Last Tuesday afternoon I was on Mississippi Supertalk Radio’s “Good Things With Rebecca Turner” program telling about a Mississippi connection to the Titanic.

The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, and the rescue ship, the Carpathia, arrived in New York with the survivors on April 18. Rebecca had read a column I had written last June about Columbus native Dr. John D Richards’ connection to the Titanic and to Isodor and Ida Straus (owners of Macy’s), who were lost on the Titanic. They were the elderly couple portrayed in the Titanic movie with Ida refusing a seat in a lifeboat rather than being separated from her husband. It was a true story.

The day after the Carpathia arrived in New York with the Titanic’s survivors, the New York Evening Post reported, “Of all the tales of personal heroism and complete renunciation on the Titanic, one which stands out is that of Mrs. Isidor Straus, wife of the New York merchant. Begged at first to go into one of the lifeboats, then ordered, and finally torn from her husband’s side, she would not go over the doomed ship’s side. … Survivors tell a tale of the woman’s devotion to her husband of forty-one years. She would not consent that he go to his death alone … one of the last views of those who left the doomed ship was that of an aged pair, standing together to meet their fate.”

Since I wrote the column last year, I have come across a wealth of additional information about Dr. Richards, his friendship with the Strauses, his boarding the Carpathia, and a heartwarming Titanic story I had never heard. In about a 10-minute interview there was not enough time to tell it all so I decided to make it my column.

The late Dr. John D. Richards grew up in Columbus, went to medical school and then moved to New York City around the turn of the century.

In New York he became prominent as a physician, a polo player and trainer of polo ponies. A 1910 article The New York Times referred to him as a surgeon at St. Mark’s Hospital. His patients included the Rockefeller, Straus, Colt and Barrymore families. Dr. Richards’ office was located in a brownstone house on East 54th Street in New York. It was in a wealthy residential neighborhood, and his office was only a block from the home of John D. Rockefeller and near a block of houses called “Vanderbilt Row.”

After he retired from practice, he and his wife, Marcella Billups Richards, returned to Columbus and resided in her family home at 905 Main St. Dr. Richards was my great-uncle, and as a child I often visited with him. I was fascinated by his stories of the Titanic. He told me how two of his good friends, Isidor and Ida Straus, were lost when the Titanic sank.

The Carpathia had rescued some 705 survivors from the Titanic’s lifeboats and carried them to New York. Thousands of people gathered at the pier where the Carpathia was expected to dock. Many were trying to get information on family and friends. Others just came to gawk at the spectacle. The rescue ship arrived in New York Harbor on April 18 at about 7 p.m.

When the Carpathia docked, Dr. Richards, not knowing the Strauses had been lost, was there to tend to them. He was one of the first persons allowed to board the Carpathia even before any survivors had been allowed off the ship. Doctors and ambulances had been sent by St. Vincent’s Hospital but were only to tend to third or steerage class passengers as the first and second class could afford to have private physicians. As reflected in the times, Dr. Richards was probably given priority to board because of the prominence of his patients.

Ambulances transported 106 injured survivors to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Among them was Sarah Roth. She was from London and traveling to America to marry her boyfriend who had moved from London to New York. As she had little money, she was traveling in steerage class. When the Titanic was sinking a ship’s officer had helped her out of the steerage area, and to the last lifeboat where a lady on the boat befriended her.

When the staff at St. Vincent’s learned her story, they arranged for the couple to get married in the hospital with the lady from the lifeboat as maid of honor.

One week after arriving on the Carpathia Sarah Roth married Daniel Iles in the hospital’s pink rose decorated parlor. Many of the survivors attended the wedding, as did some of New York’s most prominent people such as Louise Vanderbilt who was said to have been one of the first to congratulate the newly married couple.

In our conversations Uncle John frequently talked of that night when the Carpathia arrived. He described the scene as “surreal.” He told of the ship at first only barely visible, except for smoke from its stack, as it approached the harbor at dusk. As it got closer, and night began to fall, a thunderstorm suddenly rose up behind the Carpathia. Lightning began lighting the sky with the ship illuminated by the bright flashes. It was as though a ghost ship was rapidly sailing into the harbor.

The April 19 New York Evening World described the arrival of the Carpathia at New York. “She looked in truth a ‘funeral ship.’ The effect was heightened by the constant flashes of blue and white lightning that followed the Carpathia in her mournful journey. The terrific rumblings of thunder seemed like the cannoning of some mighty army. The storm followed her for three days, existing only in the vicinity of the funeral ship.”

It truly was a “surreal night.”

I recall Uncle John showing me his copy of Walter Lord’s book on the Titanic, “A Night To Remember.” He said Lord interviewed many of the survivors he had spoken to on the Carpathia, and 43 years later their accounts had not changed. He added that the book was an accurate account of what happened as experienced by the survivors.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].