Miss Telma Mathilda Wilhelmina Ström was a Swedish child passenger who traveled on Titanic.
Background[]
Telma Mathilda Wilhelmina Ström was born on 15 December 1909 in Chicago, Illinois as the only child of Wilhelm Ström and Elna Matilda Persson, two Swedish emigrants that now lived in America.
In 1912, she and her mother visited their family in Sweden. Before their return, Telma burnt her hand so they took care of this injury before leaving. This event would lead to them taking the voyage on another ship.
Titanic[]
Telma and her mother came aboard the large vessel in Southampton on 10 April 1912 in Third Class. They were joined by Ernst Ulrik Persson, who was Telma’s married uncle. It is believed that the women occupied cabin G-6, which they shared with Agnes Charlotta Sandström and her children. Telma needed bandages every day, therefore she often had to visit a nurse.
On the night of April 14 Titanic had hit an iceberg and started to sink.
The Sandströms and the Ströms lost eachother on the way up to the Boat Deck, because the group got seperated in the crowd. According to her uncle Ernst, he tried to keep himself as close to his sister as he could but they were too late, all the boats had already left. Around 2:10 A.M. she and various others had ran aft when Titanic made a lurch and at this point, the ship was sinking at an ever steeper angle, Telma got seperated from Ernst and her mother.
Elna and Telma were lost in the sinking and their bodies, if recovered, were never identified. Ernst had somehow made it out of the water alive and was saved by no one other than Madeleine Astor.
When Ernst left the Carpathia in New York, Telma's father Oscar tried to identify Telma among the children who survived. After no success, he moved back to Indiana Harbor with Ernest Persson. He was later remarried and had four children before his death in 1964.