WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY, 6 Jan. 1912 - "Mrs. John B. Thayer, Jr. was one of the most strikingly costumed women at the ball. She wore a gown of white satin cut on Grecian lines with a high waist and long train, falling from her shoulders. Turquoise and blue trimmings outlined the belt and train. Over this was a gauzy overdress, heavily spangled with gold. Gold slippers completed the costume..."
So gushed fashion bible Women's Wear Daily after a typical ball attended by Marian Longstreth Morris Thayer. Born into one of Philadelphia's most prominent families, at age 39, Marian had attained the ideal for a well-bred Edwardian lady: the wealthy husband: John Borland Thayer II, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a former first-class cricketer; a beautiful Tudor-style mansion in the exclusive suburb of Haverford; and four children: two boys, two girls, aged 17 to 10. She was a renowned beauty, well-liked, well-read and very well-connected. Although the Thayer marriage (on November 9, 1893; Marian's 20th birthday) had been partly motivated as a good match between two old-money Philadelphia families, Marian and John also genuinely loved each other deeply - a plus but hardly a necessity in high society marriages of convenience.
By 1912 however, things were slightly tarnished. Her husband had been ill for a year with an unspecified malady - believed to have been a nervous breakdown.
Marian and John Thayer at the time of their marriage, and 20 years later when they sailed on Titanic
Marian was beside herself with worry for John. They booked passage on the Olympic in late January 1912, sailing from New York to Europe, where they visited Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Austria, and finally England, intended as a much-needed holiday for him to regain health and to visit with friends abroad. En route Marian studied nerve relaxation techniques to help her husband cope with the stress of his high-pressure job.
Travelling with them was their eldest son, 17-year old Jack - on his first European jaunt; and Marian's long-serving maid, 42-year old Margaret Fleming. In Berlin, they were the guests of the American Consul General. Marian sent glowing telegrams home to her children that "Daddy is feeling much better," and bought several new gowns from leading European couturiers.
The simple pleasure trip would not have been remembered save for the liner the Thayers travelled home on - Titanic, sister ship of the Olympic, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
Titanic steers out of the dock at Southampton to begin her ill-fated maiden voyage, April 10, 1912
The first days of the voyage were pleasant ones, save for a near-collision Titanic had with the steamer New York leaving Southampton. The liner's propellers churned up so much water as she was sailing out of the dock that the New York's mooring lines snapped, and she was drawn into the Titanic's path. A collision was averted - just. A similar incident had happened with the Olympic 6 months earlier off the Isle of Wight, when her large displacement generated suction which drew the British warship HMS Hawke into her side. Olympic sailed back to Southampton under her own steam for repairs, and Titanic's maiden voyage, originally set for March 20, was put back to April 10. For the Thayers, watching from Titanic's promenade, the near-miss was an amusing trifle, Marian cabling home to her sister: "Great excitement! Jack got five photos of it which he is cabling to sell to papers at home!"
On April 14, the Thayers spent a leisurely day aboard ship. At 5pm, just before the bugle call to dinner, Marian went to Emily Ryerson's cabin and asked if she would like a stroll. Mrs Ryerson, on the way home to bury her son, had not been out of her room since the ship left Southampton and Mrs Thayer was concerned for her friend. The women walked for around half an hour, before settling in deck chairs on the enclosed promenade outside the verandah cafe. Mrs Ryerson later remembered the pink sunset: "perfectly beautiful."
Chairman of the White Star Line, J.Bruce Ismay, happened past and greeted the ladies, both of whom he knew socially. Mrs Ryerson remembered his kindness in booking the family an extra cabin and steward to make their sad journey more pleasant, and was thankful but rather taken aback by the brash manner in which he was speaking to them. Ismay, who liked to remind people who he was, pulled an ice warning cable from his pocket and waved it at the ladies. "He handed the telegram to me: 'We are in among the icebergs,' he said." Mrs Ryerson asked if the ship would be slowing down. Ismay replied that they were planning on lighting extra boilers later in the evening with a view to get in a day early to New York and break the record. "The conversation had no importance to me," Ryerson recalled. "I was under great mental distress...I was very much over-burdened with other things that were on my mind - I carried on the conversation merely to keep the ball going." Her friend Grace Scott Bowen, travelling with the Ryersons, went further, stating that Mrs Ryerson found Ismay "boring...she didn't know him very well, and objected to talking to people" given her bereavement. The women's husbands turned up and Ismay scampered away. The couples parted - Emily and Arthur returned to their stateroom, discussing the plans they would have to change if Titanic got in a day early to New York.
