Word of the Dead

Passenger Profile: Ms. Anna Sophia Turja

as told by Mr. John Rudolph

“
I can never understand why

God would have
spared a poor Finnish girl when
all those rich people drowned.”
Ms. Anna Turja Lundi, Titanic survivor
Mr. Rudolph resides in California
and is Ms. Turja's grandson.
Anna Turja was one of twenty-one
children born in Oulainen, a small town
located in northern Finland. The husband
of her sister, Maria, had offered her a
job in America working for him.
He booked her passage on the Titanic.

Young Anna Turja

My Grandmother was 18 years old when she boarded the Titanic in Southampton on her way to America.

To her, the Titanic was literally a floating city. The main deck, with all its shops and attractions was bigger than the main street in her home town in Finland. She was a steerage (third class) passenger. She had two roommates on board who were also young Finnish women. One was married, traveling with her baby; the other was traveling with her brother. In steerage, the men were kept apart from the women, in the front part of the ship.
The atmosphere in third class was quite lively: a lot of talking, singing, and fellowship.

One of Titanic's third class cabins

Mrs. Maria Panula
On the boat deck, she met another woman from Finland, a Mrs. Panula, on her way to Pennsylvania with her five children to meet her husband. "Do we all have to die by water?" Mrs. Panula asked. She had apparently lost a teenage son in a drowning accident back in Finland.
Grandma never believed the hype of the ship being unsinkable, and she didn’t understand what was going on because she didn't know the language. She remembers the band coming out of the reception room, and the doors being locked after everyone had gotten out.
Titanic approaches the iceberg

She also remembers seeing the lights of another ship from the deck. Eventually a sailor physically threw her into a lifeboat. Her lifeboat was fully loaded when it was launched; it was not one of the ones that got caught up in the cables. They immediately rowed away from the ship, fearing that they would get sucked down with it when it went under. The sailors were so well trained, very instrumental in keeping the boats afloat.

She heard loud explosions as the lights went out. The lifeboat was so full that as she held her hand on the edge of the boat her fingers got wet up to the knuckles. For the first five or ten minutes they had to beat people off who were trying to get in the lifeboat.

They were in the lifeboats for eight hours. Though the night was what she referred to as a “brilliant, bright night,” they had to burn any scraps of paper they could find -- money or anything else that wouldn’t cause a flash fire -- so that the boats could see each other and stay together.

Her most haunting memory was the screams and cries of the people dying in the water. Every time she would get to this part of the story she would start crying. “They were in the water, and we couldn’t help them.” she said.

One of Titanic's lifeboat's approaches the Carpathia

On board the Carpathia, the people were wonderful. They gave up their blankets and coats, anything that could help. She kept looking for her roommates, but she never saw either of them again. She later found out that the entire Panula family had been confirmed lost.
The survivors did not have to go through Ellis Island, as all other immigrants did in those days. Instead, they were taken straight to New York Hospital, and then sent on their way. Because of the language problem, she was literally "tagged" and put on a train to Ashtabula, Ohio. Years later, my uncle Butch, was trying to get a security “crypto clearance” in the Army. The FBI investigated why there was no record of Grandma’s citizen registration from entering the country. (He got the clearance.)

The first photo of Anna Turja in America

She was greeted by a crowd in Ashtabula, as she was somewhat of a celebrity by this time. She soon met my grandfather; they fell in love and got married. She never did go to work for her brother-in-law. Somehow, her name had appeared on the list of passengers lost, and it wasn’t until 5 or 6 weeks later when her family received a letter from her, that they found out she was alive.

She was a special guest when the 1953 movie "Titanic" starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, first came to the new theater in Ashtabula. It was the first movie she had ever seen in her life. When reporters asked her afterwards (through my uncle as translator) if she thought the movie was realistic, all she could say was, “If they were close enough to film it, why didn’t they help?” The reporters took that as a “Yes” to their question. Family members tried to explain to her that it was a re-creation. She just kept saying, “No, no.”

Years later, on July 20, 1969, when they were watching the first moon walk, she wouldn’t (and never did) believe that it was really happening. “No, no", she would say. "If they could re-create the Titanic, they could re-create this, too.”
Over the years she was interviewed regularly by the local newspapers when the anniversary of the sinking came around, but she turned down appearances on I’ve Got a Secret and The Ed Sullivan Show, partly because of her physical condition, her age, and the language problem. (She never felt strongly enough about it to learn English.) She also refused many times to join in any lawsuits over the loss. She and my grandfather felt that they didn’t need to go after money, Grandma had her life, and that was compensation enough.

