Mariyam Assāf Khalīl, or Zād Khalīl Naṣr Allāh as she was named in Syria/Lebanon.
Mariyam Assāf Khalīl was a passenger on Titanic.
Background[]
Mariyam Assāf Khalīl was born as Zād Khalīl Naṣr Allāh. Her name chance came later. She stemmed from Kafr Mishkī, a small Roman Orthodox village in the lower Beqaa Valley in Syria where she was conceived in 1867. Today, this place belongs to the Lebanon.
When grown up, she married Quzmā Dāhir, with whom she had two children: Ascad Azmā and Hannāh.
She emigrated to Ottawa in Canada in 1907 on her own. There were a number of fellow villagers already in Ottawa who had emigrated before the turn of the century, hoping to escape the poverty from their home. Although she couldn’t read or write, Zād had a natural ability in trading, so she sold crops. Most of her products went to the merchants with their wagons in Ottawa to do business with the wealthy people. She made a good living off of it. In Canada, she changed her name to Mariyam Assāf Khalīl.
By 1909, she had earned enough to return to Kafr Mishkī, to visit her husband and two sons. After spending three years here, she felt she needed to head back. She had to disappoint her boys that it was not their time to go with their mother yet, a decision she would later thank her God for that she made it. Instead, she would take two adults with them, two young relatives. One of them was Sleiman Khalīl Attala, the son of her nephew George Kahlīl who was also a merchant in Ottawa and had been living for three years in Kafr Mishkī as well. The other one was Assāf Jirjis Tu'mah Al-Sayqalī, a young cousin. Most likely they were accompanied by more than a several others from the tiny, impoverished village, most of whom were cousins. Some of them were: Catherine Barbara with her daughter Saiide Barbara and Māriyah Ilyās Karam with her husband Joseph.
She left the town and took the 80 to 85 km trip northwest to Beirut. From the Beirut harbor she, along with Assāf and Sleiman, sailed on a ship to Marseilles in France. Here, she would hear about the Titanic, an impressive new liner which would be a big improvement in terms of comfort and safety. From Marseilles she had to cross a large part of France to get to Cherbourg.
Titanic[]
She was holding a Third Class ticket to go on the grand Titanic on April 10. She was in her fourties at that time.
On April 14 at late night, she and her relatives were in bed when the ship struck the iceberg. It was just a slight jar to her and didn’t seem like a big deal, yet she went out as some of them wanted to go up and check things out. On deck, they were told all was well. She had her scruples about the whole situation when the ship was still standing still for so long.
When she realised the ship was sinking she forgot about everything that she was doing and her survival instinct must have kicked in. She rushed away from the steerage quarters and went up to the Boat Deck. She was shoved into lifeboat after a sailor had spotted her. It was Collapsible C. This was one of the four last boats remaining. It was lowered at 1:47 A.M, just over half an hour before the Titanic went down. Remarkably, she had seen a shocking scene unfold before her. A high-ranked officer shooting panicking steerage passengers as they made a charge for the boat while others were pushed back. But the person she blamed for it was none other than Captain Smith himself. During the loading of Collapsible C, she also got hurt on her legs.
At 2:20 A.M, the Titanic disappeared into the depths of the North Atlantic. She had to wait in the bitter cold for a while, having being rowed away when the occupants feared the suction. She now had to think about how she lost many people she knew. The two young men she was with, died in the sinking along with many of the other Syrians from Kafr Mishkī,
After the sinking[]
At 4:00 A.M, the RMS Carpathia appeared and collected boats and their survivors. Assaf and the other survivors were given in the care of friendly passengers and crew. She was given new clothes. The rescue ship set course for New York when she was done picking up all the former Titanic passengers. She docked in the harbor on April 18.
She was treated in a hospital in New York, then went on a train for Ottawa. But before she would leave she was given compensation for her losses. Mariyam received $50 from the New York Women’s Relief Committee and a few days after reaching Ottawa, an extra $25 was added. During her stay in New York she was also given a grant of $100 from the Red Cross Emergency Relief Society. It took a letter from the Society to the secritary of charities, John Keane, to locate her at Bridge Street where she was lodging.
Via the Grand Trunk Railway train she made it to Ottawa on April 23 in the early morning. Her cousin Mrs. George Khalīl. Mariyam was weak and still in a state of shock. She could barely stand as she had to tell the ugly news: Mrs. Khalīl’s son, Sulaymān, was dead. She now stayed with her nephew David Shaheen.
The local newspaper ‘Ottowa Citizen’ reported about her own personal expierence of the disaster. She gave the names of her deceased cousin and nephew. The information would later be picked up by Arabic newspapers in New York.
Later life[]
Despite having a limp, which she had sustained during that fateful night, she was tough enough and she went on with the work at her store in Ottawa on Broad Street.
Much later she would visit Kafr Mishkī again and stayed there till her death in the late 1950s. In al-Qarcawn, a larger town in the Beqaa valley and half an hour away from the village of Kafr Mishkī, Mariyam was a frequent visitor as she would stop here before going to Zahleh. Once, local Badīcah Khūrī had Mariyam as a guest in her house to stay the night. Whoever spoke to Mrs. Khalīl, the topic always led to Titanic.
She was well-known in Syria and where ever she went, Zād Khalīl Naṣr Allāh, as was still her name in this country, had to tell her story of the horrid night of the sinking.