Eleanor Ileen Shuman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Ileen_Johnson

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/11/us/eleanor-shuman-87-passenger-on...

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/eleanor-ileen...

• Name: Miss Eleanor Ileen Johnson
• Titanic Survivor
• Born: Friday 23rd September 1910
• Age: 1 years
• Last Residence: in St. Charles
• 3rd Class passenger
• First Embarked: Southampton on Wednesday 10th April 1912
• Ticket No. 347742 , £11 2s 8d
• Destination: St. Charles
• Rescued (boat 15)
• Disembarked Carpathia: New York City on Thursday 18th April 1912
• Died: Saturday 7th March 1998
• Reference: https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-lifeboat-15/ Life Boat No. 15
• Reference: https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-deckplans/ R.M.S. Titanic deck plans

Miss Eleanor Ileen Johnson, 1, was born 23 August 1910 the daughter of Oskar Walter Johnson and Alice Wilhelmina Backberg. She boarded the Titanic at Southampton with her mother and brother Harold Theodor.

They were probably rescued in lifeboat 15.

In later years Eleanor worked at the Elgin Watch Company, she later became a telephone operator until retiring in 1962. She was married to Delbert Shuman and they had one son, Earl.

Eleanor Shuman (née Johnson) died 7 March 1998. Travelling Companions (on same ticket) Mrs Elisabeth Vilhelmina Johnson Master Harold Theodor Johnson References and Sources Claes-Göran Wetterholm (1988, 1996, 1999) Titanic. Prisma, Stockholm. ISBN 91 518 3644 0 Boston Globe Obituary, March 1998 Chicago Sun Times Obituary, March 1998 Chicago Tribune Obituary, March 1998 Newark Star Ledger Obituary, March 1998 San Diego Union Tribune Obituary, March 1998

Credits

• Arthur Merchant, USA
• Becky Ross, USA
• Jon Neville, USA
• Leif Snellman, Finland

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Eleanor Ileen Shuman

Eleanor Shuman, 87, Passenger on the Titanic By ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr.

Eleanor Shuman, who was too young to remember more than the screams but recalled them vividly for more than 85 years, died on Saturday at a hospital near her home in Elgin, Ill. She was 87 and one of the last half-dozen survivors of the sinking of the Titanic.

Mrs. Shuman, whose original name was Johnson, was just 18 months old when the Titanic went down in the early hours of April 15, 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives, but as one of 705 survivors, she had a tale to tell and told it often over the years.

For the most part, Mrs. Shuman lived a fairly ordinary life in the Chicago suburbs. A native of St. Charles, Ill., where her father, Oscar Johnson, was a newspaper editor, she moved to nearby Elgin, working for a while at the Elgin Watch Company before becoming a telephone operator until she retired in 1962. Her husband, Delbert Shuman, an International Harvester engineer, died in 1981. They had been married for 47 years.

Through it all Mrs. Shuman kept her memories of the Titanic alive. The living room of her tidy little house in Elgin had what she called her Titanic Corner, including books, a painting of the Titanic and a photograph showing her and her older brother, Harold, at the New York premiere of the Titanic movie A Night to Remember in 1958.

More recently Mrs. Shuman had acquired other souvenirs, photographs showing her and James Cameron, the director of the current hit movie Titanic, at the Chicago premiere last December.

As the only Titanic survivor Mr. Cameron met, Mrs. Shuman got royal treatment. She saw the movie three times, first at a screening along with the television movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, then at the premiere and later at a theater in Elgin. She said she cried each time.

The movie and the attendant publicity made Mrs. Shuman such a sought-after celebrity that she changed her telephone number to an unlisted one after getting as many as 10 calls a day from people wanting to hear her recollections about the Titanic or simply to speak with someone who had survived the disaster.

But she recalled very little about the fateful night. Most of the details she related over the years came from her mother, Alice, but Mrs. Shuman insisted she recalled the screams and the sight from a great height of a sea of hands reaching up for her from a lifeboat below.

