An 'Angel of Mercy' on the Titanic

Charlotte Zureick
Sep 22, 2024
6 min read

The Titanic account of twenty-two year old third-class passenger and survivor Ellen "Nellie" O'Dwyer

An AI image based on the theme of the article.

“Heroine of Titanic Tells Graphic Story, Pretty Little Irish Lass Living in Windsor Terrace Was One of The Last To Leave Giant Ship as She Was Sinking, Nellie Dwyer an ‘Angel of Mercy’ on Board the Carpathia, Felt Jar of Ship Hitting the Iceberg, Treated Crash as a Joke at First, Horrified Later on, Young Girl Handled Oars for Many Hours, Afloat Without Provisions”

The Chat

April 25, 1912

“Comfortably and hospitably ensconced with friends in a cozy little dwelling in Windsor Terrace abides plucky little Nellie Dwyer, a pretty Irish lass with a wealth of nut-brown tresses. Nellie was one of the heroines of the Titanic disaster and one of the last to leave the ill-starred vessel. She was aboard the ship after a visit to her aged father in Ireland.

“‘It seems like a dream, do you know was the comprehensive description of retrospective impression given in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Carroll, at 138 East Third Street. I was dozing off to sleep when the big ship seemed to jar,’ she began.

“‘I was not frightened, but got up to ask the other girls what made the vessel act so. Then it was still. You know, all day and night there was a whir of machinery and when that stopped it was queer. For the longest while none of us could find out what was the matter, but then some young men who were on the vessel with us from Queenstown, told us to go back to sleep, it was nothing.

“‘Ye foolish girls, go back to your beds,' they said; ‘sure the ship just struck an iceberg, but it would take a power of icebergs to harm her.’

“‘So we, well most of us, started to go back, but the boys said they were going up on deck to see the berg, for the captain was going to bring it aboard. Of course, ‘twas fooling us they were. Some time later we could hear folks running around above and we went up the stairway to the upper steerage deck. Something was wrong, we could see that, but we were not frightened, really.

“‘But then we heard them shouting to get the life belts. We knew something must be wrong. We girls and some of the women with us knelt down on the deck and said the Rosary. Some ladies and gentlemen passed us from cabins and they looked at us curiously. Boats were being lowered and people were being helped into them. Some were almost thrown in.

“‘Poor Paddy Lane,’ murmured the girl, after a pause, ‘he was a fine young fellow, a little younger than I am and when we were leaving the other side his folks asked me to please look after poor Paddy in America. When the boats were being lowered Paddy knelt on the deck and prayed. Then he began to run around calling for the priest. And he started for the other side of the ship. I never saw him again. Paddy went down when the ship sunk. Then there was a sweet little boy. Oh! The grandest and most beautiful prayers that one could hear from a child, do you know. I think he was lost, for I don’t remember seeing him the next morning in any of the boats.

“‘The captain treated everyone alike whether they were from the first cabin or the steerage. He acted angry only toward the men who were rushing forward. He kept us from panic, so he did. The Italian men were the worst. There was a poor fellow near where I was and they couldn’t get him back, and an officer shot him and he fell at my feet. I never heard the ship’s band playing louder. Men were shouting, women were crying for the husbands and children to stay with them. I don’t know how I got to the cabin above.

“‘I was among the last, and there was only one boat left. Yes, that is true, about the old couple. I could hear her husband bidding her get into the boat, and the last I heard her say was ‘No, no, no!’ As we came along the last thing I saw was the priest waving his arms toward us, like as if it might have been absolving all. The poor man was going toward steerage.

“‘Do you know that we still had no notion that the ship was going down? We were a little afraid about going into the boats. That is all any of them, men or women, were afraid about, except the stewards. There was a queer look on their faces as they helped along. I didn’t understand then, none of us did. Now we who were saved know what that look meant. They were supposed to place lifebelts on the people. A few of them tried to escape. But the officers shouted at them, and they came back to their work.

“‘The poor girl that was to go into the boat just before me was afraid. She jumped and missed the boat all but one ankle, and a man at the oars grabbed her. I got afraid and an officer lifted me. Someone said, ‘careful there’ and I was dropped into the boat. She was pulled away, and I sat up to look at the big ship. It could not have been more than seven minutes before there was a terrible explosion. O, God, be merciful to us all! The cries that came from that ship I’ll never forget! I could see just before the explosion just dimly the face of a woman who had six children with her on board. I think none of the little ones got up soon enough to be saved. The poor mother never left the ship.

“‘Then those in charge began to give orders, keeping the boats a little apart. A little while after we could see one boat with a green light on it. Some man was giving orders in it. In our boat was a tall man with moustache and he seemed to have some giving of orders. We had sixty-five in the boat and they started taking people out and putting them in boats that had very few in them. Two Chinamen were found at the bottom of one boat. The way they were saved was by fixing their blankets about them. They were taken for women when the boats were leaving the ship. When they took some of the people from our boat we had a sailor and an Italian stoker to row us. It was awful, so it was. The Italian knew no English and he didn’t seem to understand the sailor’s telling him ‘backwater’. There was no other man now. So, to try and save the people I took the oar from the Italian and the sailor and I rowed about as best we could. Sometimes the green light I told you about on that one boat made us think now and then a ship was coming, and we were afraid it would run us down before we could be saved. We would often mistake a bright star, do you know, for the top light of a vessel. Toward morning we rowed over the place where the Titanic went down, but there were only places of wreckage floating, except the new lifebelts that poor souls had adjusted the wrong way before they left ship.’

“There have been varying accounts as to the air that the ship’s band played as the vessel was sinking, but Nellie Dwyer, who was an ‘angel of mercy', said it was ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’ She declares that her boat was equipped with neither water nor provisions of any kind. She knew the names of none of the persons in her boat.

“The awful period of sorrow aboard the Carpathia was relieved by Nellie Dwyer, who was an ‘angel of mercy.’ Her robust constitution had been disturbed but little by the trying privations of the night on the open sea, and she went among the suffering survivors tenderly nursing them, making tea for them, and with the characteristic buoyancy of her Celtic heart forcing a smile and cheering the forlorn with a word of comfort.”

An 'Angel of Mercy' on the Titanic

Recent Posts

Comentarios

Char's Titanic Blog