Titanic Survivor Nellie Walcroft’s Letter (Part 2)
“After the ship had gone down we had to change our boats to let our officer go back to the rescue and when we got into the boat there were 4 dead men and a madman. I think they pushed him overboard. I never saw him again. After rowing for 7 hours we got picked up by the Carpathia. We shouted for joy when we saw the ship. They took us up with ropes & gave us all neat brandy.
There were 710 rescued so that could not put us all up so we slept on tables for 5 days. They were very kind to us indeed in every way. The suffering was frightful. We had 35 women who had lost their husbands on board and one can imagine the agony of these women not knowing if their husbands were living or dead and how glad we were to see New York.
I had a fever here. We were given some clothes directly. We came off a steamer with 100 coffins waiting for the dead but most that died were buried at sea. The flashlights took our photo. I was so glad to meet Carl and his friend they soon got cab and we were snap shotted everywhere. There were 70.000 persons roped off in charge of the police. They were all where (sic) so glad to see us & the world sympathy is ours in New York. But I shall never never go on a floating palace again.
Write to me soon and send me any recipes you have got there.
With much love, your loving friend, Nell.”