Mary Taussig was a first class passenger of the RMS Titanic when it sank on its Maiden Voyage on 15 April 1912. She survived the sinking and later died on 9 January 1925 of Typhoid.
Biography[]
Mary Taussig was born in Manhattan, New York on 25 November 1883 to Emil and Ruth Taussig, the former being a (presumably) disinfectant store clerk and the latter was the daughter of a tobacco merchant. Ruth was their only child. The family appear on the 1900 census as residents of 1335 Madison Avenue.
On 21 December 1903, at the age of 20, Mary was wed to John Davis Weller, and on Feebruary 5, 1904, Mary would be the mother of twin girls, Millie and Tillie Taussig. It seems that Mary and her husband may have had a divorce, or John Weller died, as he was not present in their lives any later than 1909. But whatever happened, by 1910 Mary had moved back into 1335 Madison Avenue with her parents, later living at 777 West End Avenue in 1912.
In early 1912, Mary and her family later went on Vacation to Vienna together.
Titanic[]
Following the visit to Vienna, the family needed to get back home, so Ruth, her parents and daughters boarded the Titanic at Southampton as First Class passengers (joint ticket number 110413 which cost £79, 13s).
Emil and Ruth occupied cabin E-67, while across the hall was Mary and her duaghters. Their cabin was a switchable cabin which could be Second or First Class depending on the amount of passengers on board during the voyage.
On the night of the sinking, Mary's parents were reportedly alerted to the danger by German steward Alfred Theissinger, and from then they alerted her and her daughters. Mary woke them up and the family was escorted by Emil to a lifeboat, which was number 8. Despite their please, Emil did not join them in the boat.
Mary's mother, Mrs Taussig later shared her story the night of the sinking (New York Times, 22 April 1912):
"When we came on deck... Capt. Smith was preparing the eighth boat to be let down. There was only one seaman in sight, but a number of stewards had rushed up between the crowding men and women. The Captain turned to the stewards and asked them if they knew how to row. They answered ‘'Yes' hastily, and four of them were allowed to jump in. Only twenty women were near the boat, and these were put in. My daughter Mary was among the first, with my grandchildren, but I said that I wouldn't go if my husband did not accompany me. There was room for fourteen more after the last woman had found her place, and they all pleaded to let the men take the empty seats. But the Captain said that he would not allow it. I was frantic. There was that boat, ready to be lowered into the water and only half full. Then the order came to lower. The men were pleading for permission to step in, and one came forward to take a place next to his wife. I heard a shot and I am sure it was he that went down.
"Then the boat swung out from the deck. I was still with my husband, and Mary had already disappeared below the deck. I gave a great cry---I remember perfectly calling out the name of my daughter---and two men tore me from my husband's side, lifted me, one by the head and one by the feet, and dropped me over the side of the deck into the lowering boat. I struck on the back of my head, but I had furs on, and that fact probably saved me from greater injury.
"The terrible thing was that we had so much room left for the poor men who were snatched away. When we got to the water the four stewards who had told the Captain they could row couldn't row at all. There was only one seaman to command the boat and an English woman whose name I cannot now remember took an oar and rowed until we were half a mile from the Titanic. My daughter also had furs on. The sailor took them from her. You'll not need them,’ he said, and we never saw them again...."
After Titanic[]
Following her arrival in New York, Mary stayed with Ruth and her grandfather Herman at 1229 Park Avenue. Mary would later re-marry on 1 December 1915 to New York-born tobacco merchant Julius Bernhard Lichtenstein (b. 19 June 1887), the son of Bernhard and Bertha Lichtenstein, the latter née Reich. The couple went on to have two daughters, Eleanor (b. 20 November 1916) and Alice (b. 11 March 1920).
By the time of the 1920 census the family were residing on Broadway, Manhattan and Julius was working at a cigar company based out of Newark, New Jersey. It was also around this time that Mary - to raise extra money - was getting into modeling. Her daughters Millie and Tillie would later follow.
Unfortunately though in late 1924, Mary caught typhoid fever, and unfortunately she was unable to be treated for it. She died in 9 January 1925, at the age of 41 years old, and would later be buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.
Her widower Julius remarried around 1929. He died in 1940, and Mary's mother had outlived the both of them by nearly two decades, dying in 1967. Ruth also outlived Tillie, whom also died in 1940, but unfortunately due to the blitz, aswell as her husband and all but one of her children. However, they were all survived by Millie, who died in 2006 at the age of 102, being one of the last Titanic survivors to die.
Popular Culture[]
Unlike her parents, Ruth does not appear in any pop culture, not even in any YouTube webseries currently. However the writer of this revision of the page, BoringCircles2, plans to feature her in a webseries in the future. (You can remove this if you wish)