For Titanic - the movie Lovers

It is 98 years since the Titanic sinking, yet our fascination with the tragedy only continues to grow.

Of all the one-day events in history, the Titanic is believed to be the third most-written about happening, surpassed only by the crucifixion of Jesus and the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. As for many of us with the JFK murder, people of an earlier generation remembered vividly when they first heard the news of the sinking. My mother was at home in the kitchen of the parsonage where she lived in Sherbrooke, Quebec when her parents told her of the tragedy. They knew three of their in-laws had been on board, but no one knew if they had survived. My mother was eight years old at the time. Though she often mentioned it in her later life, it meant very little to me as a child. Now I wish I could ask and find out more! But here is what we can know today.

Of the over 2200 passengers and crew

For the 1500 lost, their suffering ended in the piercing hypothermia that overcame them within minutes in the below-zero saline waters. For the 732 survivors, we might think their struggle was encapsulated in the so-memorable theme song "My Heart Will Go On", sung by Celine Dion in the James Cameron movie. Doubtless, all of them must have tried to "go on". But for

For other survivors, the cruel reality was that their hearts were eaten away by loss. Loss of loved ones, loss of a world that vanished with them, With the Great War that soon followed, that world would never return. So it was for my great uncle Frederick, his wife Suzette, her brother and his fiance. Theirs is a tale of love and loss, passion and prejudice, desire and diamonds, ambition and addiction. Their tragedy did not end with the central event of April 15, 1912, when the broken hulk of the giant ship slipped to the bottom of the North Atlantic, but instead played out in the decades of suffering that followed, in ways barely recorded.

The Douglas Family

My connection to the Titanic came through my great uncle, Frederick Charles Douglas (1876-1949). In the 1897 photo below, he is the dashing young fellow (at age 20) in white at the centre rear of the picture. The matriarch of the Douglas clan is my great-grandmother, Mary Kyle Douglas (Mrs. Alexander Douglas, 1840 - 1924), in the centre of the photo dressed in black. Surrounding her in the photo are her three daughters, each seated near their spouses, plus her three sons who are the young lads in the back row, plus her eight grandchildren. In my great-grandmother's arms is my newborn uncle, Douglas Read; immediately behind them are my grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. George Ellery Read. My mother, Gwendolen Read, would not make her appearance until six years after this photo was taken. At the right of the photo holding a paddle is my great uncle,

It was my uncle (the babe in arms in the photo) who later recorded most of what I know about Fred Douglas. Frederick was the apple of his mother's eye. He was very popular with the younger kids; he was always full of jokes. He had a pleasant manner, and although not tall, looked quite distinguished. As a young Montreal physician, his career in medicine began with great promise. In 1907, into his office came a young athletic young man named Quigg Baxter, who had suffered a severe eye injury from a hockey stick. While nurturing this injury, the good Dr. Douglas met the patient's beautiful sister, Helene Suzette, and the result was romance. My grandfather, Rev. George Read (right of centre in the above photo with dark jacket and moustache), married the couple on January 15, 1908, an event recorded in his hand in his pastoral diary, at the bride's home, 33 St. Famille Street in Montreal. It was then a district where most of the wealthy people in Canada lived, and the bride was a very wealthy heiress.

The Baxter Family

Although the bride's father had died in 1905, he had amassed quite a fortune for his family. But James "Diamond" Baxter had come from humble roots. One of eleven children of Irish immigrants who settled in Ontario, he came to Montreal as a young man and started work as a jeweller. The wealthy elite of the city had a great appetite for diamonds and jewels, and Jim knew where diamonds came from (probably Antwerp at that time). A dozen years later, he was heavily into real estate, and opened the city's first major shopping complex. He married Helene Lanaudiere-Chaput, twenty years his junior and a direct descendent of the Canadian heroine of two centuries earlier,

By the end of the century, James Baxter senior was known as a philanthropist and the most powerful private financier in Canada. But as the century turned, so did his fortunes. He was investigated for currency exchange irregularities. Then in a separate case, he was convicted and jailed for bank fraud. When he was released, he died soon after.