The Thayers were invited to the social high point of the voyage that Sunday evening: Eleanor Widener's dinner for Captain Smith in the A'La Carte Restaurant. Present were a select group of the wealthiest passengers aboard. Bruce Ismay was not invited but sat a few tables back with old Dr O'Loughlin, and left after about half an hour. The captain made his excuses around 9.30pm and went to the bridge before retiring for the evening. Eleanor Widener was adamant after the disaster that the captain had no alcoholic beverages when he came under scrutiny for not being on the bridge when disaster struck.
The high profile guests at the Wideners' dinner for Captain Smith L-R top to bottom: Captain Edward J.Smith, Eleanor and George Widener, Major Archibald Butt, William and Lucile Carter, John and Marian Thayer, broker Clarence Moore, Harry Widener, and Titanic's A'La Carte Restaurant.
The party broke up around 10.30pm. The men, with the exception of John Thayer, went to the smoking room, the ladies retired to their cabins. On the way back to their stateroom, John and Marian met their 17 year old son Jack in the reception room on D-Deck. Jack had dined alone for the first time during the voyage, was lonely, and had spent the last 2 hours chatting with Milton Long. The 30-year old son of a noted judge and widely travelled, Long and Thayer had never met but found they got along famously. The pair said their good nights, Long invited Jack to take a walk with him on deck the following morning, and the boy went with his parents to their staterooms.
Jack Thayer Jr.
Jack said goodnight to his parents, and was just about to step into bed when Titanic "seemed to sway slightly. I immediately realized that the ship had veered to port as though she had been gently pushed. If I had had brimful glass of water in my hand, not a drop would have been spilled, the shock was so slight. Almost instantaneously the engines stopped.
"The sudden quiet was startling and disturbing... Not a sound except the breeze whistling through the half-open port. Then there was the distant noise of running feet and muffled voices, as several people hurried through the passageway. Very shortly the engines started up again — slowly — not with the bright vibration to which we were accustomed, but as though they were tired. After very few revolutions they again stopped." He called in to his parents to say he was "going up to see the fun!" His father pulled on an overcoat and went along. Marian turned out the light and went back to sleep, thinking her husband and son rather foolish.
The pair found only a few people milling around on deck trying to ascertain what had happened. They met a crewman who said the ship had hit an iceberg but it was nothing serious. "After all, the ship was unsinkable." This notion was cruelly destroyed when they met the ship's designer Thomas Andrews in the first class lounge a few minutes later. Andrews knew the Thayers and confided in them that the ship had a little over an hour to live. Dumbfounded, they went back to the cabin to get Marian out of bed but found her already fully dressed. Her maid Margaret Fleming, whose cabin was lower down on E-deck, had felt the impact more strongly and dashed straight up to rouse her mistress.
An hour after the collision with the iceberg, Titanic was well down at the head, sinking rapidly and launching distress rockets. Emily Ryerson, watching as the first lifeboats were being ready for lowering, remarked to her husband that rockets wouldn't be being sent up unless the ship was in serious trouble. Painting by Ken Marschall.
The group hurried back up to the lounge on A-deck to try and figure out what to do, where Jack bumped into his newfound friend Milton Long. Long, travelling alone, asked if he could stick with the Thayers. Jack remembered: "It was now about 12:45 am. The noise was terrific. The deep vibrating roar of the exhaust steam blowing off..deafening, in addition to which they had commenced to send up rockets. There was more and more action. After standing there for some minutes, talking above the din, trying to determine what we should do next, we finally decided to go back into the crowded hallway where it was warm.
"We heard the stewards passing the word around “all women to the port side.” We then said good-bye to my mother at the head of the stairs on A-deck and she and the maid went out onto the port side of that deck, supposedly to get into a lifeboat."
Marian and Margaret went along port side, where crew were readying lifeboat 4 for loading. Second Officer Lightoller thought it would be easiest for the women to climb through the windows on A-Deck rather than attempting to board from the boat deck so lowered the boat level with the large square windows of the promenade deck. However they soon discovered that the windows were all closed and nobody seemed to know how to open them. Then it was noticed that the ship's sounding spar stuck out directly below the boat, making lowering it impossible. Two crewmen went off to find an axe to chop it away but didn't come back, and Second Officer Lightoller felt that time was wasting and went up to the boat deck to launch other boats, leaving the assembled women stranded. A steward then called down and told them to go up to the boat deck. Some got in other boats. The social elite: the Thayers, Wideners, Carters, Astors stuck together, watching as the boats left without them. Marian, by now exasperated, shouted: "Tell us where to go and we will follow!"
