Ruth Becker Name: Miss Ruth Elizabeth Becker Marion Louise Becker Richard F. Becker Born

With the birth of their first child Alden, they decided to return to America. On the long journey home, they passed through Naples, Italy, where they learned that the Titanic would soon be steaming across the Atlantic on its inaugural voyage. Incidentally, while in Naples, the Caldwells saw the Cunard Line's Carpathia preparing to leave for New York.

Upon reaching London, the Caldwells found the Titanic booked full, but they were told to wait at the White Star Line's office in the event of cancellations. Their patience paid off, and they were able to board the liner in Southampton as second-class passengers.

Albert returned to the White Star Line office the next day prepared to take a first- or third-class ticket, though he really wanted one from the second class. Before the day was done, Albert walked out with just what he wanted, second-class tickets for the Titanic.

“Sylvia was one person that didn’t think [the Titanic] was unsinkable ... she asked the deckhand when he was loading the baggage, ‘Is this ship really unsinkable?’ and he answered the very famous and mortally erroneous reply, ‘Yes, lady, God himself could not sink this ship,’” Williams said.

“My uncle always said that the tables were piled high with all the delicacies you could ever want. Nobody was seasick and he loved to take pictures all over the ship.”

Albert took the opportunity one afternoon while on board to ask a crewman to take him to the engine rooms of the ship. Once there, he took pictures of the stokers shoveling coal and then showed them how to use the camera. Albert then shoveled coal himself as the stokers took the pictures.

“I always say that photograph saved his life,” Williams said. Williams went on to explain that on the night the Titanic hit the iceberg, the family was already asleep. Sylvia woke up, while Albert did not.

Soon both were awake and went on deck to see why the ship’s engines had stopped. They were told that everything was fine and to return to their cabin.

“He was just drifting off when someone came knocking on the door and someone said, 'Get out of bed and put your lifebelt on.' They couldn’t have been more shocked,” Williams said.

Farwell T. Brown, founder of the Ames Historical Society, wrote in his book, “Ames, the Early Years in Word and Picture": "Caldwell related that still there was no great concern among many passengers, some expressing the desire to remain on the ship that they were still convinced would never sink. The great deck on which they stood looked much better than those small life boats being tossed out on the darkness of the rough open Atlantic."

Williams said that Albert also was not planning to leave the “unsinkable” ship.

“They weren’t going to get off the boat, but wherever they were standing, a group of stokers suddenly appeared and one of them had been there when [Albert] took the photograph and recognized him ... and said, ‘Mr. Caldwell, if you value your life, get off this ship. The hull below is filling up with water and this ship will go down,’” Williams said.

“[Albert] kind of argued with the stokers and said, ‘But this is unsinkable.’ One of the stokers said, ‘Well, if the ship is still here in the morning, then you can get back on,’ and that made sense to [the Caldwells]."

Sylvia, who appeared visibly ill, proceeded to get into lifeboat 13. Others, noticing Sylvia’s condition, allowed Albert to also get on the lifeboat so he could hold the baby.

The Aug. 26, 1914, issue of the Ames Tribune described the moment of Caldwell being allowed on the boat.

"Mr. Caldwell placed his wife in a lifeboat and was about to hand her the baby, when she begged permission of the man in charge of the boat to permit her husband to accompany her and assist in the care of the baby ... Had it not been for the baby, Mr. Caldwell would have remained on board the ship and found a watery grave with hundreds of others."

Lifeboat 13 had to be cut loose from the side of the ship as another lifeboat began to descend on top of them.

“They were stuck, in the middle of the night, having watched the horrible sinking and having heard the people screaming for help ... Albert always said you had to forget the screams or you would go crazy,” Williams said.

The Caldwells waited until the Carpathia arrived to save them.

“They turned it down before, they didn’t turn it down this time,” Williams said.

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Five nights into the voyage, the Titanic clipped an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland. "My wife was awakened by the crash," Albert Caldwell recalled in a 1929 interview with The Pantagraph. She awakened him, and he went to investigate, receiving assurances that all was well. He returned to his cabin and fell back asleep, only to be awakened 15 minutes later by a crewman ordering passengers on deck. They wrapped Alden in a cabin rug.

Fortunately, the Caldwells found themselves on the starboard side with its sparse crowds relative to the chaotic port side.

"My wife and baby were placed in the thirteenth boat," Albert told The Pantagraph, "which was not an unlucky number for us. As the boat was descending, an officer asked me if the lady was my wife. When I told him she was he ordered me to get into the boat also. There was plenty of room and the boat was not filled to its capacity of 60 until it had descended several decks and had been boarded by sailors."

The No. 13 lifeboat actually held 64 people that night. It contained many women from second and third class, as well as 9 men and 6 crewmembers.

In the years after the tragedy, male survivors like Albert Caldwell faced accusatory whispers, especially because the dead included women and children. What is clear is that many passengers, men and women alike, chose the apparent safety of the Titanic for the unknown danger of a lifeboat lowered a precarious 70 feet to the icy North Atlantic. Many believed that another ship - alerted to the situation by "wireless" - was at full steam and would arrive any hour, certainly well before the Titanic would slip under the waves.

