Mrs Annie Durand Crain, née Jackson was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on 14 February 1877. She was the daughter of Dwight W. Jackson, an attorney, and the former Mary E. Myrick, natives of Michigan and Delaware, respectively. She had one sister, as well as two half-sisters by her mother’s previous marriage. 

Annie was married in October 1898 to US Army officer Charles F. Crain and their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1900. By 1912 the family lived at Fort Sheridan in Lake County, Illinois. 

Mrs Crain, as well as her husband and daughter, were first cabin passengers aboard the Carpathia when that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster. In an interview Mrs Crain stated:

“The first lifeboat came into view,” she said “was manned by women. Passengers and seamen on the Carpathia were stunned. ‘She has sunk,’ said the officer of the ship, who stood near me. I then realised for the first time that many lives had been lost.

“As the Carpathia slowed up the women at the oars of the first lifeboat didn’t seem to be the least bit excited. They were taken on board and their calmness was remarkable. Not one of the women was crying and not one of them showed any nervousness. Some were thinly clad while others were dressed in evening gowns.” — Independence Daily Reporter, 19 April 1912

Annie Crane died in Louisville, Kentucky on 28 January 1918 and was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.