The chief steward found John Thayer on the starboard side and told him that Marian and the maid still hadn't left, and he took John and Jack to her. A crewman called out that they were now lowering boat 4 from A-Deck and the ladies again trekked downstairs. Jack lost his parents in the crowd, he would never see his father again.
By now it was 1.45am. 16 lifeboats out of the 18 successfully launched that night had gone, and Titanic had 35 minutes left. She had developed a sharp list to port which made getting into the lifeboat difficult. Lightoller had come back, figured out how to open the windows and propped some deck chairs in the gap between the window frame and the boat, which the women could climb over. Time to leave. Marian let Margaret go ahead and said goodbye to John. He assured her he would be in another boat. Emily Ryerson watched her two daughters and maid enter, then stepped forward with her 13-year old son but was rebuked by Lightoller. "That boy can't go it's women and children only!" Arthur Ryerson interceded: "Oh course that boy goes he's only 13!" Lightoller, abashed, nodded and shouted: "No more boys!" Lucile Carter rushed forward, removed her hat and put it on her own 13-year old son's head and he boarded without Lightoller noticing.
As the boat lowered, it got stuck on the remains of the sounding spar. The woman screamed, fearing they were about to be thrown into the ocean. A couple of third class men took the opportunity to jump in amid the confusion.
Emily Ryerson thought that it would be a tremendous drop, but was shocked when they reached the C-deck level a few feet below and the boat hit the sea. Water rushed in around the women's feet and someone scrambled to find the plug. Ryerson looked into stateroom windows and noticed water rushing in, the expensive gilded furniture floating about, chandeliers shining an eerie glow on the green water as it flooded in.
The boat held a mixed bag of the wealthiest women aboard the ship, and the poorest. Emily Ryerson described many steerage women including 3 or 4 babies. Madeleine Astor handed one of the shivering third class women, dressed in only a nightgown, her shawl to keep warm. Still, the boat was underloaded: around 35 in a boat designed for 65. With no orders, the boat drifted about close to the ship, watching as more lights disappeared beneath the still water.
Jack Thayer, still with Milton Long on the boat deck, looked for his parents but found all the boats on the port side had gone and believed they had both left. "I argued with Long about our chances. I wanted to jump out and catch the empty lifeboat falls, which were swinging free all the way to the water’s edge, with the idea of sliding down and swimming out to the partially filled boats lying off in the distance, for I could swim well. In this way we would be away from the crowd, and away from the suction of the ship when she finally went down.
"We had no time to think now, only to act. We shook hands, wished each other luck. I said, “Go ahead, I’ll be right with you.” I threw my overcoat off as he climbed over the rail, sliding down facing the ship. Ten seconds later I sat on the rail. I faced out, and with a push of my arms and hands, jumped into the water as far out from the ship as I could. When we jumped we were only 12 or 15 feet above the water. I never saw Long again. His body was later recovered.
"The cold was terrific. The shock of the water took the breath out of my lungs. Down and down I went, spinning in all directions. Swimming as hard as I could in the direction which I thought to be away from the ship, I finally came up with my lungs bursting, but not having taken any water. The ship seemed to be surrounded with a glare and stood out of the night as though she were on fire. I watched her. I don’t know why I didn’t keep swimming away. Fascinated, I seemed tied to the spot. Already I was tired out with the cold and struggling, although the life preserver held my head and shoulders above the water. The water was over the base of the first funnel. The mass of people on board were surging back, always back toward the floating stern. The rumble and roar continued, with even louder distinct wrenchings and tearings of boilers and engines from their beds.
"Suddenly the whole superstructure of the ship appeared to split, well forward to midship, and blow or buckle upwards. The second funnel, large enough for two automobiles to pass through abreast, seemed to be lifted off, emitting a cloud of sparks. It looked as if it would fall on top of me. It missed me by only 20 or 30 feet. The suction of it drew me down and down, struggling and swimming, practically spent."
The ladies aboard lifeboat 4 watch aghast as Titanic breaks in two
Meanwhile aboard boat 4, Marian Thayer was horrified. She had left her husband and son aboard Titanic and watched dumbstruck as the lights finally went out and her steel split apart. Most of the survivors later claimed the ship sank in one piece, but for those close by, there was no illusions. Marian did what she could to help, helping to drag about 8 men out of the water, a few of whom died during the night. The ladies found that most of the men aboard had no idea how to row. Mrs Thayer recalled: "There were two seamen at the oars of our boat, and one steering. There was also a man in the bow of our boat who said he was a Quartermaster. He was absolutely inefficient, and could give us no directions or aid whatever, and besides this was most disagreeable. I do not think he was a Quartermaster." She took an oar and rowed, along with Madeleine Astor, the numerous maids and Emily Ryerson's daughter Suzette.
