a long portion of the hull. It flowed in quite fast and several tons of water found their way quickly up the first two decks in the first 20 minutes.
It was April 15, when the captain had gone down to see the damage for himself and it did not look good. With the analaysis of Thomas Andrews, they had worked out she could not stay afloat for many hours. Shortly after midnight, the order was given to evacuate the passengers and ready the lifeboats.
Titanic lasted until 2:20 A.M, when she disappared underneath the surface after having been broken apart in her final minutes. Some of the people from Kafr Mishkī survived the disaster, however Mansour Hanna was lost.
When days had passed after the great disaster and the White Star Line had sent out a ship, the MacKay-Bennett, to find corpses, they discovered Mr. Hanna. He was body no #188. It took a while to identify him. His resting place is at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax where several other victims of the sinking of the Titanic were buried.