Margaret Welles Swift

Margaret Welles Swift

Margaret Welles Swift was a First Class Passenger and the wife of Frederick Joel Swift. She was born as Margaret Welles Barron. She was 46 when boarding Titanic, and was born on September 30, 1865 in Bath, Steuben in New York. She was the daughter of Charles Hazon Barron and Julia A. Welles. Margaret, also often called 'Minnie', had two sisters.

She was married around 1899 to Fred Joel Swift, a realtor originally from Herkimer, New York. The couple remained childless and by 1900 were living in Brooklyn, New York and they later settled in Nyack, New York. She was widowed on 21 October 1907.

Following a tour of Europe, Margaret was travelling with her friends Dr. Alice Leader and Frederick Kenyon and his wife and she boarded Titanic in Southampton. She shared cabin D-17 with Dr. Leader. The three ladies were rescued aboard lifeboat 8 but Mr. Kenyon went down with the ship. She had been pulling the oars for several hours.

After her arrival in New York aboard Carpathia she stayed with her sister Ella Ford at 3 East Sixty-first Street. Family and friends of Mrs. Swift were worried after reading in the first issue of their local newspaper, the Leader-Observer, they had learnt that 1500 people at least found their death when the ship went down. They were anxiously awaiting word of her fate, she was also a bit of a celebrity in New York, her home town. In addition to her travelling, Mrs Swift was well known for her participation in church and charity activities and also being a president of the Fortnightly Library Club of the Twenty-sixth Ward in the Arlington section of East New York.

Interview of her story

Soon after it was confirmed that Mrs. Swift had survived she gave an exclusive account to the Leader. She began by describing the magnificence of the ship and told how the massive suction caused by its leaving port in Southampton drew the two ships on either side of her from their moorings.

She told how she heard a mighty crash that sounded like broken glass, and how the passenger next door showed her a huge chunk of ice which had burst through the porthole of his stateroom.

“The shock had not been great enough to cause any great alarm,” Mrs. Swift told the Leader. She said that she went on deck, where there didn’t seem to be any sense that they were in trouble."

“The captain assured those on deck that there was no danger,” she said. However, it was just a few moments later that he ordered the launching of the lifeboats. And that’s when 'things got serious.'

“I was in the second boat lowered,” she told the Leader. “There were twenty women and four men. The boat was provisioned with two barrels of water and some bread.” Mrs. Swift reported that the captain told the rowers to head towards a light, far in the distance. He asked that they return as soon as possible.

She described the heartbreaking scene as the lifeboats left the ship. “Women and children threw kisses to their husbands and fathers, little thinking, as the oarsmen pulled the boats away, that they should never see their loved ones again.”

The Leader asked Mrs. Swift why only 24 people were placed in her lifeboat when reports said they could hold up to 60. “The davits (the crane that held the lifeboats) were only supposed to hold 15 people.” She added that by then, the captain and the officers were concerned about suction from the sinking ship pulling down the lifeboats and wanted to give them time to get as far away as possible.

An hour after she left Titanic, it went down. “First the lights gradually went out, and exactly at twenty minutes after two, the Titanic went out of sight. She broke in the middle as she went down and the boilers exploded. It was awful.”

Soon after it was confirmed that Mrs. Swift had survived she gave an exclusive account to the Leader. She began by describing the magnificence of the ship and told how the massive suction caused by its leaving port in Southampton drew the two ships on either side of her from their moorings.

Further life

Swift continued to live in Brooklyn, New York. She lived an active life, went on to campaign for president Herbert Hoover in 1932 and was part of various clubs that shared her enthousiasm and passion for horticulture, gardening and flowers, for many years she had her organising duties as president of the Garden Club of Nyack, as well as contributing to the Federated Garden Clubs of New York and serving as president of the National Council of State Garden Clubs from 1933 to 1935..

Margaret also had a political life, as a staunch Republican, an impressive part of her resume is that she campaigned for president Herbert Hoover in 1932. She was also a member of the Women's Republican Club of Nyack as well as the Women's National Republican Club and advocated for women voting. They awarded her with the medal of the Federated Garden Clubs of New York State in 1940. She also remained active in her Book Clubs and library work.

She eventually moved to Nyack, New York with her two sisters and lived there for the rest of her life.

Margaret Swift died at home on 29th April 1948, at the age of 82 and was buried in North Tarrytown, New York.