Jack Thayer was sucked under, and happened to come up with his hand resting on the cork fender of an overturned collapsible boat which had no time to launch before being washed overboard. He clambered up onto its bottom and watched the awful spectacle before him:
"We could see groups of the almost 1,500 people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs or singly, as the great after part of the ship, 250 feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a 65- or 70-degree angle..Then, with the deadening noise of the bursting of her last few gallant bulkheads, she slid quietly away from us into the sea."
Lady Duff-Gordon, aboard lifeboat 1, commented to her secretary Laura Francatelli: "There is your beautiful nightdress gone." Crewmen aboard heard her, and bit their tongues as from the water erupted a chorus of pitiful cries for help.
Jack Thayer: "Probably a minute passed with almost dead silence and quiet. Then an individual call for help, from here, from there; gradually swelling into a composite volume of one long continuous wailing chant, from the 1,500 in the water all around us. It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night, in the woods in Pennsylvania." It was a sound nobody who heard it that night would never forget.
Gradually the cries died down as one by one the icy sea claimed more victims. The water was four points below freezing, which gave those swimming around 5 minutes before their vital functions shut down and they died of exposure. Only one boat went back - lifeboat 14 - under the command of Fifth Officer Harold Lowe. 5 of the boats grouped together and Lowe transferred his passengers between them before going back. Moving women between wooden boats in the early morning hours took about half an hour, so by the time he returned to the scene, most of those in the water had died. Several of those on the other boats wanted to go back, but were shouted down by their companions, afraid that the crazed masses would swamp the boat and they would all die. Ruth Dodge, who had left her husband on the Titanic, was so offended by others refusal to return in no.5 that when no.7 happened by, she jumped ship in mid-ocean.
Collapsible B, the upturned lifeboat on which Jack Thayer and several other men survived
Meanwhile, Jack Thayer was still clinging to the upturned keel of one of the collapsibles.
"More and more were trying to get aboard the bottom of our overturned boat. We helped them on until we were packed like sardines. Then out of self-preservation, we had to turn some away. There were finally twenty-eight of us altogether on board. We were very low in the water. The water had roughened up slightly and was occasionally washing over us. The stars still shone brilliantly.
"We were standing, sitting, kneeling, lying, in all conceivable positions, in order to get a small hold on the half-inch overlap of the boat’s planking, which was the only means of keeping ourselves from sliding off the slippery surface into that icy water.
I was kneeling. A man was kneeling on my legs with his hands on my shoulders, and in turn somebody was on him."
Regularly, someone would fall off, dead, into the sea, and then another could come aboard. Second Officer Lightoller and junior wireless operator Harold Bride were among those holding on. "Harold Bride helped greatly to keep our hopes up. He told us repeatedly which ships had answered his “CQD” (at that time the Morse Code for help), and just how soon we might expect to sight them. He said time and time again, in answer to despairing doubters, “The Carpathia is coming up as fast as she can."...We had been trying all night to hail our other lifeboats. They did not hear us or would not answer. We knew they had plenty of room to take us aboard, if we could only make them realise our predicament."
Regularly, someone would fall off, dead, into the sea, and then another could come aboard. Second Officer Lightoller and junior wireless operator Harold Bride were among those holding on. "Harold Bride helped greatly to keep our hopes up. He told us repeatedly which ships had answered his “CQD” (at that time the Morse Code for help), and just how soon we might expect to sight them. He said time and time again, in answer to despairing doubters, “The Carpathia is coming up as fast as she can."...We had been trying all night to hail our other lifeboats. They did not hear us or would not answer. We knew they had plenty of room to take us aboard, if we could only make them realise our predicament."
Finally Lightoller found his officer's whistle and blew on it repeatedly, rousing the attentions of boats 12 and 4, who slowly rowed over to pick up the men. Marian Thayer, aboard no.4 was so exhausted from rowing all night in freezing water up to her shins, that she didn't even recognise her son Jack.
The Carpathia arrived a little after 4am, an hour and 40 minutes after Titanic sank. Marian and Jack were among the last to be rescued at around 8am. She finally recognised her son as he climbed stiffly up the ladder to the Carpathia's deck, ran to him, they embraced, then suddenly she pulled back. "Where's daddy?" "I don't know mother."