The warm smile of Anna Turja in her later years.Every year on the April 14 -15 anniversary, she would sit her seven children down to tell them the story again. The phrase she would always close with, and repeated throughout her life was, “I can never understand why God would have spared a poor Finnish girl when all those rich people drowned.”

Mrs. Anna Sophia (Turja) Lundi passed away in Long Beach, California in 1982 at the age of 89.

The White Star official passenger list for the Titanic
Turja, Miss Anna Sofia - Saved

The Red Cross report says:

Turja, Miss Anna Sofia.
Saved in Lifeboat number 15. 18 years old.
Of Oulainen, Finland. En route to Ashtabula, Ohio.
Received $50 from Relief Fund.
Born 20th June 1893. Traveling with the Panulas.

Later became Mrs. Lundi, returned to Finland

Isidor and Ida Straus were well known amongst the first class passengers aboard the Titanic.

During the sinking, Titanic's officers pleaded with the 63 year old Ida to board a lifeboat and escape the disaster, but she repeatedly refused to leave her husband. Instead, she placed her maid in a lifeboat, taking her fur coat off and handing it to the maid while saying, "I won't need this anymore". At one point, she was convinced to enter one of the last two lifeboats, but jumped out as her husband walked away to rejoin him.

When last seen by witnesses, they were standing on deck, holding each other in a tight embrace.

Their funeral drew some 6,000 mourners at Carnegie Hall.

Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon

The Gordons both boarded a lifeboat early in the sinking, taking their personal servants with them. Their lifeboat departed the ship with just 12 or so people aboard, although it could have held 30 or so more.

After watching the ship dive beneath the water, amidst the screams of the 1,500 people calling for help that they were ignoring, the tactless Lucy commented to her secretary, "There is your beautiful nightdress gone." Two sailors commented "It's all right for you, you can get more clothes, but we have lost everything." Cosmo then gave the men a "fiver" each ($360.00 today) to help them out, a gesture that would cost him a lot more later when he was accused of bribing the crew to let him escape the liner and then row away without helping any of the victims in the water.

Mrs. Edith Brown Haisman, the oldest survivor of the Titanic, died at the age of 100 on January 20, 1997. She was 15 years old when placed in Lifeboat #13 as the Titanic sank. Her father, Thomas Brown, a glass of brandy in hand, waved from the deck saying "I will see you in New York."

In 1993 she described her ordeal:

"I was in Lifeboat #13. I always remembered that. My father was waving to us and talking to a clergyman, the Rev. Carter."

"The Titanic went in the ice and I heard three bangs. Before we hit, there had been terrific vibrations from the engines during the night as the ship was really racing over the sea."

"As the lifeboat pulled away we heard cries from people left on the Titanic and in the water and explosions in the ship. There were lots of bodies floating ... We were in the lifeboat nine hours."

"I kept looking in the water for my father and when we reached New York we went to the hosptials to see if he had been picked up."

Edith married the late Frederick Haisman in South Africa. They had 10 children and more than 30 grandchildren.

The Becker Family

Ruth Becker was 12 years old in 1912 when she and her family travelled on the Titanic. After the sinking, she survived in Lifeboat #11. Ruth attended high school and college in Ohio, after which she taught high school in Kansas. She married a classmate, Daniel Blanchard, and after her divorce twenty years later, she resumed her teaching career. Like most survivors, she refused to talk about the sinking and her own children, when young, did not know that she had been on the Titanic.

It was only after her retirement, when she was living in Santa Barbara, California, that she began speaking about it, granting interviews and attending conventions of the 'Titanic Histrorical Society'. In March of 1990, she made her first sea voyage since 1912 - a cruise to Mexico. She passed away later that year at the age of ninety.

J. Bruce Ismay

Joseph Bruce Ismay was one of the survivors of the Titanic. He was forty-nine years old when he boarded the Titanic. He was only seven years old when his father acquired White Star. Bruce's professional life would be centered in on the company after that happened.

His wife and four surviving children did not accompany him on the Titanic. Ismay made his escape from the wreck on lifeboat Collapsible C, for which he spent the rest of his life marked as a selfish coward, especially in America.

Bruce Ismay retired as planned from the International Mercantile Marine in June 1913, but the position of managing director of the White Star Line that he had hoped to retain was denied him.

