An essay of a passenger's experiences on the Titanic

An article narrating the account of third class Titanic passenger Olga Elida Lundin

Photo is from article “Local Girl on Titanic Writes Story” “The Journal” of Meriden, Connecticut, March 12, 1913

From “The Journal” of Meriden, Connecticut, March 12, 1913

“Local Girl on Titanic Writes Story”

"The fact that Miss Olga Lundeen, of 110 Colony Street, a survivor of the Titanic, was able to deliver an essay on her terrible experiences when the steamship foundered in mid-ocean caused a deal of comment today because before Miss Lundeen entered the local evening school she knew no English.

She worked very hard to prepare the composition which she wrote unaided. It follows:

"I left Southampton, England, April 10th on the new boat, Titanic, a large and beautiful boat, and everyone was happy and never thought of any danger near, until the following Sunday night when all had gone to bed. We were all awakened by an awful crash. I sat up in my bed and wondered what had happened and in the same moment one of the stewards opened the door and gave orders to get up as the boat had struck an iceberg. I went up on the deck and met my cousin Nelson, and a few friends. Everyone was panic stricken. The water was up quite high; all at once everything was quiet. Two shots were fired. Then orders were, “Put on your life savers,” and as soon as we had them on we returned to deck with very little hope of being saved. Cousin Nelson and I got up on the second class deck from where most of the lifeboats were lowered. They pushed me into one of them. I had Nelson’s hand and he tried to come in also, but they pushed him back twice and said, 'Women and children first.' The last I heard him say was 'Olga, give my regards to my folks when you write home.'

"I sat in the small boat among people that I could not talk a word to. I looked up at the ship as it was sinking slowly down to its grave, hearing the awful cries of people that saw no way of being saved. It was indeed a sad night. After the boiler exploded the boat went down very quickly. We could hear the people crying for help a half hour after the boat had sunk.

"The water was like a mirror and after six hours in the lifeboats we could see a little hope of being saved, was the ship Carpathia and then we could see a little hope of being saved, but we were half dead from cold and fright. As soon as we got into the boat, they gave us hot drinks and were very kind to us.

There was one young man who hung on to a board in the cold water for six hours and he was nearly dead by the time they got him into the ship. He said he would never forget that awful night. My trip across was indeed a sad one. I arrived in New York the following Thursday evening and there were thousands of people on the dock ready to give us a helping hand. I was taken to the Swedish Lutheran Immigrant home. Friday morning two of my friends from Meriden came down to meet me and they brought me here. I was very glad to reach here."