Margaret Hays

[Michael H. Standart]

Martin, it get's even worse. Faced with the obvious hazards of even climbing into a boat, anyone boarding same had to face the very realistic possibility that they would be lost at sea and never found. The ocean is huge and a boat is but a small speck that's easily wiped out of existance.

Some of the passengers may not have been aware of that, but I don't think they were all blind to it.

 

[Christopher Smith]

This was my great-great grandmother. My grandmother went to Argentina with her when she passed. The doctor actually recommended not to go because of her health, but she insisted because she wanted to spend the time with my grandmother and showing her the world. My grandmother is still alive to tell the story. We have a personal history book at my house that I now have and it dates back to 1632. Our family history hails from England and Ireland mostly.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

In the ET Biography it states she was after Mrs. Potter and Olive..??

I think it doubtful that we will ever know for sure who was the first lady into the boat.

Sorry to reply to an old post but someone resurrected this thread yesterday.

I cannot recall the source material mentioned but during a BTS Convention in Southampton some 25 years ago, I joined a small group discussion about this very subject - the first passenger to enter a lifeboat. A few people present seemed to agree that it was Olive Earnshaw, who then turned and helped her mother Lily Potter in.

I remember this conversation so well because of the Wuthering Heights name connection. I know that on Lily Potter's bio on ET its says that she stepped into the boat first and was then followed by Olive and Margaret Hays. But some people (I cannot remember their credentials) who had researched into this were of the opinion that it was the daughter who got on-board first and then helped her mother in. Either way, the mother-daughter pair appear to have been the very first passengers to get on board a Titanic lifeboat.