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this family member , who was going to be
earning the money in their new home ?
Many of the surviving families returned
to Europe to pick up their lives close to
the rest of their loved ones .
A lUcky escApe
That is what happened to Eva Hart ,
who was seven in 1912 . Her mother
had been worried about travelling on
a ship that everyone was saying was
‘ unsinkable ’. Unable to sleep , Eva ’ s mum
was awake at 11.40pm and felt the ship
bump into the iceberg . She woke up
her husband to go and see what had
happened , and he came back quickly to
get them both dressed and up on deck .
Eva and her mum were among the first
to get onto a lifeboat – but not her
father . Without him and his dreams of
opening a pharmacy in Canada , Eva and
her mother returned to England , where
they lived for the rest of their lives .
An EerIe caLm
Eva remembered it being calm as people
loaded into the lifeboats , because
nobody thought they were really in
danger . Officers told passengers they ’ d
be back aboard for breakfast . Panic only
set in when the lifeboats were being
launched and desperate people kept
coming on deck to find no lifeboats left .
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aren ’ t going !’ The officer relented and
so all the family were saved . In later life ,
William Coutts became a professional
musician , married and had two
children . He died in 1957 , aged 55 .
William Carter was 11 years old , but
his mother had seen that officers were
trying to stop boys of a similar age
going on the lifeboats . The tale goes
that she put her own bonnet on his
head to make him look like a girl . He
and his family were saved – but he had
to leave his pet dog behind on deck .
ReuNiteD
Once safe on the Carpathia , parents
and children looked for each other .
Only one pair of brothers didn ’ t find a
parent . Michel Navratil , aged three , and
his brother Edmond , aged two , were
travelling with their father . He had taken
them from their mother and was running
away with them to America . They were
travelling under different names – John
and Fred Hoffman – so they wouldn ’ t be
detected . Their father didn ’ t survive .
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After the rescue , an American woman looked after the brothers in New York while the authorities tried to find their family . Being so young and speaking only French , this was not easy , but newspapers around the world told the story of ‘ the orphans of the Titanic ’. Eventually their mother in Nice , France , recognised them in the newspaper and travelled to New York to bring them home . They were reunited a month after the sinking . Michel became a philosophy professor and lived to the age of 92 . Edmond ultimately became an architect and fought in the French army during World War II .
Michel and Edmond Navratil , with their mother , Marcelle .
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Words : Jenny Jacoby . Illustration : Juliana Penkova |
Eva eventually became a professional |
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singer and distributed emergency |
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supplies during World War II . When |
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salvaging efforts began in 1987 , Eva |
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believed that the wreck should be |
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treated as a gravesite and left in peace . |
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She died in 1996 , aged 91 . |
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DisGuisE thE guYs
William Coutts was emigrating from
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England to the USA with his mother |
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and brother to join his father . William |
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was aged nine but must have looked |
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older because an officer thought he |
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was too old for a place on the lifeboat . |
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His mother said , ‘ If he doesn ’ t go , we |
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9 |