For the victim that perished on Collapsible A with the same last name, see Arthur O’Keefe
Patrick A. O’Keeffe was a Third Class passenger aboard the Titanic he survived the sinking on the upturned Collapsible B, he was known as a hero during the night of the sinking, pulling aboard many people onto the raft.
Biography[]
Patrick A. O’Keeffe (his middle name not being fully known) was born on July 11th, 1890 in Waterford City, Ireland as the son of John O’Keeffe and Catherine Fitzgerald.
Early life[]
In 1910, Patrick, at the age of 19 or 20, decided to emigrate from Ireland to the United States, he would travel with his two uncles, Patrick and Arthur O’Keeffe. before he had left, his father commissioned a portrait of the O’Keeffe family. And after the portrait was taken, Patrick, Patrick and Arthur all left towards the United States on August 28th, 1910.
After they left, Catherine would die of a liver complaint not long after.
Patrick would return to Ireland around St. Patrick’s Day, March 1912 to spend a month with his family, he opted to return to the US aboard the RMS Baltic. but his brother had persuaded him to stay an extra week to spend Easter together.
Titanic[]
O’Keeffe then had to move his bookings from the Baltic to the Titanic and purchased a ticket onto the ship, (ticket number 368402, costing £7, s15) as a Third Class passenger, before leaving towards Queenstown, Patrick had sent his father a postcard reading how unhappy he was about having to leave Ireland once again.
It was told that he was so frustrated about leaving Ireland, that he had a premonition about the eventual sinking of the ship, so he tried to sell his ticket while he was in Queenstown, with no success. He eventually boarded the ship, saying that if he refused and returned to Waterford, he would become a laughing stock among the family and public.
When the Titanic was in the stage of its final plunge, Patrick jumped overboard into the sea along with two men, Victor Sunderland and Edward Dorkings. After finding refuge aboard the upturned Collapsible B, he would later help another two men aboard, one being a Guernsey man, and another being an Englishman from Southampton.
He and the others would later be saved by Lifeboat 12 and taken aboard the RMS Carpathia, after he got to New York, he’d spend a few days at the St. Vincent Hospital, with heavy bruising sustained mostly from the sinking, being unable to work. He eventually received a $102 payment from the ARC (American Red Cross) for his injuries. He later went to his cousin, John Phelan’s residence.
Later Life[]
According to the Cork Examiner on May 16th 1912, Patrick O’Keeffe (misspelled as O’Keefe) was portrayed as a hero of the Titanic as said by the paper titled “American”
“-plunging into the sea from the steerage deck, managed to capture a collapsible raft on which he pulled an Englishman from Southampton then a Guernsey Islander, and after that with the assistance of those he had already rescued, some 20 other men and women,-“ - Cork Examiner, May 16th 1912.
When the Great War began. Patrick would cross the border into Canada. As he was avoiding US conscription in fear of being forced across the ocean, something that he has trauma from the sinking of the Titanic.
Death[]
On December 16th, 1939. Patrick would pass away at the age of 49 in his New York residence, he’d then be buried at the Gate of Heaven Cemetary in Hawthorne. His wife Anna, now widowed would remarry and later pass away on October 1968, his daughter Margaret followed on January 1988, never marrying.