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| Elizabeth Walton Allen |
Born:
October 1, 1882, St. Louis, MO
Birth Name:
Birth Name:
Elizabeth Walton Allen
Parents:
Parents:
George Washington Allen (a judge) and Lydia Jeanette McMillan Allen
Siblings:
Siblings:
Clare (1881-1970),
Whitelaw (1891-1972),
Thomas (1877-1947) and
George (1889-1973)
Spouse:
Spouse:
James Beaver Mennell, married June 1912
Children:
Children:
James, John and Peter
Died:
Died:
December 15, 1967, Turnbridge Wells, England
Evacuated in Emergency Lifeboat #2
Ticket Number:
Evacuated in Emergency Lifeboat #2
Ticket Number:
24160 for the whole party, First Class. Price: £221 ($7,000 in 2018 dollars)
Traveling Together:
Elizabeth Allen, age 29, was engaged to British physician James B. Mennell. While her sister Clare had remained in London, Elizabeth was returning home to St. Louis to pack up her belongings. She and her sister Clare were to be married in a double wedding ceremony in England. Clare moved to Boston with her new husband while Elizabeth planned to make England her new home.
In 1902, Elizabeth Allen and her sister Clare returned home from Vassar College to find that their parents were in the process of divorcing, the underlying reason being Mrs. Allen's advanced alcoholism had caused the marriage to fall apart.
Elizabeth's father, George Washington Allen, was a wealthy judge and former mayor of St. Louis who inherited a small fortune from his father who was one of the builders of the Iron Mountain Railroad and a founder of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis.
The Allens divorced in January 1902 after a bitter custody battle for the two youngest sons. By that time, George Allen was courting Eliza Doherty whom he married in March 1903.
Elizabeth and Clare returned to Vassar and graduated in 1905. With no place to call home, they went to England to live with their recently widowed maternal aunt, Mrs. Elisabeth McMillan Robert. Her 15-year old daughter, Georgette Madill, became an heiress when she was bequeathed a large fortune upon the death of Mrs. Robert's first husband. Mrs. Robert introduced Elizabeth and Clare into society.
Clare Allen became engaged to Charles Haskins, a Harvard history professor who had been in England on business.
Elizabeth became engaged to physician James Beaver Mennell, chief medical officer at St. Thomas Hospital in London. She planned to book passage on the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic to New York where she would continue to St. Louis and gather her belongings to return to England.
Her aunt suggested they make a holiday of it. Mrs. Robert, her daughter Georgette, her maid Emilie and Elizabeth boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton. They were assigned to two First-class cabins: Elizabeth and her cousin Georgette were in B-5, and Mrs. Robert was in cabin B-3 across the hall. Her maid Emilie was in a berth in steerage.
It had been a quiet Sunday evening and we had all gone to our rooms early. My aunt had gone to bed but my cousin and I sat up talking. Around 11 o'clock, there came a slight jar and the engines stopped.
We looked out the porthole but couldn't see anything. We assumed it was some small accident and that the ship would be moving again in a few minutes. My aunt put her dress on over her nightclothes, came in and sat with us to wait.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Robert's maid knocked at our door to tell us there was water in the baggage room which was on the same tier with her berth down below in steerage. She was slightly hysterical but she was inclined to be that way, so we told her to go back to bed. She had hardly been gone when she came running back to tell us that water was now running into her room.
I stepped outside the door to find out about it and I met Captain Smith. He said to dress and go on deck. We believed this was only for precaution, but with the idea that we might have to stay on deck for a while, we dressed warmly in sweaters, steamer caps, and heavy coats.
We slipped some trinkets into our coats but most of our valuables were in the purser's safe. We had only a few trunks because we were merely on our way home from a winter in London and expected to go back in June.
We found other people were moving about and a good many women were already up on the sun deck. (boat deck). This was about half past eleven. In a few minutes, orders were given to take out the boats and the crew began to get the rigging read.
Captain Smith gave orders for the orchestra to come on deck and play. They rushed out past us, down forward near the bridge. The first boat was ready and the officers asked us to get in. There were not many women who wanted to go, for we hated to think of getting in that small boat when we could stay on the big one and wait. No one dreamed that there was any immediate danger. Besides, it was a drop of some 80 feet down the side of the ship and we would have to go down it in the small boat.
Finally we decided to get in, the three of us and my aunt's maid. The boat was filled and they swung us out and over the side and lowered us down slowly. We had four seamen and an officer in the boat. When we reached the water, the ropes were cast off and the men rowed us off about 100 yards. They said that if the Titanic did go down, they wanted to keep us out of the suction, but none of them thought of any such danger.
