One thing I love about my job is that I get to go places and experience things that I other wise would probably not. For example this past Monday, Camp Eagle went to the Titanic Experiences on I-Drive. We took a guided tour through rooms that held artifacts, that replicated the boat and that brought you into the magnificence of the Titanic and those days that lead to the sinking. For the tour you become an actual passenger that boarded the Titanic before it sank. I was Mrs.Eleanor Elkins Widener! And this was my boarding pass.........
At the end of the tour you enter this room that has four clear mounts on the walls. One for each of the following; first class, second class, third class and the crew. On them are the names of the passengers and this is where you find out if the passenger you became at the beginning of the tour lived or died on the Titanic sinking. If your passengers name was hollow then that meant they died, if it was solid you lived. Mrs.Eleanor Widener survived in the sinking but lost her husband and son.
Of course now Mrs.Widener's story intrigued me so I went home and researched more about her and this is what I found.....
Name: Mrs Eleanor Widener (née Elkins)
Born: Saturday 21st September 1861
Age: 50 years
Married to George Dunton Widener.
Last Residence: in Philadelphia Pennsylvania United States
1st Class passenger
First Embarked: Southampton on Wednesday 10th April 1912
Ticket No. 113503 , £211 10s
Cabin No.: C80
Rescued (boat 4)
Disembarked Carpathia: New York City on Thursday 18th April 1912
Died: Tuesday 13th July 1937
Cause of Death: Embolism
Mrs George Dunton Widener (Eleanor Elkins), 50, was born in Philadelphia, PA on 21 September 1861
A resident of Elkins Park, PA, she boarded the
Titanic at Cherbourg with her husband George Widener, son Harry Elkins Widener, Mr Widener's manservant Edwin Keeping and her own maid Amalie Gieger. The Widener's occupied cabins C-80/82.
Mrs Widener was helped into Lifeboat 4 after more than an hour's wait by her husband and son. They then stood back to await their fate.
After their arrival in New York, Mrs Widener and Miss Gieger were met by a private train which took them back to Philadelphia.
After losing her husband and son to the sea, Mrs Widener devoted herself to charitable work. A lasting monument to her generosity stands as the
Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library at Harvard for which she made a large donation. Her only stipulations being that no stone be touched as long as the library stands and that each graduate of Harvard pass a swimming test (she felt her son might have been saved had he been able to swim). Both rules stand today although the library has been augmented by new buildings in recent years.
In 1915 Mrs Widener married the geographer and explorer Dr Alexander Hamilton Rice of New York, NY and in the coming years followed him on several expeditions in South America
1. They also travelled extensively in Europe and India.
Eleanor died in Paris on 13 July 1937.
Her Husband
Her Son
Widener 110room mansion
It's really different looking at the Titanic sinking as if you were a passenger aboard who survived and lost family because of it. I really enjoyed the experience and learned a lot as well. Like the fact that the Titanic actually only has 3 smoke stack, the 4th one is fake and is there to make it look bigger, stronger and more stable. Something else I learned is that 3 more seconds and it never would have hit the ice burg; nothing would have happened if there would have been binoculars on board, if the wind crashed waves against the ice burg or the moon had been out. Fascinating...huh!
