Saturday, April 14, 2012

Missing the boat is not always bad

Maria Lewis Powell

There has been a lot of stuff in the news, on blogs, on Facebook, etc. about the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago this weekend. A lot of people have a lot of really interesting information to share about that event, and I've been reading as much of it as I can.

We have our own story about that fateful event. See the picture of that sweet little face above? Well, that is the mother of Harold's Grandpa Powell, Maria (pronounced Mariah) Lewis Powell. Maria was born and reared in Wales, but at the time of the sinking of the Titanic, she had already moved to America and was living in Richmond, Missouri. She had followed her husband who had already immigrated a few years before her and he began working to save the money to send for her.

After moving to America, Maria went back to visit family in Wales twice. The first visit was in 1908 when she sailed on the R.M.S. Mauritania, sister ship to the R.M.S. Lusitania. And we all know the fate of that ship as well!

This is the postcard she sent back to Missouri from the Mauritania to her daughter, Nellie, saying "Well, dear daughter, what do you think of this ship?" Feisty Grandma Maria!



Then she went back to Wales again for a four-month visit at the end of 1911, returning in April of 1912. Her two oldest sons, William Arthur Powell (Harold's Grandpa) and his brother, Walter, were gainfully employed as colliers, so they decided to do something special for their Mom and purchased tickets on the R.M.S. Titanic (in steerage class) for Maria's trip home.

Maria's family in Wales were quite successful in their family business as tailors and seamstresses, and while she was there, her family had made a lot of clothing for her to take back to her adult daughters and her grandchildren. All that beautifully tailored clothing was packed into a trunk and sent ahead to be loaded onto the ship.

The Lewis family in Wales

Then, on the day Maria was supposed to board the Titanic (I think in Ireland), a last-minute family emergency caused her to be late... and she missed the boat! However, all her luggage had already been loaded aboard the Titanic, and it sailed without her. The White Star Line told her, "No problem, you can take the next White Star vessel bound for New York and we'll have your luggage waiting for you at the New York Pier."

And that's exactly what she did--leaving the day after the departure of the Titanic. She was already at sea when the HMS Titanic sank. But her ship must not have had a "wireless," because she didn't learn about the disaster until she was just outside New York harbor. Back in America, the entire Powell family had gathered together when the news of the disaster was front-page news in every newspaper. Harold's grandmother said it was like a "wake" in the Powell family. Everyone sat huddled together in their home in Richmond, Missouri, listening to the wireless, hoping and praying that Maria was among the survivors. When Maria arrived in New York, she went straight to the Western Union Office and sent a telegram to her family assuring them she was alive. She had been embarrassed that she had "missed the boat" because she knew her sons had paid extra money for her ticket, but this time missing the boat quite probably saved her life.

Harold's grandmother said when the telegram arrived, the "wake" turned into a huge celebration. But all Maria's luggage, including all that wonderful new clothing from her family of tailors in Wales, went down in the North Atlantic.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

55 Easters Ago


Today I heard Harold make some phone calls to some of his family members he hadn't talked to in awhile. For some reason, the day before Easter every year always makes him feel like talking to someone that would remember what he is remembering that other day before Easter so long ago. You see, he was orphaned at age four (his sister was three) when his parents drowned the day before Easter, 1957, at the ages of 23 and 22. His grandparents took turns rearing them. Maternal grandparents during the school year; paternal grandparents in the summers. And now even the grandparents are all gone as well.

It was 55 years ago this Easter that their young lives were cut short by that watery grave. No one knows exactly what happened. But the little four-year-old boy still remembers sitting in a church packed with flowers and strangers who came to gawk at the spectacle of such a "tragedy," and he remembers those two coffins in the front of the church and holding his little sister's hand. The little sister who doesn't remember any of it. He's glad at least he was old enough to have some kind of memories, even if a lot of them are sad and bewildered ones. His sister has none. Except for some yellowed photos, and what bits and pieces her big brother can remember and share with her over and over every time they talk, she has no memories of them.

And Easter always brings it back, no matter how many years have gone by...

Before they went on that trip, their Momma had fixed up a couple of Easter baskets and hidden them in the top of the closet at the grandparents' house where they left the two little ones for the weekend. Then they drove from Kansas City to the Lake of the Ozarks for the weekend, promising to be back by Easter Sunday. In the grief and chaos that followed, those baskets sat there, in the top of the closet, for about a year and a half before someone noticed them. Harold says the candy in them was still as fresh as the day his Momma bought it for them.

Now, every time he calls to talk to his little sister, each conversation always gets back to "Do you remember the time..."

"No, I don't remember that. Tell me what happened..."

And so the young parents come alive again. And remain forever young in the minds of their two babies.