Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World by Hugh Brewster
Authors: Hugh Brewster
Tags: United States, History, Biography & Autobiography, Travel, 20th Century, Rich & Famous, Ocean Travel, Shipwreck Victims, Cruises, Upper Class - United States, Shipwrecks - North Atlantic Ocean, Titanic (Steamship)
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reporter, and it prompted friends to comment on how gaunt and ill he looked.
On February 23, 1912, Archie wrote to Clara of his decision to go to Rome for a little holiday with Frank Millet. “I hate to leave the Big White Chief just at this time, though … if I am to go through this frightful summer I must have a rest now.” Loyal soldier that he was, Archie had decided to stick with Taft through the fall election. “My devotion to the Colonel [Roosevelt] is as strong as it was the day he left, but this man [Taft] has been too fond of me for the past three years to be thrown over at this time.”
In an oft-quoted sentence from this same letter Archie tells Clara, “Don’t forget that all my papers are in the storage warehouse and that if the old ship goes down you will find my affairs in shipshape condition.” Though this is often cited as a Titanic premonition, Archie then adds, “As I always write you in this way, whenever I go anywhere, you will not be bothered by presentiments now.” Archie’s time in Rome would prove to be restorative but his low and fatalistic moods continued to reappear. While staying with his cousin Rebie Rosenkranz in London before sailing, he had seemed to her husband to be “in a depressed and sad state of mind … nerves he called it.” On his last full day in England he had suggested a visit to Westminster Abbey, saying, “If I do not see it now I shall never see it.” Yet Archie was not fatalistic about the Titanic , which he had heard was unsinkable, and in Father Browne’s photograph of him he is caught chatting amiably on A deck. So there is every reason to believe that at dinner on April 10, 1912, his customary affable nature was on display.
Major Butt (top, at left) was constantly at Taft’s side during official appearances. Following his illness, a thinner Archie (above, at right) accompanies the president on one of his daily walks. (photo credit 1.34)
As an experienced transatlantic traveler, Archie knew to head for the dining saloon shortly after boarding to reserve a good table for the voyage, in this case for himself, Frank Millet, and his Washington friend, Clarence Moore. As the three men sat at table that evening, the conversation likely recapped Archie’s audiences with the pope and the king of Italy as well as his subsequent trip to England to see his older brother, Edward, a cotton trader who lived in Chester, near Liverpool. There was undoubtedly some talk of horses and dogs since Clarence Moore was a noted sportsman and former master of hounds at the exclusive Chevy Chase Hunt Club. He had just been scouring the north of England in search of a pack of good hounds and had purchased fifty pairs for the newly formed Rock Creek Hunt Club. Archie, too, was an ardent dog lover and the owner of some pointers that he kept kenneled with Moore’s dogs back in Washington.
Clarence Moore was a Washington banker and broker whose wisest investment had been to marry Mabelle Swift, the heiress to a Chicago meat-packing fortune. This helped him to acquire a substantial Beaux Arts mansion on the most fashionable stretch of Massachusetts Avenue and a gaily awninged seaside home called “Swiftmore” near the Taft summer White House at Beverly, Massachusetts. Moore had occasionally joined Archie for rounds of golf with “the big White Chief” at the Beverly country club.
Given Frank Millet’s delayed arrival, Archie and Clarence Moore likely chose to dine with him later in the dining saloon, perhaps in one of the room’s alcoves where backlit leaded-glass windows added to the atmosphere. “It was hard to realize,” another passenger later wrote, “that one was not in some large and sumptuous hotel.” The menu, too, was large and sumptuous, reflecting the Edwardian fashion for elaborate multi-coursed meals—from hors d’oeuvres, soup, fish, fowl, and meat to a savory, a salad, and a selection of puddings and sweets. Archie’s doctor had prescribed a
On February 23, 1912, Archie wrote to Clara of his decision to go to Rome for a little holiday with Frank Millet. “I hate to leave the Big White Chief just at this time, though … if I am to go through this frightful summer I must have a rest now.” Loyal soldier that he was, Archie had decided to stick with Taft through the fall election. “My devotion to the Colonel [Roosevelt] is as strong as it was the day he left, but this man [Taft] has been too fond of me for the past three years to be thrown over at this time.”
In an oft-quoted sentence from this same letter Archie tells Clara, “Don’t forget that all my papers are in the storage warehouse and that if the old ship goes down you will find my affairs in shipshape condition.” Though this is often cited as a Titanic premonition, Archie then adds, “As I always write you in this way, whenever I go anywhere, you will not be bothered by presentiments now.” Archie’s time in Rome would prove to be restorative but his low and fatalistic moods continued to reappear. While staying with his cousin Rebie Rosenkranz in London before sailing, he had seemed to her husband to be “in a depressed and sad state of mind … nerves he called it.” On his last full day in England he had suggested a visit to Westminster Abbey, saying, “If I do not see it now I shall never see it.” Yet Archie was not fatalistic about the Titanic , which he had heard was unsinkable, and in Father Browne’s photograph of him he is caught chatting amiably on A deck. So there is every reason to believe that at dinner on April 10, 1912, his customary affable nature was on display.
Major Butt (top, at left) was constantly at Taft’s side during official appearances. Following his illness, a thinner Archie (above, at right) accompanies the president on one of his daily walks. (photo credit 1.34)
As an experienced transatlantic traveler, Archie knew to head for the dining saloon shortly after boarding to reserve a good table for the voyage, in this case for himself, Frank Millet, and his Washington friend, Clarence Moore. As the three men sat at table that evening, the conversation likely recapped Archie’s audiences with the pope and the king of Italy as well as his subsequent trip to England to see his older brother, Edward, a cotton trader who lived in Chester, near Liverpool. There was undoubtedly some talk of horses and dogs since Clarence Moore was a noted sportsman and former master of hounds at the exclusive Chevy Chase Hunt Club. He had just been scouring the north of England in search of a pack of good hounds and had purchased fifty pairs for the newly formed Rock Creek Hunt Club. Archie, too, was an ardent dog lover and the owner of some pointers that he kept kenneled with Moore’s dogs back in Washington.
Clarence Moore was a Washington banker and broker whose wisest investment had been to marry Mabelle Swift, the heiress to a Chicago meat-packing fortune. This helped him to acquire a substantial Beaux Arts mansion on the most fashionable stretch of Massachusetts Avenue and a gaily awninged seaside home called “Swiftmore” near the Taft summer White House at Beverly, Massachusetts. Moore had occasionally joined Archie for rounds of golf with “the big White Chief” at the Beverly country club.
Given Frank Millet’s delayed arrival, Archie and Clarence Moore likely chose to dine with him later in the dining saloon, perhaps in one of the room’s alcoves where backlit leaded-glass windows added to the atmosphere. “It was hard to realize,” another passenger later wrote, “that one was not in some large and sumptuous hotel.” The menu, too, was large and sumptuous, reflecting the Edwardian fashion for elaborate multi-coursed meals—from hors d’oeuvres, soup, fish, fowl, and meat to a savory, a salad, and a selection of puddings and sweets. Archie’s doctor had prescribed a
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