Books By Titanic Survivors: Echoes In The Night By Frank Goldsmith Jr.

Frank Goldsmith, Jr. (born 1902) was a young third-class passenger of the RMS Titanic ... and one of the survivors. He wrote a photographic memoir documenting his experience.

<img src="Frank Goldsmith Jr.png" alt="Echoes In The Night">

Memories of a Titanic Survivor

Nine-year-old Frank and his parents, Frank Sr and Emily, boarded the RMS Titanic in Southampton as third-class passengers, en route to Detroit, Michigan. They shared their cabin with Frank Sr.'s friend Thomas Theobold and a young 15-year-old boy in his charge named Albert Rush who would be celebrating his 16th birthday on April 14th.

<img src="Frank Goldsmith Jr.png" alt="with his m other Emily">

Frank and his mother

Frank Jr spent his time on the ship playing with a group of English-speaking boys also from third-class who were about his age. They were: cabin buddy 16-year-old Albert Rush, new friends Willie Coutts, Harold Goodwin, William Johnston, George Rice, and brothers James and Walter van Billiard. They climbed the baggage cranes and wandered down to the boiler rooms to watch the stokers and firemen at work. Of these boys, only Frank Goldsmith Jr and Willie Coutts would survive.

When the ship struck an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, 1912, Frank Sr woke up everyone in his cabin. He took his wife and son to the forward end of the boat deck to board Collapsible Lifeboat C, but found that they were letting only women and children board the lifeboats. Since he was now 16 years old, Albert Rush fancied himself a grown man and stayed behind with Thomas Theobold and Frank Sr. When the women and children were boarding the lifeboats, Thomas Theobold gave Emily Goldsmith his wedding ring and asked her to give it to his wife if he did not survive.

Photo of an iceberg reportedly taken on the morning of April 15, 1912

In his memoir, Frank Goldsmith Jr recalled: "My dad reached down and patted me on the shoulder and said, 'So long, Frankie, I’ll see you later.' I think, at the time, he may have known that he wouldn’t."

<img src="survivors.png" alt="getting in lifeboats">

Titanic survivors getting in lifeboats

Arriving in New York, Frank Jr and his mother were housed by the Salvation Army and given train fare to reach their relatives in Detroit.

Their new home was near the newly opened Navin Field (later renamed Tiger Stadium), home of the Detroit Tigers baseball team. Every time the crowd cheered during a home run, Frank Jr said he could hear it at his house down the street. He said the sound reminded him of the screams of the dying crew and passengers in the water just after the ship sank. As a result, when Frank Jr later married and had 3 sons of his own, he never took his children to baseball games.

<img src="Tiger Stadium.png" alt="home of the Detroit Tigers">

Tiger Stadium, Home of the Detroit Tigers

Growing up, Frank Goldsmith still held on to the hope of his father's survival. It took him a long time to understand that his father was really dead. For years afterward, he used to tell himself, "I think another ship must have picked him up and one day he will come walking right through that door and say, 'Hello, Frankie.'" He never did.

<img src="Frank J Goldsmith Jr.png" alt="in younger years">

A young Frank Goldsmith Jr.

During World War II, Frank Goldsmith was a civilian photographer for the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war, he moved his family to Ashland, Ohio and opened a photography supply store. He died January 27, 1982 at the age of 79.