But in his rise to wealth, Baxter had left behind a rich store of investments in France, Belgium and Switzerland. It was probably a lot easier and safer in those days to move wealth around as gems rather than cash. In any case, his widow, Helene Baxter, began a routine of sailing to France each autumn, and returning to Montreal with a fresh supply of jewelry in the spring.

The newlyweds, Frederick and Suzette, lived in their mother's home in Montreal. Zette's mother financed a medical clinic for his practice on St. Famille St. She also supported him to attend postgraduate medical studies in London. But this dependence on her generosity came at a price, for it seems her interference caused problems in the marriage. When he went to London for his graduate studies in 1910, his mother-in-law went to live with them. But when he completed those studies, his own mother Mary Douglas (my great-grandmother) came to his assistance, and arranged for a fine office to be ready for him to open as new clinic in Montreal, on Park Avenue. There he resumed his medical practice in early 1912 upon his return from London. Apparently against his wishes, Suzette went to Paris to join her mother and brother who had wintered there. The three would return to Montreal via New York on a fine new ship sailing in April. It was called the Titanic.

The Titanic passengers: Helene Baxter, Suzette Douglas, Quigg Baxter and Berthe Mayne.
Photos left & centre courtesy of Alan Hustak collection; right: Herman DeWulf

Departure

The departure of the Titanic on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912 from Southampton was not without incident. Indeed, there were at least three ill omens. The port of Southampton was filled with big ships idled by a coal strike. As the Titanic pulled away from the jetty, the backdraft of the giant ship in the water was so strong that another liner, the "New York", broke away from its mooring and almost collided with it, but tugboats eventually returned the smaller ship dockside. There were also reports of a smoldering fire deep in a coal bin in the Titanic's belly, one the firemen on board could only control but not extinguish.

In any case, the departure was delayed by more than an hour by the the New York incident, so that night was falling by the time the giant ship had crossed the English Channel to take on French passengers off Cherbourg. Among the passengers ferried out into the darkness by tender to board the waiting Titanic were Mrs, Baxter, Mrs. Douglas, and Quigg Baxter. There was also a mysterious fourth member of their party - was it Quigg's financee? In the first book published in 1912 about the sinking, recorded among the names of those lost are " Baxter, Mr. and Mrs. Quigg". Recorded among the names of those saved was a "Mme. De Villiers". They both referred to the same person, who was neither Mme. De Villiers nor Mrs. Quigg Baxter. Her real name was Berthe Mayne. She was a cabaret singer from Brussels and Paris, where her passionate and secret affair with Quigg had recently started. To other passengers they must have given the appearances of being on a honeymoon. It is not certain, but entirely possible, that they were engaged to be married.

In his book, Alan Hustak notes: " If Hollywood producer James Cameron had wanted to create a real-life shipboard romance when he made his epic 1998 blockbuster, Titanic, the affair between twenty-four-year-old Quigg Baxter and a Belgian courtesan, Bethe Antoine Mayne, had the makings of a quintessential love story." Indeed all the elements of passion, class and wealth, wisdom and sacrifice that Jack and Rose displayed as hero and heroine of the movie could be found in Quigg, Bethe and Suzette. Their qualities and experiences were simply redistributed from three to two persons in the movie version.

Mrs. Helene Baxter had reserved two adjoining staterooms, B58 and B60, for the voyage. Only two suites on the vessel surpassed them in cost and elegance, the so called "parlour suites" that featured three adjoining rooms, including a large sitting room, huge closets, and a private promenade balcony. The portside parlour suite next to the Baxter suite had been intended for American financier J.P. Morgan, but when business detained him in England and kept him from sailing, the suite was occupied instead by Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line. Berthe Mayne's stateroom, C90, was discretely located one deck below.

