Alice Cleaver

[JACQLINE]

Alice Cleaver simply got separated from her employers, the Allisons, in all the Titanic turmoil. She somehow got Baby Trevor away and they both ended up in a lifeboat. We can never know what confused conversations went on between the Allisons and Alice while they were all still in the cabins. But it is likely that Alice interpreted whatever she heard as an "instruction" to take Trevor to a lifeboat. Unfortunately, this was not the understanding of Mr and Mrs Allison. They simply didn't know what happened to Alice or Trevor and they stayed onboard the sinking Titanic searching for their "missing" baby. I do wonder why Alice Cleaver did not also have charge of the other child, two-year-old Lorraine. If she had, little Lorraine would have survived, and probably Mrs Allison, as well.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

But it is likely that Alice interpreted whatever she heard as an "instruction" to take Trevor to a lifeboat. Unfortunately, this was not the understanding of Mr and Mrs Allison. They simply didn't know what happened to Alice or Trevor and they stayed onboard the sinking Titanic searching for their "missing" baby.

That is a misinterpretation fueled by the media and to some extent Sarah Daniels' letter that has been alluded to before.

Alice Cleaver, despite her young age, was an experienced nanny and was hired by Hudson Allison specifically to look after baby Trevor Allison. After the collision and when orders came through for women and children to board lifeboats, Alice took charge of baby Trevor as per her designated responsibility. She did meet and warn the Allisons before leaving with Trevor and in fact Bess and Loraine Allison went out to the boat deck. According to Major Peuchen (first hand) and Colonel Gracie (second hand), Bess and Loraine were actually sitting in Lifeboat #6 but Bess got out with Loraine when she realized that her husband Hudson was not going to be allowed in. Both Peuchen and Gracie said that Bess refused to go in a lifeboat without her husband and not because she could not find baby Trevor, whom she knew was safe with Alice Cleaver.

After collecting Trevor, Alice Cleaver went to the second Class cabins to warn her colleages sleeping there. Among then was cook Mildred Amelia Brown who was saved on Lifeboat #11, the same one which Alice boarded with Trevor. Boat #11 left the Titanic about 20 minutes after Lifeboat #6.

Therefore, the person to blame for little Loraine Allison's death was entirely her mother Bess and not Alice Cleaver in the slightest.