When news of the Titanic disaster reached Indianapolis on April 15, 1912, local residents Bridget Haney and Agnes Delaney had no reason to be worried. Although their sister Ellen Toomey was also heading across the Atlantic Ocean following a short visit with their parents in Ireland, she had informed them via postcard that she was planning to sail on the liner steamship New York.
But three days later, the sisters panicked when Toomey’s name appeared on a list of second-class Titanic passengers who were unaccounted for. Toomey had changed her reservations multiple times due to strikes on the docks, so they knew it was possible she had made a last-minute switch from the New York to the Titanic.
Their fears grew later that day when a local bank got a telegram from the White Star line declaring that an Ellen Toomey, believed to be the only Indianapolis resident traveling on the Titanic, was not included in the preliminary list of passengers who had boarded lifeboats and were rescued by the Carpathia.
The sisters’ worry was short-lived, however. The following day, they received a telegram from the Carpathia. Ellen Toomey had survived without injury and would return to Indianapolis soon.
Toomey arrived at Union Station on April 25th, where she was greeted by a large crowd of friends and relatives, clamoring to hear her survival tale. Toomey told local reporters that shortly before midnight on April 14, she was dozing off when she felt a slight bump. About an hour later, a steward ran by her room, yelling to passengers to put on their life vests and head to the deck.
Toomey described an orderly scene as women and children boarded the lifeboats with assistance from the male passengers and crew.
“They were brave, those men on the Titanic,” she said. “They were real heroes.”
The crew helped Toomey onto Lifeboat #9, which was only two thirds full when it was launched at 1:20 a.m. with some 40 passengers. Most of the occupants were women, but three male crew members were assigned to row the lifeboat.
As soon as the lifeboat hit the water, the men began rowing. Lifeboat #9 was about a mile from the Titanic when Toomey saw the luxury liner stand on end and vanish beneath the waves.
“It was then that we heard those awful screams from the drowning people,” Toomey told the Indianapolis News.
Toomey said there was “much suffering” on the lifeboat, both from the bitter cold and from the horror of the screams. But the lifeboat’s occupants remained calm throughout the ordeal, except for a French woman who was frantic with grief over the loss of her husband.
It’s possible that the inconsolable French woman was Léontine Pauline Aubart, the mistress of millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim. After helping Aubart board Lifeboat #9, Guggenheim retired to his stateroom with his valet, where both men removed their life jackets and put on their evening clothes.
Guggenheim was reported to have told a steward, “We’ve dressed in our best, and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Their bodies were never recovered.
After five hours at sea, Lifeboat #9 was rescued by the Carpathia. Toomey, then age 50, would go on to live another 21 years, but little is known of her life after she returned to Indianapolis.
In the 1918 city directory, she is listed as a housemaid working on East 15th Street, but the trail goes cold until 1933, when she died at St. Augustine’s Home for the Aged in downtown Indianapolis. She was buried in Holy Cross and St. Joseph Cemetery on South Meridian Street.
The largest ship in the world, the Titanic was on its maiden voyage when it hit an iceberg in April 1912 and sank, claiming more than 1,500 lives. In addition to Toomey, 13 passengers with Hoosier connections were on board, including former Anderson resident Charles Hallace Romaine, who survived the Titanic only to be hit by a taxi and killed a few years later.
Libby Cierzniak is a retired attorney who has written extensively about Indianapolis history for HistoricIndianapolis.com and in her own blog, Indypolitan.com. She is a frequent guest on Hoosier History Live and a regular contributor to Retro Indy. Contact her via indypolitan.com/contact.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Retro Indy: This Titanic survivor saw ‘much suffering’ when boat sank
Reporting by Libby Cierzniak, Special to the IndyStar / Indianapolis Star
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