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History - The Titanic : The Douglas Family Connection
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Click here to go back . . .
Shortly after midnight on April 15, 1912, over fifteen hundred passengers and crew of the R.M.S. Titanic perished as the ship sank 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Initial reports were sparse and contradictory. The limits of wireless communication and the isolation of the disaster stifled accurate information. At 1:20 a.m., The New York Times received its first notice of disaster. A bulletin from Newfoundland reported the ship had struck an iceberg and had requested immediate assistance. Officials of the White Star Line publicly scoffed at the possibility of disaster and some reports suggested that the ship had been damaged but that it was being towed to Halifax.
In Cedar Rapids, attention focused on the Douglas family. Walter and Mahala Douglas, along with their maid, Berthe, were returning from Europe. The Douglases were well known in Cedar Rapids. Walter’s father had co-founded The Quaker Oats Company with his brother George, Walter organized Douglas and Company starch works in 1903.
Widowed at age 37, Walter married Cedar Rapids native Mahala Dutton Benedict in 1906. He retired at age 50 in 1911. The success of the Douglas brothers’ ventures prompted George and wife Irene’s acquisition of a large home in Cedar Rapids, which they named Brucemore. Walter and Mahala moved to Minneapolis to build their own estate, Walden. The trip to Europe in 1912 was, in part, a search for furnishings for their new home.
When word of the accident reached Cedar Rapids, the magnitude of the disaster was unknown. The diaries of Irene Douglas, daughter Margaret, and nanny Ella McDannel -- each in the Brucemore archives -- document the family’s reaction. Irene’s entry on April 15 hints at the confusion surrounding the incident: "The news of Titanic’s disaster came at noon while we were at luncheon - Did not seem serious until evening about 7:30 - spent the evening at the [Cedar Rapids] Republican [newspaper] office." Fifteen-year-old Margaret’s entry in her journal on April 16th is also notable for the absence of solid information. "We received news in the morning that the biggest ship in the world returning from Europe ran into an iceberg with 2,200 people aboard. Uncle Walter was on her going to N.Y. . . . at noon Mother & Daddy decided to go to N.Y." Having received "no news from Walter" Irene left with George for New York to meet the Carpathia, the ship carrying the only known Titanic survivors. The April 16th entry of Ella McDaniel, the Douglas's nanny, put a hopeful twist on George and Irene’s ominous journey: "Mr. & Mrs. Douglas left for New York in p.m. to meet the rescued." It was still unclear whom that might be.
On April 17th, The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette reported: "Up to 1 o’clock today no definite news had been received in Cedar Rapids concerning the fate of Mr. Walter D. Douglas . . . . the wireless telegraph companies having great trouble in effecting communication with the Carpathia . . . . It appears that a considerable number of the first and second cabin passengers, especially the men, must have perished, but it is still hoped that Mr. Douglas was among the ones rescued. Mrs. Douglas is on the Carpathia, but whether Mr. Douglas went down with the boat, as did many others of the male passengers, remains to be determined."
George and Irene left Cedar Rapids the afternoon of April 16th, spent the night in Chicago, and arrived in New York Thursday, the 18th, at 9:00 a.m. The Carpathia was scheduled to land that evening.
Meanwhile, the family and staff at Brucemore were inundated with queries. Before leaving to meet the Carpathia, Irene reported "the morning(April 16th) was spent frantically answering telephones and telegrams." After receiving "No news yet from Mother except a short letter from Chicago" on the 17th, Margaret recorded in her diary that on the 18th she "Got up early and read the news about Titanic. Everybody telephoned if we had gotten any news yet." In New York that evening, thousands of people waited in the rain as the ship bearing the 713 survivors slowly approached the dock. Irene’s entry for that date reflected the answer to the question the family, and their community, had been asking: "Carpathia landed 7 in the eve. Walter not with Mahala."
The next day Irene spent her morning "answering telephone, telegrams, letters, flowers, etc." before leaving for home that evening. The Douglases returned to Brucemore around midnight, April 20th. The next day "many called" to offer condolences. The family received word on the 23rd that Walter’s body had been recovered by the cable ship MacKay Bennett, the crew of which recorded the following information:
No. 62 - MALE - Estimated age, 55 - Hair grey
Clothing - Evening dress, with "W.D.D." on shirt.
Effects - Gold watch; chain; gold cigarette case "W.D.D."; five gold studs; wedding ring on finger engraved "May 19th ‘84"; pocket letter case with $551.00 and one pound; 5 note cards."
First Class
Name - Walter D. Douglas, Minneapolis
Mr. Douglas’s remains were taken first to his home in Minneapolis, then, via a special train, to Cedar Rapids for entombment. On Sunday, May 5th, Irene reported that "Walter was fittingly laid away" in a "beautiful ceremony."
The Titanic disaster had a profound affect on people worldwide. For many it marked the end of Victorian innocence. For thousands, like the Douglas family, the loss was of a more intimate scale.
Mahala returned to Minneapolis where she resumed her role in society. A talented and enthusiastic writer, Mahala published a collection of stories and poems in 1932. One copy, inscribed to George and Irene, is in the Brucemore archives. The last poem in the book is a haunting account of the Titanic disaster.
“Titanic,” by Mahala Douglas
Titanic
The sea velvet smooth, blue-black,
The sky set thick with stars unbelievably brilliant.
The horizon a clean-cut circle.
The air motionless, cold – cold as death.
Boundless space.
A small boat waiting, waiting in this vast stillness,
Waiting heart-breakingly.
In the offing a vast ship, light streaming from her portholes.
Her prow on an incline.
Darkness comes to her suddenly.
The huge black hulk stands out in silhouette against the star-lit sky.
Silently the prow sinks deeper,
As if some Titan’s hand,
Inexorable as Fate,
Were drawing the great ship down to her death.
Slowly, slowly, with hardly a ripple
Of that velvet sea,
She sinks out of sight.
Then that vast emptiness
Was suddenly rent
With a terrifying sound.
It rose like a column of heavy smoke.
It was so strong, so imploring, so insistent
One thought it would even reach
The throne of grace on high.
Slowly it lost its force,
Thinned to a tiny wisp of sound,
Then to a pitiful whisper. . . .
Silence.
In 1998, RMS Titanic Inc., the company that owns salvage rights to the doomed vessel, raised a section of the ship’s structure from the ocean floor. The large piece fell away from the ship as the liner floundered and broke in two on the morning of April 15, 1912. Historians originally identified the piece as the wall of a first class berth unoccupied on the voyage. In 1996, the piece was almost raised to the surface, only to fall back into the deep. Significantly, however, it landed upright in the muddy seabed, affording the crew their first look at the side that had landed face down 84 years earlier. With their new perspective, they discovered that their earlier identification had been erroneous. The large piece had actually been part of berth C-86 occupied by Walter and Mahala Douglas.
In August 1998, Dateline NBC and the Discovery Channel aired a prime time special featuring the story of the successful salvage of this large section of the Titanic. Central to the hour-long segment was an interview at Brucemore with Borden Stevens, grandniece of Walter and Mahala Douglas.
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