Note in Bottle from Titanic?

Mathilde Lefebvre was listed as a third class passenger at the time of the sinking and she didn't survive. At the time, third class passengers were too poor and weren't permitted the luxuries offered to first and second class passengers, so a message in a bottle would make sense. If memory serves, the ship was due to make New York on Thursday, April 18, 1912. This letter was dated five days before the date of arrival and one day before the ship went down. A follow up article to confirm or deny it's true would be interesting.
 
Lone Wolf said:
Mathilde Lefebvre was listed as a third class passenger at the time of the sinking and she didn't survive. At the time, third class passengers were too poor and weren't permitted the luxuries offered to first and second class passengers, so a message in a bottle would make sense. If memory serves, the ship was due to make New York on Thursday, April 18, 1912. This letter was dated five days before the date of arrival and one day before the ship went down. A follow up article to confirm or deny it's true would be interesting.
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Thanks for the info. I figured she perished when I read she was a third class passenger. This horrific event is a scar on history. So sad.
 
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Lynne said:
Thanks for the info. I figured she perished when I read she was a third class passenger. This horrific event is a scar on history. So sad.
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I think most third class passengers didn't make it. There would have been enough boats for everyone on board if they hadn't voted against so many lifeboats originally. The ship had a total of 20 lifeboats. Eight on the starboard and port side and four on the roof of the officer's quarters. Each could hold from 40-65 occupants maxed out but they weren't ever filled to capacity. There were only about 702 survivors out of 2200 passengers.
 
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LW, let me see if I follow this. The girl who allegedly wrote the note was French, wrote the note in cursive script in French, and threw it overboard asking whoever found it to contact her family in France? Do we know the girl's age at the time? Would we expect a French girl/young woman whose means forced her (and her family) to travel third class (steerage) in 1912 to be capable of writing neatly in cursive script? I doubt most US youngsters/young people of modest means could have done that in 1912, especially females for whom an education beyond the basics was often deemed unnecessary.

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So if the note was dated 14 April, Titanic would have been approximately halfway between Cobh (Ireland) and NYC. I can understand someone assuming a bottle thrown out at that approximate location would float eastward with the current and possibly arrive eventually in France (or Spain/Portugal.) It's difficult for me to understand how it could have floated WNW and arrived in New Brunswick.

Researchers should be able to date the paper, ink, bottle, and cork to determine if all came from the right time period. I have my doubts it's authentic, but I hope it is.
 
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They used cheap low-quality steel on the Titanic. It was a ticking time-bomb.
 
Duke said:
LW, let me see if I follow this. The girl who allegedly wrote the note was French, wrote the note in cursive script in French, and threw it overboard asking whoever found it to contact her family in France? Do we know the girl's age at the time? Would we expect a French girl/young woman whose means forced her (and her family) to travel third class (steerage) in 1912 to be capable of writing neatly in cursive script? I doubt most US youngsters/young people of modest means could have done that in 1912, especially females for whom an education beyond the basics was often deemed unnecessary.

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So if the note was dated 14 April, Titanic would have been approximately halfway between Cobh (Ireland) and NYC. I can understand someone assuming a bottle thrown out at that approximate location would float eastward with the current and possibly arrive eventually in France (or Spain/Portugal.) It's difficult for me to understand how it could have floated WNW and arrived in New Brunswick.

Researchers should be able to date the paper, ink, bottle, and cork to determine if all come from the right time period. I have my doubts it's authentic, but I hope it is.
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Great analysis Duke.
 
Lone Wolf said:
She was 13 years old at the time she wrote the letter.
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Ok, thanks. It would be interesting to ask someone with an extensive knowledge of the history of the French education system of the early 1900s if it's likely girls from non-upper crust families would have learned and been able write in cursive. I'd hope those investigating the letter would contact the French embassy in Canada and put the question to the cultural affairs attache.

I remember reading many of the enlisted soldiers from the UK and France in WWI couldn't read or write, and they would have been only a few years old than Mathilde.
 
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