Term: Titanic (Wisconsin passengers)
Definition:
When the Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, eight Wisconsin residents were on board.
Capt. Edward Crosby was the president of a Milwaukee steamship line. He and his wife Catherine had picked up their daughter Harriet in Paris, where she'd spent the previous two years, and the three of them were returning home.
Dr. William Minahan of Fond du Lac was concluding a vacation with his wife Lillian and their adult daughter Daisy, a Green Bay school teacher.
Peter Hanson, a Racine barber, had taken his wife Jennie to Denmark to meet his family. While there, his brother Henrik decided to emigrate to America and the three of them were returning together to Wisconsin.
After the Titanic hit an iceberg off Newfoundland shortly before midnight on April 14th, all nine of them went on deck. The ship only carried enough lifeboats for about a third of her passengers and crew, so a strict "women and children first" policy was instituted to fill them. Capt. Crosby, who was intimate with shipboard life, saw his family off and then helped dozens of other passengers into lifeboats. Jennie Hanson pleaded to be allowed to stay with her husband but was thrown bodily into a boat instead.
When the Titanic finally split in half and sank, all five Wisconsin women were in lifeboats and survived. All four men drowned. The bodies of Capt. Crosby and Dr. Minahan were recovered but those of Peter and Henry Hanson were never found.
Jennie Hanson gave a long interview to the Kenosha Telegraph-Courier on May 2, 1912 (p. 6, c. 5: "Mrs. Hanson is Home") describing her experience that night. This and other contemporary documents are online at http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/
[Source: www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/]
