A LIGHT, CHILLY MIST was falling on the city of New York as the seven hundred survivors of the sinking of the Titanic, at nine-thirty P.M. on Wednesday, April 17,1912, disembarked from the steamer Carpathia via fore and aft gangways. Wealthier passengers evaded a host of reporters and photographers lying in wait for them and were whisked away in private cars by relatives and friends.
Max Whittaker’s parents greeted him with unabashed joy.
Elizabeth Farr and her mother were met by Martin’s grieving parents and taken immediately to the elder Farrs’ Manhattan town house.
Malachy and Charlotte Hanrahan of Brooklyn, New York, were forced to endure a long, chilly wait near Pier 54 for their niece from Ireland, as third-class passengers were the last to depart the Carpathia. It was close to eleven o’clock on the dreary, dismal April night when this last group of survivors began emerging from the aft gangway.
Other third-class passengers had lost everything but their lives. Without funds for hotel rooms or further travel, they were remanded to the care of the Women’s Relief Committee or the American Red Cross.
There were no reporters waiting when this last group of one hundred seventy-four Titanic survivors straggled out into the open air. This oversight proved beneficial to Patrick Kelleher who, three years later, published a moving account of what that last night on the Titanic was like for passengers in third class, a story no one else had ever told as movingly as Paddy did. The Long, Dark Night received rave reviews, and though Paddy wrote novels throughout his life, it was that first book that made his fortune.
It was dedicated to the memory of his brother, Brian.
Katie Hanrahan found, to her great distress, that New York City was not to her liking. On the funds from the sale of his first book, Paddy took her back to Ireland, where they married and lived out their lives in Dublin, raising three children: Brian, Eugenie, and Fiona. Katie taught piano and voice to children in the area and when she wasn’t starring in local theater productions, studied English grammar at length in order to do Paddy’s “grammarizin’ ” for him.
Elizabeth Langston Farr graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a degree in Literature. She taught at a private girls’ school in Manhattan, becoming headmistress four years after her marriage to Maxwell Whittaker. She continued at the school throughout her life, with Max’s support. They had no children, but Elizabeth considered herself surrogate mother to the girls in her school and was not discontented.
Max achieved modest success as a painter.
Nola Farr remarried three years after the Titanic disaster, to a French ambassador, and moved to Paris.
Though she missed her mother, Elizabeth put off visiting her as long as possible, reluctant to board a ship again.
But when she and Max eventually traveled to France, they sailed without incident, enjoying a safe and pleasant trip.