Monessen and the Titanic

Monessen and the Titanic

The Titanic has become legend. No sea disaster has so captivated the minds of Americans like the demise of this great ship. Its life was short, its history is long, and Monessen, Pennsylvania, has a role to play in the unraveling of its mysteries.

In Monessen, the Titanic story belongs to the Finnish community. The Finns were a major presence in Monessen. They lived in Finn Town, an area of the city dominated by Knox, Motheral, and Clarenton avenues and Chestnut, Fourth, and Sixth streets. They gave the community the famous Louhi Band, a nobel scientist, and an opera singer. They also brought the Titanic tragedy to our town.

Little did I realize growing up at 518 Fourth Street that every day as I left my home I was looking at a piece of history. Across the street stood 401 Motheral Avenue and across the street from it was 400 Motheral. Most of the Monessen Titanic survivors ended their long and painful journey in these buildings.

As one reads these accounts it becomes evident that some of the stories contradict each other. It is not surprising that facts get distorted when someone is under such intense pressure. Did Elin's husband help her into the lifeboat as some passengers recall? Did Eric Jussila row one of the lifeboats? Who was the last person into lifeboat fifteen? We will never know. What is recorded here is what the traumatized passengers remember. That is quite a story!

Cassandra Vivian

Monessen's Titanic Survivors

Monessen's Titanic passengers sailed from Finland on the ship Polaris on April 3, 1912, and were all scheduled to sail on the Titanic on April 10.

Pekka and Elin Hakkarainen's tickets were from Hanko, Finland to Monessen, Pennsylvania. They paid 315 Finnish marks each for their tickets. The Hakkarinen's list their exact destination as 401 Motheral Avenue to the home of their friend Mrs. John Elkhorn.
Pekka Hakkarainen was 28 years old. He immigrated to Monessen several years before the disaster. He was living in one of the many Finnish boarding houses on Motheral Avenue and Fourth Street and was employed as a tinsmith in the Tin Mill. In August of 1911 he and his friends Mr. and Mrs. Frank Mahl, also of Monessen, returned to Finland for a visit. Before he sailed he met Aurora Dolck Laatu at the Finnish Temperance Hall on Fourth Street and she suggested he look up her sister, Elin while he was in Finland. He did.

Elin, too, had been in the United States before. Along with four other girls, she had lived in Boston, where she was a domestic. But in July of 1911, she had returned home to Finland. Pekka and Elin were married January 15, 1912 and decided to sail for America aboard the RMS Mauritania. But then they heard that the new luxury liner the Titanic was making her maiden voyage in April, so they changed their plans.

Helga Lindquist Hirvonen, age 22, and her two year old daughter Hildur only paid 230 Finnish Marks for their tickets. They also sailed on the Polaris. They were to meet Helga's husband Matt who listed his address as 400 Motheral Avenue.

Erik Jussila was thirty-two years of age when he boarded the ill-fated Titanic. His wife Helmi Jousula (Jussila) was left behind in Kiristankyla, Jalasjarvi and he was headed for 482 Motheral Avenue, Monessen, Pennsylvania.

Eino Lindquist, brother of Helga Hirvonen, was a 20 year old laborer from Dahlsburk, Finland who was on his way to his brother-in-law at 400 Motheral Avenue in Monessen. The records call his brother-in-law Alex, but local records call him Matt.

A few more passengers give a Monessen destination on the Titanic manifest and they are Maria Panula, her five children, Juho, Ernesti, Eino, Urho, and Jaako, and a companion Sanni Riihivuori. The Panula family was really bound for Coal Center, but both Coal Center and Monessen are listed as the final destination.

The Ship and the White Star Line

As we all know, the Titanic was on her maiden voyage. When one is looking for exact figures and facts, every source seems to have a different story to tell. According to Peter Bjorkfors there were 63 Finns among the Titanic's 2,227 passengers: eight were in second class, the remainder in steerage.

The concept of segregating third class passengers was not only the idea of the steamers. US Immigration wanted these passengers separated because they were concerned that many of them were diseased.

Steerage was the third class and the lowest point in the boat. There were some cabins in third class, but most of the space was open berths. Men were in the bow on G deck, women and married couples in the stern. Although there were meals three times a day there was nothing for the steerage passengers to do: no entertainment. So they created their own, especially music.

The Stories

Elin and Pekka Hakkarainen had been enjoying themselves with their friends in the third class general room. Around 11:20 they left and went to the well of the ship to view the ocean. They climbed the stairs to the poop deck and by 11:35 they were back in their room climbing into bed. Elin remembers that just as Pekka was turning the light out, "we felt the ship make a sudden turn and heard a scraping sound as if someone had pushed a row of glasses from the shelf to the floor." There was noise in the hall and Pekka got up. He told his new bride, "I'm going to see what has happened." Elin does not remember seeing him again.

