Last week, it was as though the ghost of the Titanic had risen from the depths, as the world followed the tragic search for the submersible, Titan, and its five-man crew. It was a heart wrenching wait for news about the rescue mission.

Then on Thursday the sad announcement came that the scattered pieces of the missing submersible had been found 1,600 feet in front of the Titanic’s bow.

In one of those strange twists of fate, the wife of Stockton Rush, who was lost on the Titan, was the granddaughter of Isodor and Ida Straus who were lost on the Titanic in 1912. They were the elderly couple portrayed in the movie with Ida refusing a seat in a lifeboat rather than being separated from her husband. That 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 … those (stories) relating to the Strauses are all to the effect that the two died calmly and without a sign of weakening at the end. … When the first boats were lowered Mr. Straus urged his wife to prepare to be taken away. She shook her head firmly. ‘I will not go,’ she said. ‘Where you are to be, I want to be’… one of the last views of those who left the doomed ship was that of an aged pair, standing together to meet their fate.”

There is a Columbus link to the Titanic story. 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.

In 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. 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 when I was growing up my mother told me that I would spend one afternoon each week after school visiting and talking with him. I was horrified. Then on my first visit he asked me who my hero was. I said Roy Chapman Andrews and asked if he knew who that was. He immediately responded, “Why yes, he is director of the American Museum of Natural history and I know him quite well. Are you interested in his trips to Mongolia where he discovered dinosaur eggs?” After that I spent many enjoyable afternoons with Uncle John and often more than once a week.

Our conversations ranged far and wide but always came back to Roy Andrews or the Titanic. He told me how two of his good friends were lost when the Titanic sank on April 12, 1912. They were Isidor and Ida Straus. He also told me of the arrival of the Carpathia in New York Harbor on the night of April 18.

The Carpathia rescued some 705 survivors and carried them to New York. Dr. Richards was one of the physicians called to meet the Carpathia at the dock and tend to any injured survivors. He said he was one of the first to board the Carpathia and did so before any survivors had been allowed off.

In our conversations he frequently talked of that night and described the scene as “surreal.” He described the ship at first as 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 the night before. “It was the verge of dusk … when a pall of black smoke was sighted with the Carpathia, easily recognizable by her single smoke stack and her four masts, scooting along under it. She came on like a race-horse … with a swiftness which made the experienced harbor tug men stare at her in dazed wonder … 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.”

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 at about 7 p.m. Prior to docking at its pier the ship unloaded the Titanic’s lifeboats.

Dr. Richards recalled that his most vivid impression of the Carpathia was that of workers trying to sand the name Titanic off the lifeboats as they were unloaded and erase the name as quickly as possible from wherever it was seen. After the Carpathia docked he, as a doctor, was able to pass through the crowd to board her.

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.

The Titanic stories I had been told by my great uncle came to life years later when in a scrapbook kept by my great aunt, I found a pamphlet from the Carpathia that contained the ship’s stateroom/cabin plan and room numbers.

Thanks to Carolyn Kaye for transcribing 1912 newspaper articles.

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