Most of the surviving photographs of the staterooms were actually of not of the Titanic, but of its sister ship, the Olympic. But the photos below are of the actual Baxter suite on the Titanic, from room B58 looking into B60, and (probably) within room B60.

Their first full day at sea, April 11, dawned just off Land's End, Cornwall. By noon, the Titanic dropped anchor in Cork Harbour (then called Queenstown), where the Irish passengers were taken aboard. The last photos of the entire ship were taken as she sailed out of the harbour and away into the North Atlantic. On the open sea, Helene Baxter became seasick, and barely ventured from her stateroom.

The Fateful Night

The fateful Sunday evening of April 14 is well documented in books, film and internet resources.

That evening at supper, like the fictional Rose of the Titanic movie, Suzette Baxter appeared with her finest jewelry. She wore a diamond and silver tiara. Is that tiara still on the floor of the Atlantic?

At the moment of collision with the iceberg, Helene Baxter was in bed with nausea, and son Quigg was with her. When the engines stopped turning, she sent Quigg out to see why the ship had stopped in mid-ocean. When he stepped outside just before midnight to investigate, he saw Captain Smith talking to Bruce Ismay outside Ismay's cabin next door. "There's been an accident Baxter, but it is all right," Smith told him. As Smith hurried away to the bridge, Ismay told him to get his mother and sister into the lifeboats. Baxter carried his mother up the grand staircase to lifeboat 6. "Quigg didn't seem at all disturbed," his sister later told The Montreal Standard, "While he didn't relish being parted from us, he bade me farewell bravely." As he put his mother into the lifeboat, he handed her a sterling silver flask of brandy, and she began to complain about his drinking. He cut her short: "Etes vous bien maman?" (Are you okay, mother?) he asked. "Au revoir, bon espoir vous-autres." (Goodbye, keep your spirits up everyone.) Berthe Mayn didn't want to get into the boat without him, but

Alan Hustak records what happened on the lifeboat:
"To Zette, the Titanic had gone down easily and quietly, as if it was the funeral of a sailor who had died at sea. But the cries of the people who went down with her were horrible to hear." She asked helmsman Robert Hitchens, who commanded the lifeboat to go back to pick up survivors from the icy waters, but he would have none of it.

Lifeboat #6 was the last to be emptied by the rescuing steamer Carpathia in the dawning hours of April 15. Berthe when rescued was wearing a motoring coat, nightgown and slippers, testimony of the haste with which they had boarded the lifeboat. The first thing Suzette did aboard the Carpathia was to cable her husband Dr. Douglas in Montreal: "MEET STEAMER CARPATHIA, CUNARD LINE, THURSDAY NEW YORK WITH JAMES" (her elder brother).

Fred Douglas (centre left) meets survivors Berthe Mayne (in hood)
and his wife Suzette on their arrival in New York.
Suzette's brother James is holding a suitcase.

Aftermath

What became of Fred Douglas? Many accounts state he became an alcoholic and lost his hospital privileges, and eventually moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec, but that is at best a partial account. The actual family account is somewhat more tragic. For a time, the prominent physician worked as a ship's doctor on transatlantic crossings. While at sea, he developed acute appendicitis, but he couldn't operate on himself, nor was there anyone else to do so. He took opiates to suppress the pain, and thus began an addiction which would ultimately consume everything in his life - his marriage, his career, his self-respect. His appendix could be, and was, eventually operated on, but he had to wear a truss. My uncle recalls that he did quite well in his clinic for a while, helping children in a poor section of Montreal. He recalls uncle Fred treating a young "darky" boy who was suffering so badly from rickets that his leg bones were flexible enough to be bent in any direction. But in time, the tormented doctor lost most or all of his patients, and he was eventually committed to an institution for some years. "His limbs were shrunken, he became unkempt, and it was almost impossible to think he was the dapper doctor I used to know." Eventually he was released, and spent his last decades wandering around at his sister's farm in rural Quebec. My own sister recalls seeing him there in his last years.

The earliest books and accounts of the disaster, those published before the Great War, are