Lifeboat 6, as seen from the Carpathia
The survivors of the Titanic slept where they could during the days that followed. Corridors, kitchens, cupboards, the dining saloon tables. Several spent the freezing nights on deck. But even in this ship of widows, there was still a hierarchy: Marian, Eleanor Widener and Madeleine Astor shared the Captain's cabin and didn't emerge until they had landed in New York. Bruce Ismay, who had abandoned his ship and saved himself in one of the boats, kept secluded in the doctor's cabin, refusing to see anyone. He allowed Jack Thayer to visit briefly, who described him as a broken man.
Ship of widows: Titanic survivors on the deck of the rescue ship Carpathia
Redwood, the Thayer family estate on Cheswold Lane in Haverford, Pennsylvania
John Thayer's body was never found, but the family gave him a funeral and a vault in the family plot. Marian entertained Captain Rostron and the Carpathia's surgeon Dr McGee in June, at a lunch at her home. Survivors Martha Stephensen and Eleanor Widener also attended. Marian was also a guest of Madeleine Astor when she honoured Rostron at her home. Rostron and Mrs Thayer maintained a correspondence over the remaining years of their lives.
Marian also had a less welcome penfriend in the person of Bruce Ismay. It appears he had become enamoured of the attractive widow, in ways perhaps Mrs Ismay would not appreciate. Lambasted by the press for cowardice at having survived, his career over, he retreated into himself and tried to find a sympathetic ear in Marian. "Any ambitions I had are entirely gone," he wrote. "My life's work is ruined. I never want to see a ship again, and I loved them so much. What an ending to my life. Perhaps I was too proud of my ships and this is my punishment." Marian eventually grew tired of Ismay's emotional dependance on her, and gently distanced herself politely but firmly. He died in 1937
Bruce Ismay, Marian's devoted penfriend
Marian was also not doing particularly well. She never recovered from the loss of her husband and shut herself into her mansion, no more parties, no more glamorous gowns, the jewels locked up in a safe for good. The children grew up, married and moved on. Her daughter Peggy became the toast of society during the 1920s, with gossip columns speculating on which eligible bachelor she would marry. Jack graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and later became the University's financial vice-president and treasurer. He married Lois Cassatt, also of an old well-to-do Philadelphia family and had two sons and a daughter.
She also resorted to the occult in a desperate attempt to reconnect with John. Ouija boards and crystals were scattered throughout the house. "She took to mirror-writing and would get messages from her husband," her granddaughter remembered. "It was an eerie old house. It was always dark and gloomy."
A 1921 passport photo shows her much older than her years, staring blankly into the lense and down at the mouth. She and maid Margaret Fleming along with youngest son Frederick had a lucky escape in 1914 when they sailed on another ill-fated liner, the Lusitania. She was torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life months later. Margaret served Marian for the rest of her life until her death in 1938.
Marian Thayer, passport photo, 1921
Marian died on April 14, 1944, on the 32nd anniversary of the Titanic's sinking.
Her son Jack only outlived her 18 months. He lost a son during the war, was devastated, and in his distress committed suicide by slitting his wrists while seated in his wife's car on September 21, 1945. His body was discovered several days later.
There was no happy ending for John and Marian's daughter Peggy either. She finally married Harold E.Talbott, who later became third United States Secretary of the Air Force under the Eisenhower administration. They socialised quite spectacularly throughout his political career, and Peggy was featured regularly in "best dressed" lists.
A 1955 Senate probe into Talbott's private business affairs ended his career in disgrace and he died a short time later. Peggy, suffering from depression, threw herself from the 12th floor balcony of her Manhattan apartment in 1960, leaving notes for the servants. Her body, clad in a negligee and a housecoat, was found shortly before dawn after a neighbour heard the impact and called police.
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| Margaret "Peggy" Thayer as a political wife, 1954. |
The Titanic claimed many more lives than the 1,522 official victims.
Remember all the lives it changed, today, 15 April 2012 - 100 years on.
David Paris ©2012
Brilliant read David. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteEmile Jae Fernandez x
David, you are amazing! And write SO beautifully. Well Done and THANK YOU for sharing their story! xoxoxoxo Zach Douglas
ReplyDeleteA good read! And can I just say...Major Butt.
ReplyDeleteI'm an 11 year old girl and I'm sitting down with my mom and dad.We are so sorry that happened to you guys
ReplyDeleteI meant THOSE PEOPLE i am so interested in this part of history.it is amazing how tragic it all was even after the survivor's continued with their lives. I look forward to learning all i can.Thank you
ReplyDeleteRiveting, informative, and beautifully written.
ReplyDeleteIn loving memory of Jack Thayer, The Titanic, Milton Clyde Long, and everyone else who perished on the Titanic or in the waters around her.
ReplyDeleteGOOD SHIPMATES ALL.