Unidentified survivor who is she

[Christine Geyer]

Hello all!! Attention, passenger and/or crew experts. Here's a "backwards-research" question.

A while ago I have purchased a small old photo album which mainly contains the outcut photos of the book "Thomas Andrews Shipbuilder" (sigh, it seems to be the original old one). One page however is interesting as it contains three real photos. Two of a man and one of a woman. All three of them are underwritten with the handwriting "Survivors of Titanic 1912".

There are two photos of Frank Goldsmith, his name is written next to them. But there's also the photo of a young woman in a (nurses?) uniform and unfortunately her name is not mentioned.

The only hint I have is the name of the photographer and his address "Queen's Arcade Belfast". So instead of having the name of a survivor and searching desperately for her photo we now have a photo but no name. I know you'll like this. So anyone got an idea who she is? And I'm so looking forward to see if you can help me identify her. Since I have no idea whether she was a passenger or a crew member I have spontaneously decided to post in the Crew Research thread instead of the Passenger Research.

Regards to you all,
Christine

 

[Christine Geyer]

Here's the complete photo

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Hi Christine,

Amy Stanley's cabin mate was a nurse. I tend to recall reading that Amy was in touch with the Goldsmiths and Rosa Abbott so it is possible this nurse was part of this circle of friends who kept in contact over the years. Someone more expert than I on the passengers may know what the nurse's name was.

Good luck in your researches.

Randy

 

[Brian Meister]

Hello Christine,

Thank you for sharing the photo of the
young lady with us. I wondered since we have
a Belfast photographer if she might be
Mary Sloan, the stewardess? She looks quite
young though, so I do not know if this could
be her, but I am venturing a guess.

Best Regards,

Brian M

 

[Bob Godfrey]

This doesn't look like the known photos of Mary Sloan, and I don't think that's a nurse's uniform - more likely a maid or waitress. Randy, the 'nurse' who shared with Amy Stanley was Elizabeth Dowdell, an American travelling as nursemaid to Ethel 'Virginia' Emanuel. But what can you tell from the clothes and hairstyle? Judging from the length of the skirt (and certainly if Frank Goldsmith appears as an adult) these pics were taken much later than 1912, probably in the 1920s, so maybe we should be looking for a Titanic child, not a grown woman.

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Hi Bob,

The uniform looks like a Red Cross uniform to me or perhaps a Salvation Army uniform (?).

From the skirt length (well below calf) and hairstyle (a bob or mock-bob), I would say this image dates to World War I, probably 1917 or so, although it could be as late as the early '20s. However, if the subject is much younger than we are assuming (say a teenager), she would have worn a shorter skirt length than an adult female, so the picture COULD have been taken about 1912. Still, it's most likely, as Bob points out, a slightly later photo.

The woman's hair looks short but that doesn't mean it is. For years, before women actually got the courage to cut their hair, they dressed their hair to look as if it were short.

I think Bob is correct that the lady is quite young, but if she is 20 years old or so in the picture and it was taken about 1917 we are looking at a survivor who was a teenager in 1912.

Randy

 

[Christine Geyer]

Hello Randy, Brian and Bob,

I have tried to compare the woman on the photo with the Titanic's stewardesses. I found they all look somewhat older to me from the group photo in Plymouth. Also the Mary Sloan picture here on ET looks also different to me. On the other hand there's no clue that she really is from the crew, she might as well have been a passenger.

I'm afraid the Frank Goldsmith photos don't give any hint on the time that her photograph was taken. To me seems as if his photos where taken later than hers. But I might as well be wrong here. To prevent you from my lousy describing I better show them to you. Indeed he's wearing a uniform. I could not say whether it's WWI or WWII but to judge from the car I'd rather say WWI.

It would be wonderful if we could find out who she is. Thank you so much for your help!!

Regards to you all
Christine

 

[Christine Geyer]

And this is the second Goldsmith-picture on the album page (even though you hardly can see him). I had to resize all of the photos because I can only post a picture smaller than 20 kb here.

 

[Brian Meister]

Christine,

I would be interested to know if there are
photographers listed on the Goldsmith photos.
I have dozens of these same era photo cards
of my family, and all carry the photographers'
name and studio.
Secondly, I have compared the photo to the
uniform shot of Violet Jessop's WWI nursing
uniform in the now famous picture of her and
they appear to be identical absent the Red
Cross on the front of the white apron, so I
agree with Randy's assessment of the period.
Violet's hair is pulled back and tucked under
which appears to be the sanitary regulation
of the time, so I believe that she was a
nurse in the World War.
Dowdell was 32 in 1912
Stanley was 23, but I doubt she served in
the British Red Cross as a nurse, unless there
is some proof to the contrary.
Ethel Emanuel is interesting, but she would
have been around 12 or 13 when the war was on.
I believe Belfast is a major clue, and
wonder why not Mary Sloan, or at the very
least one of the Irish girls?