They had let us down from the steamer's side and when we got out on the ocean, we looked for the iceberg they said had struck us on that side. The berg must have been under the surface. We could not see any ripple of such a great object under the surface. The berg by this time was astern.
From our small boat, we could see the Titanic was sinking slowly. She had begun to list to port and her bow was down. The decks were all lit up so that we could see everything plainly. As the other lifeboats were filled and lowered, the band struck up "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and we heard that hymn out across the water until the very last.
Everything seemed to move smoothly. The women took their places in the boats without the slightest confusion. We could see them kissing their husbands good-bye, just as those in our boats had done, but everyone expected that it would be just for a short time.
We could see Ismay [J. Bruce Ismay director of White Star Line] and Colonel Astor [John Jacob Astor IV]. Mr. Ismay took charge of the Starboard Side, he filled one boat after another until all the women were gone.
There were just two women in the last boat and Ismay called for more women. When none answered, he ordered the men to jump in and he took the last place for himself. Colonel Astor could have come in the same boat, but he went below to look for more women.
As the ship sank lower, we could see that there was more confusion on the lower decks, but nothing was riotous. "The only revolver we saw at any time was when a man - we were told later he was a German baron - jumped into a lifeboat, pulled a revolver out and threatened to shoot anyone who followed him. His boat was filled with women and he stayed in it as the boat was let down."
At this time, the great steamer was sinking lower and lower. Her stern was stuck up in the air at a sharp slant. She listed so much to port that it was impossible to lower anymore boats, for they could not swing clear.
We could see water on the decks now and men were wading about. There was a rush when some stokers seized two collapsible lifeboats and tried to float them, but they never got away.
The big ship slid down under the surface and the two small boats followed her down.
The last light had been extinguished. All we could make out on the level sea were cakes of ice with a small boat here and there.
The night air was filled with shrieks that sent thrills of horror up and down our backs. But we could do nothing, and for the safety of the women on board, the crew began to row us away as fast as they could which was slow, at best, with only four men in the lifeboat. Other boats gathered around us.
Our boat was the only one with any rockets or other means of signalling. [Lifeboat #2 was an emergency cutter boat]. Other boats came around us, but there was no sign of any help.
Even to the last, the wives in our boat hoped that their husbands might have been picked up by other boats or rafts or something that would keep them afloat. That kept their hopes up, but those of us who had only ourselves to think of, wondered whether we would ever be picked up.
We had no means of knowing whether any wireless messages had ever reached other steamships, and our small rockets could not be seen at any great distance.
We began to feel the intense cold and there was considerable suffering on board. Some of the women had came with only light clothes on and had difficulty keeping warm.
Along towards morning, the lights of the RMS Carpathia showed over the horizon, growing larger and larger until we saw that she was coming to pick us up.
After that, all suspense was over for us. The Carpathia picked up the other boats one after another, quartering the survivors on different decks.
Many of the men were put in the smoking room, where the "German baron" tried to get hold of all of the blankets. We were given space on the floor of the main saloon and we slept there, never changing our clothes until we arrived in New York.
The most pathetic of all was on the dock where relatives were waiting. Our own folks did not know after the various reports whether we were dead or alive.
In June 1912, Elizabeth, her aunt and her maid, and her cousin Georgette, returned to England aboard the steamer Baltic. She and her sister Clare were married as planned in a double wedding.
Elizabeth and James Mennell had three sons. Elizabeth was not deterred from making other sea voyages. With her husband and sons, they sailed several times back to America for her husband's medical conferences and to visit her mother's family in 1919 in New York.
Elizabeth Walton Allen Mennell lived to be 85 years old. She died in Turnbridge Wells on December 15, 1967 of heart failure.
Footnote:
Miss Allen's account speaks of a man she was told was a German baron who used a revolver to overtake a lifeboat. She encountered him again later on the Carpathia when she said he tried 'to get hold of all the blankets.'
There was much controversy surrounding the ethics of a baron who was in Lifeboat #1 with his wife and secretary, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. He was a baron, but he was a Scottish baron. It's possible that she was told the wrong nationality of the baron and that the person she saw was Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon.
Her account of him was not investigated by the Board of Inquiry to determine the identity of the baron she mentioned in her account.