Once the Titanic was gone, hundreds were left bobbing in the water only to die of hypothermia. The cries were "the weirdest, most appalling, heart rending noise that ever mortal might hear," remembered Sylvia Caldwell in an account written weeks after the sinking, "Some man said the cries were people singing; but who could be deceived?"

Dawn brought the Carpathia and safe passage to New York. After returning stateside, Albert Caldwell served as high school principal in Aledo, Illinois and elsewhere. The Caldwells then came to Bloomington sometime in the early 1920s, with Albert shifting careers from education to insurance. Albert and Sylvia, though, divorced in 1930.

Lottie Collyer



Name: Miss Marjorie Charlotte "Lottie" Collyer
Born: Thursday 28th January 1904
Age: 8 years
Last Residence: in Basingstoke Hampshire England
2nd Class passenger
First Embarked: Southampton on Wednesday 10th April 1912
Ticket No. 31921 , £26 5s
Destination: Payette Idaho United States
Rescued (boat 14)
Disembarked Carpathia: New York City on Thursday 18th April 1912
Died: Friday 26th February 1965

Sad words of Titanic survivor

Jul 6 2002 By Paula Hall, Coventry Evening Telegraph

Harvey and Charlotte Collyer were shopkeepers in the Southampton area who sold their business with the aim of emigrating with their daughter to the USA.

Before the ship set sail, Charlotte had written a letter expressing sadness at leaving family and friends, but also great optimism for the future.

"My dear, dear sister and mother ... it hurts me awful to leave you but it's such a good chance. I shall often picture you at home. I am so thankful you will write to me.

"I feel too full to say much tonight but friends here have been so good, they have given such nice presents and the bell ringers gave Harvey such a fine farewell peal on the bells. We have much to be thankful for. There is no end coming to see us off."

Sadly their hopes for a new life in a new country were to be tragically dashed when the Titanic sank. Not only did Charlotte lose her beloved husband but also all their savings, as Harvey had carried the cash from the sale of their business with him.

After the disaster Charlotte and Marjorie were taken in by Dr J A De Tienne of New York, from where she wrote again 13 days after the disaster, destitute and heartbroken.

She also acknowledges the kindness of New Yorkers who set out to help.

"My dear, dear mother and sister. I know you are just concerned about us but don't worry dears, I am feeling better now and the doctor thinks I may go on to Idaho next Tuesday. I should get there about the following Monday.

"Oh mother, it's so hard to go alone. Sometimes I feel I can't bear it and wish I had gone down with my dear boy. It would have been easier than to live without him. Then I look at Madge I feel braver. She is such a comfort. I have been on the verge of pneumonia but have pulled round.

"Oh mother, the papers nor anything will ever describe the horrors of that night. They will haunt me til I die.

"I wake in the night and think of my Harvey and his horrid death.

"I haven't a thing in the world that was his, only his rings. You see we lost everything. But people here have been so good they have loaded us with clothes and presents and collected about £180 for us so that I need not work for a little while till I get strong.

"A reporter got hold of Madge and took the story from her. I can't make her realize about daddy so I must leave it to God and time to dull the awful shock it will be to her ..."

Once Charlotte was well enough she traveled on with her daughter to Idaho.

After a short stay in the States they returned to England, where Charlotte remarried.

There is a sad postscript to her story. Charlotte died in 1914 from tuberculosis, a disease which she and Harvey had thought she could escape by moving to the cleaner air of a fruit farm in Idaho.
On April 21 she wrote to her mother:

Brooklyn, New York

My dear Mother and all,

The mother and child received relief from both the Mansion House Titanic Relief Fund:

Number P. 26.
Collyer, Charlotte, widow and Marjorie, child.
Received total £1 3s 0d per week.

No. 83. (English).

John's half brother, Richard Nicholls, emigrated to Kearsarge near New Allouez, Houghton County, Michigan and John was to be taken by his mother to join him. They boarded the Titanic at Southampton as second class passengers along with Joseph Charles Nicholls, who was another son of Agnes's first marriage. John, along with his mother, family friend Maude Sincock and Alice Phillips of Ilfracombe, Devon shared a cabin.

John Davies and his mother were probably rescued in lifeboat 14 (another source says boat 3), Joseph Nicholls was lost.

Thirty years later John was living at 2250 Kendall Street, Detroit with his wife Olive Leona Uren from whom he was subsequently divorced in November 1951, they had two children.

John worked as a clerk in a drug store. He took his own life (barbiturate poisoning) on 16 December 1951 likely as a result of his divorce. He was buried on 20 December 1951 at the Lakeview Cemetery, Calumet, Houghton County, Michigan. The informant shown on his death certificate was Mrs Martha Copeland, believed to be a married daughter of his.
Mrs. John Morgan Davies recounts story of Titanic Survival Calumet News, April 1912
(Elizabeth Agnes Mary White), 48, was born on 23 November 1863 in the village of Ludgvan, Cornwall, the daughter of Mr. John White (?Friggens) (a Carrier, whose business address was 93A Market Jew Street, Penzance) and his wife Elizabeth. She was sister to John, James, Mary Teresa, Edith E, Josiah Eade and Emily. At the time of the 1881 census she was a dressmaker, living with her family at 17 New Street, Penzance, Cornwall.

