Sultānah Būlus was a passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
Sultānah Rizq was from Sar’al, Syria. The authoritarian Turkish regime ruled over this region of the Middle-East. Since 1920, we know it as Lebanon. Sultānah grew up here from 1872.
Many years later, she had a husband named Harry Būlus. He had a farm. In 1902, she was made a mother by Nūr Al-'Ayn. In 1905, another child, a boy, came into this world. His name was Akar. After the birth of his son, Harry emigrated to Kent, Ontario, Canada, where he got a job for the Rankin House Hotel. Harry was placed in charge of the hotel’s bus, which he drove. Occasionally he did come to see them back in Sar'al as Sultānah continued to oversee the farm.
In 1912, Harry called for his wife and children. Nearby lived a neighbour and relative of Sultānah. Her name was Kātrīn Yūsuf, née Riqz. On the day of departure in mid-March 1912, Kātrīn Yūsuf with her two children Michael and Nabīhah attched themselves to Sultānah. Also present was Mr. Bākhūs Rafūl-Būlus and her group was now to head into the direction of Beirut.
A freighter could bring them from there to the South of France. Once they were in the harbor of Marseilles, they had to undergone health checks for possible diseases, which they didn’t have so they could continue. Their journey led through France to the North, were a second ship would bring them across the Atlantic Ocean.
Titanic[]
It was the RMS Titanic which they would board on the evening of April 10 in Cherbourg. They had tickets for Third Class and a tender for the passengers from this status brought them to the giant, which lay waiting as the waters close to the port of Cherbourg weren’t deep enough for her. She set off on her Maiden Voyage when everyone was aboard.
On the 14th of April, trouble lay ahead of the Titanic at night, but her crew could only notice it when it was already too close for comfort. It was an obstacle, identified as an iceberg as soon as the lookouts spotted it. The Officer on the watch tried to get around it while slowing her down but a collision was now unavoidable so she hit. It was a graze but the consequences were big. Titanic now had some gashes and dents in her hull below sea level and the water poured in like bathtub water through the drain after a plug was pulled.
When it had become April 15, at midnight, Titanic’s captain had to make a tough decision. He had just heard Thomas Andrews say the famous words: “Titanic will founder”. The haunting truth spurred the captain on to launch the lifeboats.
As Titanic got ever deeper into the water, more and more lifeboats left the ship with occupants. The Būlus family wasn’t among them. As the Yūsuf family did manage to save themselves in a boat, Sultānah and her children were lost, as well as Mr. Bākhūs Rafūl-Būlus. Titanic slid down the ocean surface with her stern up in the air after having been broken intwo, disappearing at 2:20 A.M. Many poor souls ended up in the mercilessly cold water and died from hypothermia.
No bodies could ever be found of Sultānah or her children.