Titanic History discussion

I hated how third class was treated during the sinking.
What I've learned is that they had barricades and even crew, during the sinking I might add, that blocked the third class people from getting up. They didn't even start letting them up till too late.
They could've at least led the children up. More than half of the children in third class died while 100% second class children lived and 99% of first class children lived.
Third class is just as important as anyone else.
I can't even imagine their terror as the ship sank.

I'd like to add the Ford family here. Of all those in steerage, the mother, Margaret Ford's story breaks my heart the most. Now I'm typing this purely from memory so I'm not sure if she had five or six kids but the youngest was still a baby; her oldest was a grown woman and had already immigrated to America.

Margaret Ford's husband abandoned the family shortly after their last child was born, forcing poor Margaret to (quote, because I distinctly remember this phrase) "eke out an existence as a chicken farmer". Well her grown American daughter started writing Margaret, telling her about "all the money she was making as a maid". (Yes! I remember that part very well too. Apparently an American maid's paycheck looked wealthy compared to Margaret Ford's hard work at supporting her four or five remaining kids.)

Eventually her daughter convinced Margaret Ford that moving to America was a good idea. Unfortunately, she and her children chose to sail on Titanic, naturally as steerage. Every single one of them died in the sinking. Can you imagine how her oldest daughter, who was only trying to help her mother and give her a better life must have felt when in just one night she lost her mother and all of her siblings? I have to be honest, I think I may have been in need of a mental institution!

Oh, but the dead beat dad did "resurface". This is the part that ticks me off most in the Ford family's tragedy. White Star Line doled out money to surviving family members, either in one lump sum or weekly checks. Guess who collected the checks from White Star Line on behalf of losing the Fords? NOT the daughter who tried to help her mother. It was the deadbeat dad who got the money every week!

That's so sad! That money really should've gone to the daughter, or at least a good half!

I once saw a documentary about the Addergoole Fourteen. They were fourteen people from Addergoole, Ireland, traveling on the Titanic as third class.
Only three of them survived.
There was:
- John Bourke. 42
- Catherine Bourke. 32
- Mary Bourke. 40
- Nora Fleming. 24
- Mary Mangan. 32
- James Flynn. 28
- Annie Kate Kelly. 20. Survived
- Bridget Donohue. 21
- Delia Mahon. 20
- Delia McDermott. 31. Survived
- Pat Canavan. 21
- Annie McGowan. 17. Survived
- Catherine McGowan. 42
- Mary Canavan. 22

Yes, there are people who are related in this list.
Something that is kind of creepy is that a day before they left, Delia Mahon's brother read her tea leaves and said she would drown.
Also, one of the others had be approached by a strange unknown man and he told her that she'd be apart of a tragedy, but that she'd survive.

Delia McDermott, had been in a lifeboat, but she realized she had forgotten her new hat. She went all the way back to steerage, got her hat and got back up. When she got back up all the lifeboats had been lowered. She jumped from a rope, about fifteen feet, into a lifeboat being lowered.

Now in Addergoogle at 2 AM on April 15th, the village walks to the church holding candles, and the supposed time when Titanic sank, they ring the church bell fourteen times to remember the fourteen people from their society that went on the tragic ship.

Ohhh!!! That is sooo sweet! I'm reacting first to that last part. WOW! Two people in the group of 14 got mystic warnings that they never heeded? You're right, that really is spooky.

One thing that was really sad is that one of the group members (I think it was Nora Fleming), it was her birthday on the night she sank. They were celebrating it during the party that night.