Agnes married Richard Henry Nicholls, a stonemason who worked at the granite quarry at Trenowith Downs. They lived in the nearby village of Nancledra where their 3 children were born. Richard Henry Nicholls was the eldest, followed by a daughter, Mary and Joseph Charles Nicholls. After the death of her husband in about 1900 the family moved to live in the Stennack, St Ives where she had relatives.

Agnes subsequently remarried, to a Welshman, Mr .John Morgan Davies. She and her children moved with him to live in Cardiff, South Wales where a further son, John Morgan Davis was born. Her second marriage however, was short lived. When John Morgan Davies died she and her family returned to live in St Ives. Not long afterward her eldest son, Richard Nicholls and his wife, emigrated to Kearsarge near New Allouez, Houghton County, Michigan. A short while later Agnes decided to take her family to join her son and daughter-in-law in America. To raise the necessary funds she sold all her belongings in St Ives. With this done their ticket was purchased from William Cogar who was the White Star agent in St Ives, it was numbered 33112 and had cost £36 15s. The family left St Ives by train and traveled with a family friend, Maude Sincock of Halsetown. She and her infant son, John Davies occupied a cabin with Maude Sincock and also Alice Phillips of Ilfracombe, Devon, her elder son Joseph had separate accommodation.

Agnes survived the sinking, probably in lifeboat 14, the events immediately before and after the sinking were recounted by her to a Calumet newspaper on arrival in Michigan.

'We were in our berths when the steamer struck the iceberg at 11.50 the night of Sunday. we felt the jar but did not imagine that anything serious had occurred. However I rang for the steward for the purpose of making inquiries. He assured us that nothing of consequence had happened and that we could remain in our berths without fear. A few minutes later Miss Phillips' father, who was also a passenger on the boat called his daughter and told her to dress. She went on deck and returned shortly and said orders had been given for all the passengers to dress and put on lifebelts. By this time I had dressed, although my little son was still sleeping. The steward again came to the stateroom and said there was no danger or occasion for fear. I decided to dress the boy, however, and did so.
My son Joseph had dressed and he came to the stateroom and put lifebelts on us. Through all this time we had received no warning from the steward, no orders to prepare for anything like what we were to experience. Had it not been for our curiosity to learn what was going on we might have perished. we went on deck about 12.15 and my son and myself were placed in the third lifeboat.
My older son, Joseph, helped to place us in the boat and asked permission to enter it himself, this being refused with the threat that he would be shot if he attempted to get in. I pleaded with the officers in vain, that he be allowed to come with me. There were about fifty in the boat, but there was room for more. After we were lowered away and before the boat left the ship some men entered it by sliding down the davit ropes. The men in charge of the boat rowed as hard as they could to get away from the ship. By the time she sank, which was at 1.45, it seemed as if we were miles away, although I could hear the screams, cries and moaning of the drowning passengers.'
Agnes and her infant son spent about 5 hours in the boat before being picked up by the Carpathia, once on the ship she commented that 'everything possible was done for the saved'.

On arrival in New York in addition to overnight accommodation she was given a train ticket, $5 in cash and a lunch box by the White Star Line. She left New York by train heading for Mohawk, Michigan. Once in Michigan passengers on the train between Negaunee and Calumet recognizing her need, raised 'a neat little sum for her benefit'. A subscription list was also started for her benefit in Calumet. The Calumet News also went on to say that Mrs Davies was a 'pleasant and refined woman but greatly overwrought and nervous as a result of her experience, suffering and bereavement. The sinking of the Titanic had taken from her, her almost sole support, a nineteen year old son. The loss of whom seems to her to have been unnecessary, too, which makes it all the harder to bear. '

Master Marshall Brines Drew, was born on 30 March 1904 in Greenport, Suffolk County, New York, the son of John William Drew (monumental marble sculptor) who had emigrated from Constantine, Cornwall in 1896 with his brother James.

Marshall's mother died two weeks after he was born and so his uncle and aunt, James and Lulu Drew, became his adoptive parents. They had traveled on the Olympic to Cornwall in the autumn of 1911 to visit his uncle's and father's relatives in Constantine. Their return journey to Greenport was to be on board the Titanic, Marshall in later life assumed that his Uncle Jim had decided on the Titanic's maiden voyage because of "all the hoopla!"

They boarded the Titanic at Southampton as second class passengers. On embarking Marshall and his uncle were allowed to view the first class areas. They had a look at the gymnasium and barbers shop. The latter doubled as a souvenir shop and James bought Marshall a ribbon with 'RMS Titanic' embroidered on it in gold threads (as worn on the sailors uniform caps).

Marshall and his aunt survived the sinking in lifeboat 10 (Marshall always thought it was boat 11), they were both met in New York by Marshall's father, William Drew who had been anxiously waiting for them for 3 days.

After the loss of his uncle he stayed with his aunt until she remarried in 1914, he was then looked after by his grandfather, Henry Christian, a Civil War veteran.