WAIFS FROM TITANIC RESTORED TO MOTHER’S ARMS.
Lola and Momon, the little waifs of the Titanic disaster, snatched from the sea and kept for a month in a big, strange land, were clasped in the arms of their mother Mme. Marcelle Navratil, who arrived in New York, on May 16, from France on the White Star liner Oceanic.
Hurrying down the gangplank, after kindly customs officials had facilitated her landing, Mme. Navratil, who is an Italian, 24 years old, of remarkable beauty, rushed to Miss Margaret Hays, the rescuer of the two little boys, who, with her father, was waiting on the pier. They took her in a cab to the Children’s Society rooms, and there she was reunited with her children.
The little boys, four and two years old, were thrust into one of the last of the lifeboats to leave the sinking Titanic by an excited Frenchmen, who asked that they be cared for. A steward told him he could not enter the boat and he said he did not want to, but must save his boys.
Arriving in New York on the Carpathia, Miss Hays at first could learn nothing of the children’s identity, and she planned to care for them. Then developed another chapter of the weird story of the disaster in the ice fields. The Frenchman’s body was recovered and taken to Halifax, where it was found that he was booked on the passenger list under the name of “Hoffman.”
Cable messages to France brought the information that Mme. Navratil’s husband, from whom she was separated, had kidnapped her children and said he was going to America. He often used the name “Hoffman.” Photographs of the boys were sent to Mme. Navratil in France, and she identified them as her children.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW ASTOR WENT TO DEATH.
How Astor Went to Death—“I Resign Myself to My Fate,” He Said—Kissed Wife Fond Farewell—Lifted Cap to Wife as Boat Left Ship—Crushed to Death By Ice—Famous Novelist’s Daughter Hears of His Death—Philadelphia Millionaires’ Heroism—Last to See Widener Alive—Major Butt Dies a Soldier’s Death.
The heroism of the majority of the men who went down to death with the Titanic has been told over and over again. How John Jacob Astor kissed his wife and saluted death as he looked squarely into its face; the devotion of Mrs. Isidor Straus to her aged husband and the willingness with which she went to her doom with his loving arms pressed tenderly around her, the tales of life sacrificed that women might be saved brought some need of comfort to the stricken.
G. A. Brayton, of Los Angeles, Cal, says: “John Jacob Astor went to one of the officers and told them who he was, and asked to go in the lifeboat with his wife. The officer told him he could not go in the lifeboat. Astor then kissed his wife good-bye and she was put in the lifeboat. Astor said: ‘I resign myself to my fate’ and saluted in farewell.”
“Colonel Astor and Major Archibald Butt died together on the bridge of the ill-fated ship,” said Dr. Washington Dodge, of San Francisco, one of the survivors. “I saw them standing there side by side. I was in one of the last boats, and I could not mistake them. Earlier during the desperate struggle to get the boats cleared I had seen them both at work quieting passengers and helping the officers maintain order.
“A few minutes before the last I saw Colonel Astor help his wife, who appeared ill, into a boat, and I saw him wave his hand to her and smile as the boat pulled away.”
Before the lifeboats left the ship, not far from the woman who would not let her husband meet death alone, Colonel Astor stood supporting the figure of his young bride, says another survivor. A boat was being filled with women. Colonel Astor helped his wife to a place in it. The boat was not filled, and there seemed no more women near it. Quietly the Colonel turned to the second officer, who was superintending the loading.
“May I go with my wife? She is ill,” he asked. The Officer nodded. The man of millions got into the boat. The crew were about to cast off the falls. Suddenly the Colonel sprang to his feet, shouting to them to wait. He had seen a woman running toward the boat. Leaping over the rail, he helped her to the place he had occupied.