Maria Panula on her wedding day
Maria Emelia Abrahamintytär Panula was a passenger on Titanic.
Biography[]
Maija Emelia Abrahamintytär Ojala was a native of Lappajärvi, South Ostrobothnia, Finland. She was born there on the 1st of December, 1870 as the daughter of Abram Abramsson Ojala and Susanna Maria Taavettintytar Norrkiilunen.
On February 14, 1892, she married to Juha Panula from Lappo, Southern Ostrobothnia. Juha and Maija decided to emigrate and he went ahead to settle in Coal Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Maija arrived in America aged 22 on June 3, 1893 on the ship Weimar which departed from Bremen, together with her younger sister Anna Ojala of 19 years old. They both changed their names to John and Maria Emilia immediately after arriving.
Maija and Juha had a total of eight children. The first was born in Kauhajarvi, Finland on December 23, 1892. His name was Juho Eemeli Juhonpoika. Juho Eemeli sadly died the same year.
Later, after they had settled in Coal Center, three more children would be born. At that point, the family lived in Michigan, and in Cooks Fall, two boys were born: Ernesti 'Ansti' Arvid in 1895, Jaakko Arnold in 1897. A daughter, Emma Iita Juhontytar was born in 1901 in Conneaut, Ohio.
In 1901, they returned to Finland and lived in Ylihärmä, South Ostrobothnia in the western part of the country for several yeras. More children were born in Finland. Lyytia was born in 1902 but she died one year later because of a fever. Juha Niilo was born in 1904, followed by Urho Abraham in 1909.
In 1910, one of her daughters, Emma Iita, drowned during a walk down by the lake. She was picking flowers, slipped and fell, while she couldn't swim well. They searched for her all day and finally found her with the help of a neighboring farmer's dog. She was buried two days later.
On March 11, 1911, their youngest child was born, named Eino Viljami.
Later that year, the family decided to emigrate to America again. On November 24, 1911, Juha Panula arrived in New York aboard the Lusitania, which had departed from Liverpool.
In February 1912, Maija sold the family farm in Ylihärmä to Kustaa Kujala, who was married to Selma Panula, a relative. She received a good sum of money for it, between 6500 and 30.000 marks. The Panula family also owned other properties besides the farm.
Two months after Juha had left them, Maria and the children left Finland on 3 April. Along with the family came a neighbor girl, Susanna "Sanni" Riihivuori, who would help look after the children.
Titanic[]
The party arrived in Southampton on 7 April.
Maija wrote a letter to her husband in which she announced when they had left Finland and when she expected to arrive in America. She was 41 years old at the time when she departed from England on the grandest ship on April 10. They travelled in Third Class.
On board the Titanic, the eldest sons Ernesti and Jaakko were placed among the other unmarried men in the bow. Maija and the other children, as well as Sanni, had their cabin in the stern.
On the night of April 14. Titanic had grazed an iceberg. The ship started to sink as a result.
After midnight on April 15, they were awakened by one of the eldest sons, who had walked down the long corridor from his place in the bow. He told them that the ship was sinking and they should hurry up on deck. "Get up, or you will go down to the bottom of the sea".
Maija most likely arrived on the Boat Deck very late, and lost some of the children in the general commotion and broke down on deck, where young Finnish Third Class passenger Anna Sofia Turja found her. Turja later said that she was crying as the situation became clear, that the whole family would drown, the same fate as her daughter back in Finland.
Friends of the family said she was the kind of woman who would never leave the ship until she knew all her children were safe. Helga Hirvonen saw Maija at the end and said: "One of the last people I saw before I left was Mrs. John Panula. I knew her well. She was so confused that, poor woman, she hardly knew where to go. She was one of the last to come on deck. I guess she was trying to get her family together. None of them got away."
Maria and her children all perished in the sinking and their bodies were lost. Her good friend Sanni Riihivuori also became a victim.
After her death[]
Juha did not know that his family had traveled on the Titanic and he was waiting for them at his newly renovated house in Coal Center. It was not until April 21 that he received a telegram with the terrible news that his wife and all their children had been lost in the disaster.
The charity paid £50 to Juha and £50 to Maija's mother. The damages of 2527:07 were paid to the husband, but he and his mother-in-law later divided the sum; the mother had waived her daughter's inheritance in writing, but not waived the compensation. She also claimed that she was the one who had paid the tickets for the family, but when Juha objected to the sharing of the damages, he said that he had done it. The sum of £100 was paid out in a lump sum and then had to be split between Juha and his mother-in-law.
Juha later visited the young Finnish Titanic survivor Anna Turja on a few occasions. She had settled in Ashtabula, Ohio.
In June 1913, over a year after he lost his family, he returned home to Finland, where he remarried Sanna Kaisa Ulvinen, who, like himself, was born in Lappo. They had a daughter, but sadly the child died young. Juha returned to America in 1914 on November 10, taking voyage with the United States and Sanna followed him in 1916. She arrived on October 3 on the ship Saint Olav.
Juha died at his home in America due to a heart attack on 3 April 1944.