Continued Reading - Links are in sidebar
Lifeboat #1 - 16
Collapsible Lifeboats "A" to "D"
Lifeboats - Main Post
Crew: Joseph Boxhall
Crew: William Murdoch
Captain Edward J Smith
Sources:
Encyclopedia Titanica
Wikipedia
Titanic Passenger List
Pinterest (photo)
GG Archives
Traveling Together:
- Elizabeth Walton Allen (Cabin B-5 First class)
- Her aunt Mrs. Elizabeth Scott Robert (Cabin B-3 First class)
- Georgette Alexandra Madill, age 15 (Mrs. Robert's daughter). Shared Cabin B-5 with Miss Allen.
- Emilie Kreuchen [Mrs. Robert's maid] was in steerage
Purpose of trip:
Elizabeth Allen, age 29, was engaged to British physician James B. Mennell. While her sister Clare had remained in London, Elizabeth was returning home to St. Louis to pack up her belongings. She and her sister Clare were to be married in a double wedding ceremony in England. Clare moved to Boston with her new husband while Elizabeth planned to make England her new home.
Before The Voyage
In 1902, Elizabeth Allen and her sister Clare returned home from Vassar College to find that their parents were in the process of divorcing, the underlying reason being Mrs. Allen's advanced alcoholism had caused the marriage to fall apart.
Elizabeth's father, George Washington Allen, was a wealthy judge and former mayor of St. Louis who inherited a small fortune from his father who was one of the builders of the Iron Mountain Railroad and a founder of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis.
The Allens divorced in January 1902 after a bitter custody battle for the two youngest sons. By that time, George Allen was courting Eliza Doherty whom he married in March 1903.
Elizabeth and Clare returned to Vassar and graduated in 1905. With no place to call home, they went to England to live with their recently widowed maternal aunt, Mrs. Elisabeth McMillan Robert. Her 15-year old daughter, Georgette Madill, became an heiress when she was bequeathed a large fortune upon the death of Mrs. Robert's first husband. Mrs. Robert introduced Elizabeth and Clare into society.
Clare Allen became engaged to Charles Haskins, a Harvard history professor who had been in England on business.
Elizabeth became engaged to physician James Beaver Mennell, chief medical officer at St. Thomas Hospital in London. She planned to book passage on the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic to New York where she would continue to St. Louis and gather her belongings to return to England.
Her aunt suggested they make a holiday of it. Mrs. Robert, her daughter Georgette, her maid Emilie and Elizabeth boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton. They were assigned to two First-class cabins: Elizabeth and her cousin Georgette were in B-5, and Mrs. Robert was in cabin B-3 across the hall. Her maid Emilie was in a berth in steerage.
Elizabeth Walton Allen's account of the sinking:
It had been a quiet Sunday evening and we had all gone to our rooms early. My aunt had gone to bed but my cousin and I sat up talking. Around 11 o'clock, there came a slight jar and the engines stopped.
We looked out the porthole but couldn't see anything. We assumed it was some small accident and that the ship would be moving again in a few minutes. My aunt put her dress on over her nightclothes, came in and sat with us to wait.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Robert's maid knocked at our door to tell us there was water in the baggage room which was on the same tier with her berth down below in steerage. She was slightly hysterical but she was inclined to be that way, so we told her to go back to bed. She had hardly been gone when she came running back to tell us that water was now running into her room.
I stepped outside the door to find out about it and I met Captain Smith. He said to dress and go on deck. We believed this was only for precaution, but with the idea that we might have to stay on deck for a while, we dressed warmly in sweaters, steamer caps, and heavy coats.
We slipped some trinkets into our coats but most of our valuables were in the purser's safe. We had only a few trunks because we were merely on our way home from a winter in London and expected to go back in June.
We found other people were moving about and a good many women were already up on the sun deck. (boat deck). This was about half past eleven. In a few minutes, orders were given to take out the boats and the crew began to get the rigging read.
Captain Smith gave orders for the orchestra to come on deck and play. They rushed out past us, down forward near the bridge. The first boat was ready and the officers asked us to get in. There were not many women who wanted to go, for we hated to think of getting in that small boat when we could stay on the big one and wait. No one dreamed that there was any immediate danger. Besides, it was a drop of some 80 feet down the side of the ship and we would have to go down it in the small boat.
Finally we decided to get in, the three of us and my aunt's maid. The boat was filled and they swung us out and over the side and lowered us down slowly. We had four seamen and an officer in the boat. When we reached the water, the ropes were cast off and the men rowed us off about 100 yards. They said that if the Titanic did go down, they wanted to keep us out of the suction, but none of them thought of any such danger.
They had let us down from the steamer's side and when we got out on the ocean, we looked for the iceberg they said had struck us on that side. The berg must have been under the surface. We could not see any ripple of such a great object under the surface. The berg by this time was astern.
