Robert Douglas Spedden was a young passenger on the Titanic.
Robert Douglas Spedden was born in Manhattan, New York on November 19, 1905 and was the only child of Frederic Oakley Spedden and Margaretta Corning Spedden. The family lived at Wee Wath Lodge, Tuxedo Park, New York and was very wealthy as Frederic was a banker. Typically, the Spedden family spent summers in Bar Harbor, Maine and wintered at various resorts around the world.
When Robert turned 7, his mother Margaretta gave him a stuffed polar bear from which Robert never separated. In fact, Margaretta began to write a diary starring the polar bear that traveled the world so that, when he was older, her son would read it and remember all the trips he had taken with his parents. This book was later called 'Polar: The Travelling Bear' or 'Polar: The Titanic Bear'.
At the end of 1911, the Spedden family sailed for Algiers with two maids; Margaretta's personal maid, Helen Alice Wilson and Robert's nanny, Elizabeth Margaret Burns. Robert named her 'Muddie Boons' because he had trouble pronouncing her name. From Algiers, they visited Monte Carlo and then went to see Paris.
Titanic[]
On April 10, 1912, after a stint abroad visiting Madeira and several Riviera resorts, Robert, his father, mother with the nanny boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg. They were transported from the harbor on the SS Nomadic onto the large new steamer.
On the night of April 14 after the collision of the Titanic with the iceberg, Robert Douglas was awakened by his nanny Muddie, who told him that they were going to make a "trip to see the stars". The whole family and maids made their way to the starboard Boat Deck, where the women and little Robert and his polar bear were loaded into Lifeboat 3. His father was also allowed to join moments later, which meant they all survived the disaster.
Little Robert slept through the night in the lifeboat and when he woke up at dawn and saw the icebergs around, he exclaimed, "Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole without Santa Claus!" Subsequently, all were picked up by the RMS Carpathia.
Later life[]
Unfortunately, on August 8, 1915, 9-year-old Robert Douglas Spedden was hit by a cargo truck in Winter Harbor, near the family's summer camp in Maine. He died instantly from the concussion that followed. His parents were stricken with grief but continued with their lives, keeping faith.