featurearticle Guggenheim was the fifth of seven sons raised by the mining tycoon Meyer Guggenheim . Meanwhile, <www.naturalsc iences.org> of North Carolina's Museum of Natural Sciences notes that Isidor Straus was the owner of Nlaty's department store in New York and that he and his wife were wealthy philanthropists. 3 See online Encyclopedia Titanica Passenger Biographies at <www.encyclopedia-titanica.org> about Eleanor Widener's maid, "Miss Amalie Henriette Gieger, 35," who was "born in Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), Prussia, Germany." See also the entry about George Widener's valet, Edward "Edwin" Herbert Keeping, about age 32. He was a "widely travelled [sic] man" and "had visited numerous countries in his work with various employers among whom was a Russian Grand Duke, who gave him a locket as a present when he left." The entry also states that Keeping "was married to Karin Johansson from Stockholm. They met while working together for the Wideners (she also was a servant)." 4 The Titanic Historical Society Inc., through its online site <www.titanichistorical society.org>, reports that Thayer's son, John "Jack" B. Thayer, wrote of the Titanic's sinking and his father's death. 5 According to Dr. Robert D. Bollard's The Discovery of the Titanic, published by Madison Press Books, Butt was "returning to Washington after a leave of absence." 6 Clemmer sent the author on Jan. 7, 2004, an e-mail mentioning his mother's childhood home in his March 1999 "RMS Titanic and the Old York Road Connection" speech. Old York Road is a major thoroughfare in Cheltenham Township, Pa., in the area where many of the wealthy families lived. 7 A Haitian-French family, whose father Joseph Loroche was a black Haitian of nobility, and white mother Louise Laroche, the daughter of a French winery owner, traveled from Cherbourg, France, to the Titanic on the boat Nomadic with the Wideners. They were part of 274 first- and secondclass passengers, according to the Titanic Historical Society Inc.'s online Web site at <www.titanichistoricalsociety.org>. On their way to Haiti, the Larodies changed to the Titanic after they learned that they would not be permitted to dine with their two interracial daughters on another liner, La France, on which they had been scheduled. Joseph Laroche went down with the ship. His children and pregnant wife survived. 8 An online article at <userwww.service. emory.edu>, titled "The Hatfields and the McCoys," authored by James C. Simmons and reproduced from the August 1988 edition of the publication Diversion, indicates that William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield was "the patriarch of his extended family throughout the years" of the feud with the McCoy family along the KentuckyWest Virginia border. 9 According to Robin Gardiner & Dan Van Der Vat's The Titanic Conspiracy: Cover-Ups and Mysteries of the World's Most Famous Sea Disaster, Sen. William Alden Smith, a Michigan Republican, "hoped to prove
negligence on the part of White Star, nominally a British company headed by the unmistakably British [J. Bruce] Ismoy, so ordinary victims of the disaster could sue for compensation in American courts. He presented himself as the tribune of the people and worked hard at it; but his eagerness to blame the British conveniently led him to overlook the American J.P. Morgan's role as a monopolist promoter of intense and unfair competition on the North Atlantic route and financier of the unsafe ship." David King, reference librarian at the Widener University School of Law, writes in an Internet article, "The Titanic Disaster and the Widener Family," that: "A case is made by John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas in their book Titanic â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Triumph and Tragedy that the Widener family patriarch, Peter Arrell Brown Widener, was part-owner of the Titanic." The writers note that Widener was one of five "voting trustees" associated with the International Mercantile Marine (IMM), owner of the White Star Line. 10 An online biography of Bradford by Sylvain Cazalet in "History of Homoeopathy Biographies," at <www.homeoint.org>, says he was originally "a native of Francetown, N.H., born June 6, 1 847, son of Thomas Bixby Bradford and Emily Hutchinson Brown, his wife, on the paternal side a descendant of Gov. William Bradford of the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts, while on the maternal side his grandfather, Titus Brown, was a noted New Hampshire lawyer and statesman, member of congress from that state from 1824 to 1 828." Bradford moved to Philadelphia in 1 877. 11 Camp William Penn was located about a half mile from St. Paul's near the roadside home of famed abolitionist and women's rights advocate Lucretia Mott. See author's November 1 999 article in America's Civil War magazine, "Camp William Penn's Black Soldiers in Blue," pp. 45-49, 82. 12 Eleanor Widener Dixon and Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr., became owners of the Philadelphia 76ers and Eugene was chairman of the board of Widener University, as well as contributor to a number of educational, civic and arts organizations. See One God, Sixteen Houses, p. 50 and Philadelphia 76ers History at <www.nba.com>.
Donald Scott, a history columnist for the Journal-Register Co. and graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has written about history for The Philadelphia Inquirer and America's
At the Jenkintown Library, which houses the archives of the Old York Road Historical Society, I found an autobiography by Peter Arrell Brown Widener Jr. Without Drums, published in 1 940 by G.P. Putnam's Sons, provided excellent family lineage information as well as vivid text concerning the family's reaction to George and Harry Widener's deaths and information about their memorial service. Finally, a number of Internet sources helped me with investigating the families' genealogies, including Anne Wiegle's online family-tree site titled, "Descendants of William Elkins," at <rootsweb.com>. Another Web site, <webroots.org>, a "nonprofit library for genealogy & historyrelated research," had Logan Marshall's book, Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters, duplicated online. The book contains detailed information regarding the Wideners and other wealthy passengers. I found information through the Web's "Encyclopedia Titanica," including copies of obituaries and passenger biographies, most notably the Wideners and other wealthy folk, at <www.encyclopedia-titanica.org>. The site also provides lineage data about Titanic passengers and crew and about George Widener's onboard servant, Edwin Herbert Keeping, which was contributed by Hermann Soldner of Germany. An online history archive of Widener University (named for the Widener family) featured an entry, "The Titanic Disaster and the Widener Family," authored by David King, reference librarian at the Widener University School of Law. It mentions the Widener's family history of philanthropy and other genealogical references including the fact that "Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr. is the grandson of George and Eleanor Widener, and was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Widener University for many years." Even an online segment of the "Philadelphia 76ers History" at <www.nba.com> has a very intriguing entry about Dixon and the family's wealth: "Fitz Eugene Dixon bought the club in May 1976 and soon gave it a reputation as a team built on dollars. Dixon opened the vault immediately, paying $6 million for Julius 'Dr. J' Erving ($3 million to the ABA New Jersey Nets and $3 million to Erving's bank account) prior to the 1976-77 season."
Civil War. He has been a history lecturer in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Speakers' Program and researcher for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Scott resides in
Contact: Old York Road Historical Society, 460 Old York Road, Jenkintown, PA 19046-2891; Phone: 215.886.8590; <www.oyrhs.org>. OS
Cheltenham Township, Pa., not far from the Widener and Elkins estates. The assistant professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia has taught at Temple University,
Endnote 1 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; Phone: 215.732.6200; <www.hsp.org>
Peirce College and Cheyney University.
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May/June 2004
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