Maria Elias Caram was a passenger of the Titanic.
Background[]
She was born as Mārīyah Ilyās Khalīl and originated from the mountain village Kafr Mishkī in the Beqaa valley of Syria, which is now Lebanese territory. The girl came into the family in 1894. When she was grown up, she married to Joseph Caram, the naturalised name of Yūsuf Karam/Kareem.
Joseph Caram was a merchant and former Syrian migrant who had born in Kafr Mishkī but emigrated later to Ottawa, Canada. He went into the trading business on Broad Street. He must have traveled back to Syria especially for asking the hand of Maria. They had their wedding in 1912 and soon the plan was for Joseph to go back to Ottawa, Ontario with his new bride, who was 10 years younger than him. They were part of a group of Syrian emigrants that departed from Kafr Mishkī. It is believed they stuck together on their way to a foreign city in Western Europe, where a large vessel would be their way of transport to the United States. The route led them first to Beirut 50 miles northwest. Beirut had a ship waiting to take the migrants to the South of France. Once there, they were going through inspection for health. From Marseilles, they needed to go further north.
Titanic[]
On April 10, the Titanic had docked in Cherbourg at 7 P.M. Two tenders brought the new passengers aboard the ship. Maria was just 18 years old when she was part of the group that embarked on Titanic in Third Class. Titanic left Cherbourg for the remainder of her Maiden Voyage.
It was April 14, not too far from midnight, Titanic was going well into her voyage but she got problems when her lookouts spotted an iceberg that was way too close to dodge. Steering to port with her engines astern, the Titanic couldn’t get past the berg undamaged. Her starboard side swiped against this frozen mass and cracks appeared in her hull underneath the waterline. The seawater poured in very rapidly.
It was now midnight on April 15. A worried Captain Smith had the setback of his life, the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews told him the ship was sinking and could only hold out for 2 hours at most. Upon hearing this, he told his crew to ready the lifeboats.
Maria and Joseph had no idea what was awaiting them. They couldn’t speak the English language of course, plus the fact that the steerage passengers were held back by gates, didn’t help them. They couldn’t find a way to escape the ship it seems, as they became two of the 1503 that died that night when Titanic sank. Loads of people became victims of hypothermia when they ended up in the subzero waters. Young Maria’s body was not ever recovered.
Even though he was not identified as such, one of the bodies that the CS Mackay-Bennett had been found, could have been Joseph's. He was described as a male in his thirties, probably from Third Class and was falsely believed to be an Italian. He had dark hair and a dark complexion. They found the adress where he was headed to, which was 155 Broad St in Ottawa. This is the same street where Joseph’s fellow Syrian Mariyam Assāf Khalīl had her grocery and they likely traveled as a large group. The body was given number #28 and a sea burial followed..