LIFTED INTO A LIFE-BOAT AND KISSED.
“Hurry up, May, you’re keeping the others waiting,” were his last words, as he lifted me into a lifeboat and kissed me good-bye. I was in one of the last lifeboats to leave the ship. We had not put out many minutes when the Titanic disappeared. I almost thought, as I saw her sink beneath the water, that I could see Jack, standing where I had left him and waving at me.”
Mrs. Futrelle said she saw the parting of Colonel John Jacob Astor and his young bride. Mrs. Astor was frantic. Her husband had to jump into the lifeboat four times and tell her that he would be rescued later. After the fourth time, Mrs. Futrelle said, he jumped back on the deck of the sinking ship and the lifeboat bearing his bride made off.
George D. Widener and his son, Harry Elkins Widener, lost in the wreck of the Titanic, died the death of heroes. They stood back that the weaker might have a chance of being saved.
Mrs. Widener, one of the last women to leave the ship, fought to die with her husband and her son. She would have succeeded probably had not sailors literally torn her from her husband and forced her on to a life-raft.
As she descended the ladder at the ship’s side, compelled to leave despite her frantic, despairing pleas, she called to Mr. Widener and to her son pitifully:
“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Good-bye! George! Harry! Good-bye! Good-bye! Oh, God! this is awful!” And that was the last she saw of her husband and of her son, who waved a brave farewell as she disappeared down the ladder.
Mr. Widener, according to James B. McGough, 708 West York street, Philadelphia, a buyer for the Gimbel store, one of those rescued, was as calm and collected, except at the time of the final parting from his wife, as though he were “taking a walk on Broad street.”