Mathilde Françoise Weisz was a seamstress and singer and one of the 27 Belgians aboard the ship Titanic that sank on April 15, 1912. She was married to Leopold Weisz. It was the Belgian journalist Dirk Musschoot who discovered her real name as she was originally listed on the passenger list as Mathilde Weisz.
Biography[]
Mathilde Pede
Born as Mathilde Fançoise Pede, on May 24, 1874, she lived in the De Vreese Werkmanskwartier near Saint Peter's Abbey, which has since disappeared. For a while she was a maid in what was then the Grand Palais Valentino, close to what was then Gent-Zuid station.
When she was 21 she went to study at the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Art in England where she met Leopold Weisz, a Hungarian-Jewish sculptor working in Montreal. The Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Art was an association of modern artists, active from 1898 to 1966 and its members created works of art for the Lusitania, among others. Mathilde Pede lived for a time in Bromsgrove, a town in the Bromsgrove district, 13 miles from Birmingham. They married and he later picked her up in England.
They decided to emigrate to Canada, much to the dismay of her parents. They were originally supposed to cross the ocean in First Class on another ship, but due to a coal strike they booked a ticket on the Titanic (number 228414, £26) in Second Class, boarding her at Southampton. She was 37 years old at the time.
On the night of the tragedy, Mathilde sang a hymn in the Second Class Dining Saloon. Mr. Pain and Douglas Norman accompanied her as she sang The Last Rose of Summer. Something felt off to her, while taking a walk on the Promenade Deck with Leopold. Just arriving at their cabin, the Titanic had hit the iceberg, and they felt it.
Leopold Weisz perished, but she survived the disaster, along with six other Belgians.
She disembarked from the Carpathia on 18 April 1912 in New York. The authorities decided to deport Mathilde Weisz back to Belgium as she was considered to be insolvent. When her husband's body was recovered with $15,000 worth of gold in his clothing, her situation changed and she remained in Montreal. In 1914 she married her late husband's business partner.
After the First World War, she was awarded the Queen Elisabeth Medal by King Albert for collecting $57,000 in support for Belgian charitable works. Mathilde Pede spent the rest of her life in Canada.
She died in Montreal on October 13, 1953. She was buried in Notre-Dame des Neiges cemetery in Montreal. A street in Gentbrugge was named after her.