Mary Phyllis Elizabeth Corey was a Second Class passenger of the Titanic. She was one of the only 12 female Second Class passengers that lost their lives in the disaster. She was often referred to as 'Mamie'.
Biography[]
Mary Phyllis Elizabeth Miller was born in 1882, her birth place being Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mary was the eldest daughter of John Alexander Miller and Sarah Jarrett, both natives of Pennsylvania. Mary was first-born and later had eight younger siblings: John, Albert and Bertha who were twins, Howard, Percy, Elva, Lydia and Sarah.
The family lived in Elliot, Pittsburgh around 1900, while they were living in Pitssburgh itself 10 years later. Mary, known as Mamie, worked as a teacher at Westlake School. She married Percy Coleman, a native of Pennsylvania and son of Joseph Corey and Anna Waite, in Windsor, Essex, on August 26, 1911. Percy had previously married Minnie Bedford in 1896, with whom he had a son, Harold, born in 1895, but the marriage had ended in divorce.
Mary moved to Burma, India, where her husband worked as a superintendent in an oil company, becoming pregnant during her stay, which is why she decided to return to Pennsylvania, as she wanted to have her son there.
Titanic[]
On 10 April 1912, Mary boarded the RMS Titanic in Southampton as a Second Class passenger along with Claire Karnes. Claire, a Pittsburgh resident, was married to Frank, who worked for Percy in Burma, where the two women met. Like Mary, Claire was also pregnant. Mary Corey was 30 years old at the time.
Mary probably spent her last day in the Second Class Library. In this regard, Lawrence Beesley wrote about her and Claire having a conversation there.
On the night of April 14 the ship had struck an iceberg and started sinking.
Both Mary and Claire perished in the sinking of the Titanic on the night of April 15. The reason why none of them left the ship is unknown. Shockingly, Claire's husband, Frank, had died in India during her absence.
After her death[]
One of Mary's brothers, Percy, who had hoped his sister had survived, went unsuccessfully to several hospitals in New York and spoke to some of the shipwreck survivors in order to get some clue to her whereabouts. Several of them claimed to have spoken to Mary on the Titanic, but none had seen her aboard the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the survivors of the disaster.
Percy Coleman later returned to the United States, marrying in 1914 in Los Angeles, California, Hazel Eugenia McDaniels, who was divorced. The marriage was short-lived and Percy married an English woman, Florence Agnes Snell, with whom he had two daughters, both born in Burma: Margaret and Patricia. The son of his first marriage, Harold, died in a plane crash in New York in 1919, Percy passed away in San Luis Obispo, California, on April 3, 1960.
Mary's name is included on the memorial of the grave of her sister Bertha Miller at Chartiers Cemetery, Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Inscribed on the bottom of the memorial is: "Mary lost at sea on the Titanic Apr. 15. 1912"