When Pekka left the cabin, Elin fell asleep. After about an hour she was awaken by the noise in the hallway and tried to get out of bed. She fell to the far wall as the ship was listing. "Soon there was a very hard knock at the cabin door. As I opened the door, one of my friends from Finland dashed in saying that the ship has struck something and was sinking." Elin, dressed in only her nightgown, grabbed her handbag and her life preserver and headed out.

Helga Lindquist Hirvonen and her daughter were in steerage too. She later recalled the events to the Charleroi Mail. "Most of the third cabin passengers were awakened I guess about midnight on that last Sunday. Grabbing whatever clothing they could they rushed forth. They were met by officers of the ship who said 'Get back to your places; there's nothing wrong.' All went back. However, there was considerable excitement."

Erik Jussila was in his cabin in the bow of the ship. His friend John Niskanen said to him, "Nouse yl s kuolematas katsomaan, get up and see your death." According to Bjorkfors, Jussila tried to enter three different boats, but was thwarted every time. Finally he "jumped into lifeboat number 9 or 11 as it was descending." But another account by the Encyclopedia Titanica places him in lifeboat 15. Once the Finns reached Monessen, the newspaper recounts seem to exonerate him.

When Eino Lindquist received the news he dressed warmly and headed for the deck of the ship. He recounted the following story for the Monessen Daily Independent. "I was a passenger in the third cabin and had been in bed about 2 hours when my room mate and I were awakened by people running to and fro on the deck. We hurriedly dressed ourselves and put on our heaviest clothes and our overcoats, the night being very damp and cold. Going out on the deck we saw the sailors lowering the lifeboats away, filled with women, with men at each end and in the middle to guide and row. My friend, Jussila was called upon to help row one of the boats and I was left alone on the deck."

Poor Maria Panula's family was scattered from the bow to the stern. She searched the ship for her children. The oldest, Ernesti, 16, and Jaako, 14, were at the bow with the single men, while Maria and the remaining children Juha, Urho, and William were at the stern. They shared their cabin with Sanni Riihivuori, 22, also going to Coal Center, and Anna Turja, 18, a neighbor from Finland. According to Anna, one of the older boys came to tell them the ship was sinking. They headed to the boat deck. They got separated, but Anna saw Mrs. Panula on the boat deck. She was hysterical. Ironically, Maria had lost a child before she started on this journey to America. He had drowned!

Helga Hirvonen also saw Maria Panula. "One of the last persons I saw before leaving was Mrs. John Paluna [sic]. I knew her well, She was so much confused that, poor woman, she hardly knew which way to turn. She was one of the last to come on deck. I presume she was trying to collect her family. None of them escaped."

The Panula's originally left Finland long before the Titanic disaster. Maria had returned to Finland, sold their farm, and was bringing the money, in cash, with her to America. John Panula, back in Coal Center, waited until April 21 to find out what had happened to his family. He is quoted in the Charleroi Mail as saying, "I had a good farm in Finland. My wife and I had been there about three years, then I started for our former home in America, she to follow me later with our children. The last word I heard was that she was leaving Finland . . . My farm was sold, I guess it was for $4,000. My wife was bringing $2,000 of this with her. Now everything is gone." Also lost was Sanni Riihivuori. But Anna Turja survived.

Escaping Steerage

On the Titanic that evening steerage passengers were denied access to the lifeboats. They were told to wait and the passages to the upper decks were gated and guarded against them.

Helga Hirvonen remembered, "Some time later -- I don't know how long -- it seemed that the big steamer was tilting. Then there was another rush from the promenade deck. The officers couldn't drive us back then. After some time there came a shouted order for the women to come up on another deck. Some of us understood and started."

But there was chaos in steerage. Language was the biggest problem. Many of the immigrants did not understand what was happening. Hirvonen told the Charleroi Mail, "There was great confusion and a babble of tongues. Many of the third cabin passengers could not understand English and didn't know what was being shouted to them. The rest of us were too badly frightened and excited. I suppose, to help them much and as a result half of the women and children and a majority of the men did not get away from the steerage at all."

Some stewards helped steerage women and children to the boat deck and on to the lifeboats. Some of the Monessen survivors owe their survival to just such a person. Elin Hakkarainen was one of them. "The door at the end of the passageway was locked! I ran to the other end of the passageway and found the door locked also. After a bit of wandering I discovered another door which was unlocked and led to another passageway. I finally ran into my friend who had awakened me. A ship's steward appeared with a small group of women saying 'You better come with us.' He said, 'There is another way to get to the upper deck.' He directed us to a service ladder, which was used only by the crew to get around the ship. 'Follow me,' said the steward, 'We do not have much time.' We went up the ladder, through the second class dining room, up another flight of stairs to the second class promenade and finally up to the boat deck."