From our small boat, we could see the Titanic was sinking slowly. She had begun to list to port and her bow was down. The decks were all lit up so that we could see everything plainly. As the other lifeboats were filled and lowered, the band struck up "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and we heard that hymn out across the water until the very last.
Everything seemed to move smoothly. The women took their places in the boats without the slightest confusion. We could see them kissing their husbands good-bye, just as those in our boats had done, but everyone expected that it would be just for a short time.
We could see Ismay [J. Bruce Ismay director of White Star Line] and Colonel Astor [John Jacob Astor IV]. Mr. Ismay took charge of the Starboard Side, he filled one boat after another until all the women were gone.
There were just two women in the last boat and Ismay called for more women. When none answered, he ordered the men to jump in and he took the last place for himself. Colonel Astor could have come in the same boat, but he went below to look for more women.
As the ship sank lower, we could see that there was more confusion on the lower decks, but nothing was riotous. "The only revolver we saw at any time was when a man - we were told later he was a German baron - jumped into a lifeboat, pulled a revolver out and threatened to shoot anyone who followed him. His boat was filled with women and he stayed in it as the boat was let down."
At this time, the great steamer was sinking lower and lower. Her stern was stuck up in the air at a sharp slant. She listed so much to port that it was impossible to lower anymore boats, for they could not swing clear.
We could see water on the decks now and men were wading about. There was a rush when some stokers seized two collapsible lifeboats and tried to float them, but they never got away.
The big ship slid down under the surface and the two small boats followed her down.
 |
| Simulation of Titanic's last minutes before sinking |
The last light had been extinguished. All we could make out on the level sea were cakes of ice with a small boat here and there.
The night air was filled with shrieks that sent thrills of horror up and down our backs. But we could do nothing, and for the safety of the women on board, the crew began to row us away as fast as they could which was slow, at best, with only four men in the lifeboat. Other boats gathered around us.
Our boat was the only one with any rockets or other means of signalling. [Lifeboat #2 was an emergency cutter boat]. Other boats came around us, but there was no sign of any help.
Even to the last, the wives in our boat hoped that their husbands might have been picked up by other boats or rafts or something that would keep them afloat. That kept their hopes up, but those of us who had only ourselves to think of, wondered whether we would ever be picked up.
We had no means of knowing whether any wireless messages had ever reached other steamships, and our small rockets could not be seen at any great distance.
We began to feel the intense cold and there was considerable suffering on board. Some of the women had came with only light clothes on and had difficulty keeping warm.
Along towards morning, the lights of the RMS Carpathia showed over the horizon, growing larger and larger until we saw that she was coming to pick us up.
 |
| Lifeboat moving toward rescue ship |
After that, all suspense was over for us. The Carpathia picked up the other boats one after another, quartering the survivors on different decks.
 |
| Titanic survivors on deck of Carpathia |
Many of the men were put in the smoking room, where the "German baron" tried to get hold of all of the blankets. We were given space on the floor of the main saloon and we slept there, never changing our clothes until we arrived in New York.
The most pathetic of all was on the dock where relatives were waiting. Our own folks did not know after the various reports whether we were dead or alive.
 |
| Waiting at docks of New York for Carpathia rescue ship |
Elizabeth Walton Allen Mennell
In June 1912, Elizabeth, her aunt and her maid, and her cousin Georgette, returned to England aboard the steamer Baltic. She and her sister Clare were married as planned in a double wedding.
Elizabeth and James Mennell had three sons. Elizabeth was not deterred from making other sea voyages. With her husband and sons, they sailed several times back to America for her husband's medical conferences and to visit her mother's family in 1919 in New York.
Elizabeth Walton Allen Mennell lived to be 85 years old. She died in Turnbridge Wells on December 15, 1967 of heart failure.
Footnote:
Miss Allen's account speaks of a man she was told was a German baron who used a revolver to overtake a lifeboat. She encountered him again later on the Carpathia when she said he tried 'to get hold of all the blankets.'
There was much controversy surrounding the ethics of a baron who was in Lifeboat #1 with his wife and secretary, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. He was a baron, but he was a Scottish baron. It's possible that she was told the wrong nationality of the baron and that the person she saw was Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon.
Her account of him was not investigated by the Board of Inquiry to determine the identity of the baron she mentioned in her account.
Continued Reading - Links are in sidebar
Lifeboat #1 - 16
Collapsible Lifeboats "A" to "D"
Lifeboats - Main Post
Crew: Joseph Boxhall
Crew: William Murdoch
Captain Edward J Smith
Sources:
Encyclopedia Titanica
Wikipedia
Titanic Passenger List
Pinterest (photo)
GG Archives
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