Sante Righini was the Italian manservant of Ella White. He boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg with Ticket 17760, which was purchased for the price of £135 12s 8d.
He was born on November 19, 1883 as the son of two modest shopkeepers, Giuseppe Righini and his wife Geltrude, and the younger brother of Emma (Wenger) and Maria. He was a native of Pisignano, Cervia, Italy.
At the age of 20 he decided to leave Pisignano di Cervia, a small town in the Ravenna area along the Adriatic Coast, where he was born in 1883, to emigrate to the United States and join his older sister, Emma, who was married to an American. He emigrated to the U.S. from Pisignano on December 3, 1903 on the steamship SS Palatia.
In 1910 he worked as a valet and wanted to become naturalised as a U.S. citizen. He had become the servant of Ella White around that time. In 1912 her employer was on a trip in Britain and France, and returned with the Titanic. Righini was staying in cabin C-120.
On April 14th 1912, the ship was on its course to New York, but had a collision with an iceberg which proved to be fatal. On April 15 at 2:20 A.M., the ship went down. Righini did not survive the sinking, as he was presumed as to help many women and children board a boat, but not attempting to save himself.
After the sinking, the CS Mackay-Bennett was sent out to recover dead bodies from the sea. #232 was not identified at sea and was brought to Halifax. Finally, on May 11th, almost a month after the disaster, body #232 was identified as Sante Righini and was forwarded to New York for his widow, under the care of F. W. Wender. He was buried at The Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
| NO. 232. - MALE. - ESTIMATED AGE, 33. HAIR, DARK; SLIGHT MOUSTACHE.
CLOTHING - Black pants; grey overcoat, marked "Sante." EFFECTS - Ring "R. S.," left on finger. |