Brian

 

[Bob Godfrey]

Christine, the Frank Goldsmith who survived the Titanic was only 15 years old when the Great War ended, and as far as I know he was never an army officer at any time.

If the woman is indeed a Titanic survivor and if her pictures date from the Great War period as Randy has suggested (and he's rarely wrong about dates) then one possibility is Edith Pears, who was still in her early 20s in 1914 and served as a Red Cross nurse and ambulance driver. As you can see, her appearance was similar. But I don't know of a Belfast connection.

 

[Brian Meister]

Christine,

May I inquire as to the provenance of this
piece? I think I agree with Bob that the photos
of the man purported to be Goldsmith are
suspect as they show a much older man. It would
help to know the origin of the book, I think,
before anything definitive can be confirmed.

 

[Bob Godfrey]

If it does turn out that the others pics are Frank Goldsmith, then Amy Stanley is perhaps the strongest contender for the 'nurse'. Randy has pointed out the connection with the Goldsmiths. There is also a physical resemblance, though the grainy image reproduced on her biography page here doesn't show it too well - check out instead the 'related images' link. A domestic servant in England, Amy was travelling to America to take up a position as a nursemaid. In the time frame that we're looking at, nursemaids often wore a uniform exactly like that of medical nurses, but without the acoutrements of red crosses, pinned watches and elaborate headgear. The Hulton photo archive has several images of nursemaids dressed exactly like the woman in Christine's photo, so she could equally have been a medical nurse or a nursemaid. Again, the problem is the Belfast-based photographer, unless (s)he had taken this picture while on a visit to the US.

 

[Kyrila Scully]

There's a photo in Judith Geller's "Titanic Women and Children First of Elizabeth Nye in her Salvation Army uniform. Not the same as in the photo above. I'd venture it's a nursemaid's uniform based on illustrations and photographs of Douglas Spedden's nurse in "Polar, The Titanic Bear."

Kyrila

 

[Randy Bryan Bigham]

Hello guys/gals:

Christine has thrown us a puzzle I see! Brian makes a valid point that there needs to be some authentication of the book's provenance - any clues Christine?

But if we're going to speculate, I'm throwing in my hat on the possibility that it's Amy Stanley. There is a photo of her in a 1982 or '83 Commutator (I've misplaced it at the moment) and the resemblance is pretty striking. Bob's research at the Hulton site seems to indicate that the young woman is dressed in the uniform of a nursemaid, which lends more credence to the likelihood of the subject being Stanley. Brian confirms the similarity of the outfit to a Red Cross uniform, however, so there is room for interpretation.

Kyrila, I just glanced through "Polar" and also noted the resemblance of the illustrations of the Spedden nurse to Christine's picture.

Think we can solve this one, folks?

Randy

 

[Brian Meister]

Hello All,

I think that if there are descendants of
Amy Stanley Tanner still living, they would
be the best judge of whether or not this is
the lady in question. Agreed?
What happened to Christine? The provenance
of the piece could be crucial to the solving
of the mystery. Just because the person who
pasted these photos in the book claimed that
these people were survivors, it doesn't mean
they actually were.
Take for example, the photos purported
to be of brother and sister crewmen, Frank
Allsop and Mrs McLaren. A person sold these
items as such to Peter Boyd-Smith who bought
them in good faith and with the assurance
of the seller that they were authentic.
Researchers in passengers and crew labored
to make the connection between Mrs Mc and
Frank Allsop, but could not find a link with
a sister who would have married. Craig Stringer
and I both had serious doubts about the story,
and I believe I have found the real Mrs Mc
and she does not have the maiden name of
Allsop.
We cannot ignore the clues in this booklet,
however. The owner has clippings from
"Thomas Andrews Shipbuilder" published
in Dublin and London. The photographer on the
bottom of the lady's photo is in Belfast.
Again Ireland. The lady looks young, but the
photo is not the best quality to determine
actual age, and seven of the surviving
stewardesses are missing from the photo that
Christine referred to, so she might not have
been there.
Christine. If you're out there.....