Entering the Lifeboats

Helga Hirvonen remembers getting safely aboard the lifeboats one way. "I was the last to be given a place on the last life boat. I was very carefully picked up because I had my baby with me. Mrs. Ajkarainen [Hakkarainen] was seized by the neck and foot, I believe, and tossed into a life boat. She fainted."

Elin Hakkarainen remembers the ordeal another way. "As our group of women huddled against a deck house, an officer motioned for us to get into a lifeboat that was being loaded. I didn't move, for I was still scanning the faces in order to locate Pekka. The lifeboat was being guarded by the ship officers standing in a semi-circle around it. Occasionally a man would try to get through the circle, but would be scared off by the officers' pistols. There was a lot of cursing and yelling from one group of men. In fact, they were fighting amongst themselves. One of the officers pointed at me saying, 'Room for one more, lady. Come on. Hurry!' As I stepped into the lifeboat, it was already moving downward. I lost my balance, almost falling between the lifeboat and ship until someone in the lifeboat grabbed my arm and pulled me into a seat. On the way down we stopped at a lower deck and picked up one more lady. As the lifeboat continued its descent, the stern of the Titanic rose higher and higher. We wondered if the ropes lowering the lifeboats would be long enough to reach the water."

Helga Hirvonen remembers Pekka helping Elin into the boat, "Her husband bade her a fond goodbye. He intended to get into a life boat, but heroically gave way to others." Helga's brother Eino remembers it too. "Not realizing the extreme danger I was in at the time, I wandered around for about half an hour and came upon Mr. Hakkarainen who had just aided in putting his bride of three months into one of the boats." Elin does not remember this.

The Ordeal of the Men

Eino Lindquist and Pekka were still on board the Titanic as it went through its final shutters before sinking into the sea. "Together we watched until the last boat put off and saw many of the men who had been left on board make a vain effort to find a place on it but they were clubbed by the sailors in charge and some fell to a watery grave before the ship took its final plunge. It was not long after the last boat had left that we began to realize the situation and then we began to look around for some avenue of escape when suddenly with a deafening sound the boilers blew up, the ship gave one final heave and sank slowly. Many of the men were crying pitifully and the wild chant of their wails could be heard above the lashings of the sea and the grinding crunch of the already splintering hull. The band was not playing when the ship sank or else I did not hear it but I did hear the pianos in the first and second cabins. Being on the third deck our section reached the level of the sea before that of the first and second cabins and the waves washed Mr. Hakkarainen and I into the ocean and the last words he said were, "Good Bye." Being a fairly good swimmer I exerted myself to the utmost and was able to reach the last life boat which was about 200 yards from where the ship went down and was taken on board. . . ."

Watching the Ship Sink

As the Titanic sank, Helga Hirvonen had a ghastly front row seat to the tragedy. "I suppose we had been away from the Titanic twenty minutes when it went down. I saw it plainly. When it took its final dive people were leaping from all sides into the water. Some of them were saved. When our lifeboat left the Titanic's side it was only about half filled. It wasn't long however, before we picked up enough to completely fill it. My brother was found on a raft after we had been six and a half hours at sea."

Elin Hakkarainen offers an even more graphic view. "The scene that I now witnessed was forever etched in my memory. I would never forget the sounds that came from the Titanic at this time. As the stern of the ship rose higher and higher, everything within the ship broke loose and went crashing downward to the bow. There was a mad rush of passengers and crew to the rear of the well and poop decks. There seemed to be a mad rush of people from below. The locked doors that I had encountered must have been opened at the last moment. Many hundreds more must have been trapped below decks and crushed by the breaking up of the ship. One of the giant funnels toppled to the deck crushing many passengers at it slid into the water. The screaming and moaning of the trapped passengers was beyond description. The Titanic was standing straight up, the three huge propellers glistened in the starlight. We were all hypnotized by the sight of the giant ship standing on end, going down slowly, ever so slowly, as if an invisible hand was holding it back. Hundreds of people were holding on to the railings, stairs and ladders, capstans and framework of the rear docking bridge. The ship's lights, which had remained on during the entire episode, finally went out."

