Miss Lily and Miss Caroline Bonnell were first
class passengers on the Titanic. Lily (Elizabeth) occupied stateroom
C-103 and Caroline was in cabin C-7, both on C-Deck.
When the ship went down, they escaped in lifeboat #8 on the portside
launched by Second Officer Lightoller and were rescued by the Cunard
passenger liner Carpathia. Caroline passed
away in 1950 at the age of 68 and Lily passed away in 1930 at the
age of 90. Mary Bonnell Chilcote is the daughter
of Caroline and grand niece of Lily. I have been in contact with
Mary and look forward to meeting her this summer in Cleveland. Mary
has all of the newspaper clippings that were in the local papers
after the disaster. She has the interviews that Caroline had with
the newspapers after she arrived in New York. I
find the following passage in Walter Lord's book "The
Night Lives On" chapter XII "She's Gone"
to be very interesting and enlightening with regards to what I now
know about Caroline Bonnell:
Take the case of No. 8, one of
the portside boats launched by Second Officer Lightoller. After
he loaded it with all the women and children he could see, there
were still about 30 empty places. The wives began begging Captain
Smith, who was standing nearby, to let in some of the husbands to
row. But the old Captain backed Lightoller to the hilt--the rule
was "Women and children only." So the boat was lowered
and rowed away half full, with the women still pleading for there
men. Yet after the sinking,
many of these very same wives joined the great cry of protest that
went up when Seaman Thomas Jones, in charge, proposed to row back
and help people struggling in the water. Hardly anyone wanted to
go, and finally the three men at the oars flatly refused to row.
Miss Gladys Cherry, an English passenger handling the tiller, was
one of the few willing to try, and she later wrote Jones a letter
describing her anguish: The
dreadful regret I shall always have, and I know you share with me,
is that we ought to have gone back to see whom we could pick up.
But if you remember, there was only and American Lady, my cousin,
self, and you who wanted to return. I could not hear the discussion
very clearly, as I was at the tiller, but every one forward and
the three men refused. But I shall always remember your words, "Ladies,
if any of us are saved, remember I wanted to go back. I would rather
drown with them than leave them."
After discussing this with Mary Bonnell Chilcote,
I now believe that the American woman was Caroline Bonnell. The
following is an email message to me from Mary, and it about sums
up my belief that Caroline was indeed that American woman:
Date: Thu,
12 Mar 1998 17:29:30 -0500
From: "Mary J.Chilcote"
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; U)
To: Bob Bonnell <bonnell@idirect.com>
Subject: rehi Hello
again. I think if you click under life boat #8 in the story under
my mother, you will find the crew member, named Thomas Jones. In
his story he tells about the American woman that wanted to go back.
It sounds like it must have been my Mother, because she was just
that kind of person. She spent all of her life thinking and doing
for others. She was probably one of the most courageous person that
ever lived, surviving 10 years of cancer. There was a wonderful
article written by Louis B. Selzer, the editor of the Cleveland
Press, many years ago, before she died, called "The Devotion
of Two Wonderful People" written about my Mother and Dad.
Mary
I would like to thank Ann Bonnell
who lives in Fredericton New Brunswick, Canada for helping me with
my search for information about Miss Lily and Miss Caroline Bonnell.
Ann found the following information for me: Go
to the R.M.S. Titanic, Her Passengers and Crew site to view information
about, and photos of, Miss Lily and Miss Caroline. Select the passenger
list link and then select First Class Passengers link and click
on 'B' for their names.