Survivng the Titanic disaster had made him far too unpopular with the public. He spent his remaining years alternating between his homes in London and Ireland. c.Joseph Bruce Ismay died in 1937, at the age of seventy-three

Apart from the niche gentry of that era there were also middle-class families and the crew people aboard Titanic. Was there a differentiation at the time of sinking and loading lifeboats between the rich and the poor…or black or white..??

To know more about the survivors and other Crew & Staff of Titanic

Click on :-

http://cheddarbay.com/0000Tea/Titanic/crew/other_crew_staff/others.html

The Laroche Family

The Laroche's were the only Black Family aboard the Titanic amd travelled in Second-Class.

On April 10 the Laroche family took the train from Paris to Cherbourg in order to board the brand-new liner later that evening. There was no mention of a black family aboard the Titanic by any of the press or survivors accounts. This is unusual for the time when prejudice was very existant.

Mr. Laroche, the only black passenger on the Titanic, did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. His wife and two daughters were saved in lifeboat #10.

On August 8, 1973, Simonne, who never married, died at the age of 64.Mother Juliette, died At age 91 on January 10, 1980. On her grave a plaque is engraved: Juliette Laroche 1889-1980, wife of Joseph Laroche, lost at sea on RMS Titanic, April 15th 1912.

Louise Laroche passed away quietly in Paris, France on January 28, 1998 at the age of 87. She was 21 months old when rescued from the Titanic.

Michel & Edmond Navratil

Wishing to stop his mother-in-law's interference in his marriage, Michel Navratil (a French taylor) kidnapped his two children Michael M. (age 3) and Edmond Roger (age 2) from his estranged wife Marcelle, and sailed aboard Titanic.

Onced the disaster occured, Michel Navratil knew he had to now trust someone else with his precious children. He loved his sons and when handing them to strangers in Collapsible Lifeboat D he kissed them goodbye. The boys were handed into the arms of two different passengers - one to a First-Class and the other to a Third-Class passenger

Mr. Navratil remained behind after placing his sons in Collapsible D. When the Titanic sank, Michel Navratil was aged 32 years. He had boarded the Titanic as a 2nd Class passenger at Southampton on Wednesday April 10, 1912, Ticket No. 230080, Cabin No. F2. His body was recovered by the Mackay-Bennett (No. 15) and was buried at the Baron De Hirsch Jewish Cemetery, Halifax Nova Scotia Canada on Wednesday May 15, 1912.

Mrs. Daniel Warner Marvin, on her honeymoon

"As I was put into the boat, he cried and said to me, ï¿½Itï¿½s all right, little girl. You go. I will stay.ï¿½ As our boat shoved off he threw me a kiss, and that was the last I saw of him."

Daniel Warner Marvin and Mary Graham Carmichael Farquarson were married on January 12, 1912. They boarded the Titanic at Southampton. Travelling as first class passengers, the couple were returning to New York City from their honeymoon in Europe. They occupied cabin D-30.

Mrs Marvin was rescued in lifeboat 10 but Daniel Marvin died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

On October 21, 1912, Mary gave birth to a baby girl, the posthumous daughter of Daniel Warner Marvin. She named the baby Mary Margaret Marvin.

In the spring of 1913, Mary Marvin met Horace DeCamp and fell in love. In 1916, Horace adopted Mary Margaret, the daughter from Mary's first marriage. Horace and Mary had two children of their own ... a daughter born in 1918 and a son in 1920.

The Spedden Family

Douglas Spedden, born November 19, 1905, was an American boy, the son of Frederic and Daisy Spedden a wealthy New York couple. Frederic was the heir to a banking fortune. Daisy was also rich. Her father made a fortune in shipping. They liked to travel and go on European tours. They took their son Douglas with them everywhere they went. They travelled by ship to Europe and then travelled to lots of places by train. Douglas was then a boy of 7 years.

The Speddens lived in Tuxedo Park New York. In the summer they had a home at Bar Harbour, Maine.

They took their son Douglas with them everywhere they went. They travelled by ship to Europe and then travelled to lots of places by train. Douglas was then a boy of 7 years.

The Speddens lived in Tuxedo Park New York. In the summer they had a home at Bar Harbour, Maine.

Douglas had a lovely childhood. His parents adored him and showered him with wonderful play things. Douglas had a nanny, Elizabeth Burns. He called her "Muddy Boons".

In September 1911, the Speddens departed America for Europe. Shortly before leaving on their voyage, Douglas' aunt have him a white polar Steiff bear that she had purchased at FAO Schwartz Toy Store in New York City. "Polar" went with Douglas on the trip.