Aftermath

The ordeal was not over. The ship was gone, but the water was not calm. Elin tells us, "The screams of the people struggling in the water continued for about a half hour. Suddenly, I realized that my husband was out there, somewhere. I stood up to look at the struggling people in the water. I called, 'Pekka, Pekka I am here, come this way, please come this way.' My calls were in vain, for I felt sure that he was trapped within the passageway in the ship." That is all Elin remembered. She fainted away. In the night someone covered her with a steamer rug and saved her life. In the dawn mist the Carpatha lay ahead. The survivors in lifeboat 15 were among the last aboard.

The third class survivors passed slowly through immigration at New York. They were divided into nationalities and the Finns were sent to St. Vincent's Hospital. On April 20th Elin "received one hundred and twenty-five dollars and a train ticket to Monessen, Pennsylvania, from the Women's Relief Commission."

Of the 63 Finns on board, 20 survived. Three of the 43 victims are buried in the Halifax Fairview Cemetery in Nova Scotia and 40 were lost to the Atlantic (some articles post different figures, but they all reflect approximately the same proportions). Pekka was never found. Elin was listed as one of the missing and most accounts of the Titanic tragedy list her as dead.

Monessen Hears of the Tragedy

The first headlines in Monessen lamented the loss of John Linja, a doubler in Mill number 12 of the Tin Mill. He was listed as one of the passengers. The rumor spread throughout Monessen that John and his entire family were lost. In fact, he was not on the Titanic.

On the evening of April 19, Matt Hirvonen, who worked as a screw boy at Mill number 8 of the Tin Mill got a telegram that his wife Helga Lindquist Hirvonen and their daughter were safe but the remainder of the Monessen-bound Finns were probably drowned.

But on April 22, five Titanic survivors reached Monessen on the 9am express train. The banner headline in the Monessen Daily Independent read: "Bride of Three Months Widowed--Entire party in a Highly Nervous State--Band Did Not Play as Ship Sank--Men Cried Pitifully But Died Bravely." The five included Helga and Hildur Hirvonen, Eino Lindquist, Erik Jussila, and Elin Hakkarainen. Everyone still believed that John Linja was missing.

Other Regional Victims

Mrs. Percy Corey of Pittsburgh and Burma India was on her way to Pittsburgh to visit her family. She and her husband were living in Burma, India where he was the Superintendent of an oil company. She died.

Kalle Edvard Makinen was a 29 year old Finn on his way to Glassport. He died.

Mr and Mrs Lucien P Smith of Uniontown were also on the Titanic. She survived. He did not.

The Sources

Bjorkfors, Peter. The Finns on the Titanic.

www.utu.fi/erill/instmigr/art/titanic.htm

Charleroi Mail

Monessen Daily Independent
    Monessen Man Lost on Doomed Ship. April19, 1912.
    Two Saved from Party of Seven, April 20, 1912.
    Five Titanic Survivors Reach Monessen. April 22, 1912.
    Thrilling Story of Battle for Life Graphically Told. April 23, 1912.
    Local People Lose Friends. April 25, 1912.
    Igoe, Robert. The Survivors' Stories. April 15, 1998, p2c.
    -----. News of the Titanic Disaster. April 15, 1998. p2c.
    -----. Sunday baseball, stolen jewelry and theTitanic. April15, 1998. p.2c.
    -----. Sacrifices, selfishness marked tragedy of Titanic. April 15, 1998. 4c.
    Lelik, Emma Jene. The Titanic is remembered. Sept 28, 1985.
    -----. Tales from Titanic survivors. Family Focus. Sept 30, 1985.
    Steen, R. Mitchell, Jr. Titantic tragedy claimed lives of nine from area.
        April 18, 1970.

Niemela, Juha of the Institute of Migration, Piispankatu 3, 20500 Turku,
Finland. www.utu.fi/eriull/instmigr

Nummi, Gerald E. and Janet A. White. I'm Going to see What Has Happened:
The Personal Experience of 3rd Class Finnish Titanic Survivor, Mrs. Elin
Hakkarainen. 1996.

Peltonen, Juha. The Finns Who Embarked on the Titanic.
www.onwe.co.za/titanic/finns.htm

The Tribune Review
    Olenin, Paul. Museums, Monuments Recall 'Titanic' Disaster. April 12,
        1987.
    Steen, R. Mitchell. 'Titanic' Disaster Touched Area. Sept 8, 1985.

Vincent, Timothy Laitila, AG. New York City Passenger Manifests of SS Titanic Survivors Rescued by the SS Carpathia. www.utu.fi/erill/instmigr/art/titanic2.htm

Tanito, Kalman L. The Titanic's Finns: A Photo Gallery and Passenger List.
www.uta.fi/~kt22588/titanic/index.htm

More Links

Titanic Historical Society

Titanic Links good third class stories.

The Oral Traditions