My Story

You asked me to tell you what happened on the horrible trip on the Titanic.

I left Eskildstrup, Denmark with my fiancé, Hans Jensen, my brother, Svend, and my cousin, Niels, to travel to the United States.  We all planned on living in Oregon.  They were going to be carpenters in the City of Portland.  We chose the Titanic as our means of travel because it was supposed to be “unsinkable” and “the safest boat in the world.”  We were very excited about being on such a new boat.  On the ship, I stayed in a cabin on Deck F, in the back part of the boat with all the other single women.  Hans, Svend, and Niels stayed on the other end of the boat.

Around midnight on April 14, 1912 I remember being awoken by a loud sound.  I didn’t think much of it, so I went back to sleep.  Then, around 1:30 a.m., the girls in the next cabin came and woke me up.  I could barely understand what they were saying.  They told me that we had to leave the boat immediately because something had gone wrong.  I only had time to put on a pair of stocking slippers and overcoat to cover my nightgown.

We rushed up the six decks from where our cabin was, to the lifeboat deck.  As I got to the top of the stairs leading to the  deck, I saw Hans.  He was on his way to find me.  Hans had been helping load passengers on the lifeboats for nearly an hour because there weren’t enough seamen to load all of the passengers. But when he didn’t see me after a short time, he started to get worried.

We headed towards the boat’s railing and I could see that only women, children and crewman were supposed to get on the lifeboats.  Everyone was concerned, but no one was screaming.   I could even hear the band playing, “Nearer My God to Thee!”   When it was my turn to get on the boat, Hans told me that I’d probably be in New York a few days before him, but to wait for him.  He gave me a hug and kiss on the forehead and said he’d see me soon.  After I sat down in the boat, he helped the seamen get the ropes unstuck and stood at the rail until I disappeared into the darkness. That was the last I ever saw of Hans.

I had known Hans since we were little, but we didn’t pay attention to each other until he returned from his duty with the  Danish Army.  The only picture I have of  him, he’s in his cadet’s uniform.  He learned carpentry from my cousin Neil who said that Hans was going to be quite a success.  Hans just had such a beautiful way of crafting wood.  People from all over Eskildstrup admired his work.  He even had a list of people that wanted to place furniture orders with him.

We decided to go to America because in Denmark Hans could only make about of $10 a week.  But  he had been told that for doing the same work in America, he could make over $25 a week. We knew that America was growing rapidly and that good carpenters could make a lot of money if they did good work.