Antoinette Flegenheim: A First Class Passenger in Titanic’s First Lifeboat
I have been finding out about some of the people who were on
board the Titanic. So today I want to tell you about Antoinette “Tony”
Flegenheim. She was born Berta Antonia Maria Wendt on the 11th of May 1863 in
Prussia. In 1890, she moved to New York and married Alfred Flegenheim. After
his death in 1907, she lived as a wealthy widow, dividing her time between
Berlin and Manhattan.
In April 1912, she boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg,
travelling in first class. Like many on board, she would have expected a
comfortable crossing. Instead, on the 14th April 1912, Titanic hit an iceberg. From
that point on everything changed. In the early hours of the 15th of April, she was
fortunate to be able to board Lifeboat No. 7, the first one to be lowered. The lifeboat
began to take on water, and passengers were said to have stuffed clothing into
the opening to slow the leak. It must have been a frightening moment, drifting
in darkness, unsure whether help would ever come.
After hours floating at sea, she was rescued along with the other
survivors, by the RMS Carpathia. Just two months later, she remarried. She died
in Frankfurt in 1943 at the age of 79.
After surviving such uncertainty, do you think experiences
like this changed how survivors viewed security and home?
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