As Mrs. Shuman recounted it, the voyage on the Titanic came about by accident. She, her mother and her 4-year-old brother, Harold, had gone to Finland to visit her mother's dying father and other relatives and were on their way back to the United States when they stopped over in England and discovered that their passage on another ship had been canceled because of a coal miners' strike.

Learning that the Titanic had room, the family, along with two teen-age girls they had met in Sweden, hopped a boat-train to Southampton and bought third-class tickets just hours before the Titanic sailed.

Drawing on her mother's account, Mrs. Shuman recalled that at first the disaster had provided a moment of recreation for the third-class passengers.

When the Titanic struck the iceberg, she said, tons of ice went on the deck, right outside their cabin door. As her mother, the Swedish girls and others playfully kicked the ice around, an officer shooed them back into their cabins, saying the ship would get underway shortly.

A little later, she said, the steward who had waited on them in the dining room and apparently taken a liking to the little group knocked on their door and escorted them to the boat deck.

Her mother, carrying her daughter in her arms, was helped into a lifeboat, and little Harold, who had been carried to the deck by one of the Swedish girls, was dropped down into the boat after them. The other Swedish girl had gotten into another lifeboat and survived, she said, but the one who had been holding her brother went down with the ship.

Theirs, she said, was the last lifeboat to leave the Titanic. Five hours later they were picked up by the ship Carpathia and taken to New York.

Until a few years ago when she visited her son, then living in Florida, Mrs. Shuman had not seen the Atlantic since 1912. In 1996 she sailed back to the site of the disaster for a memorial service.

With Mrs. Shuman's death, there are now five known living Titanic survivors. Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Mass., said they are Barbara West and Millzina Dean of England; Michael Navratil of France; and Lillian Asplund and Winnifred Tongerloo of the United States.

Mrs. Shuman, whose brother died in 1968, is survived by a son, Earl, of St. Charles, Ill., two sisters, Irene Van Thournout of St. Charles and Esther Rudder of Connecticut, and two grandchildren.

Photo: Eleanor Shuman. (Associated Press, 1996)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10901497/eleanor-ileen-shuman Miss Eleanor Ileen Johnson was born in St Charles, Illinois on 23 August 1910.

She was the daughter of a Swedish father, Oscar Walfrid Theodor Johnson (b. 1882), and a Finnish mother Aliina Vilhelmina Backberg (b. 1884). Her father had come to the USA in 1901 and worked as a journalist, in a bowling alley and as a barman whilst her mother had arrived in the USA around 1905; they were married on 6 April 1907. She had one elder sibling, her brother Harold Theodor (b. 1908).

In the months prior to her birth Eleanor's family appeared on the 1910 census living at 254 Sixth Avenue in St Charles, her father being described as a worker in a bowling alley.

Eleanor, her mother and brother returned to Finland in early 1911 to visit her dying grandfather; he died before the party reached there. With plans to return to America her mother wrote to her father in Illinois, informing him that they would be travelling aboard Titanic and that she expected to be in New York on 18 April.

For the journey her mother was escorting two Swedish girls across the Atlantic; the identity of the pair is debateable as the Chicago Daily Journal (17 April 1912) and Chicago Daily Tribune (18 April 1912) states that they were the sisters of her father. This clearly isn't the case as there are no passengers matching that description it is generally regarded that the two women were Helmina Nilsson and Elin Braf, both from her father's birthplace of Ramkvilla where she also visited with her mother and brother.

On the night of the sinking her mother took she and Harold to the upper decks, accompanied by their two charges. Mrs Johnson and her children are believed to have escaped in one of the aft starboard lifeboats but in which one is not clear (possibly lifeboat 13 or 15); she and Eleanor climbed in, followed by Helmina. Elin Braf, who was holding on to little Harold, remained on deck frozen in fear and would not follow. Alice had to call out for Harold and eventually the young boy was pulled from Elin's arms and pushed into the boat, Elin remaining behind. Although Eleanor was too young to have any memories of the sinking, she would state in later years that she was haunted by a memory of being held in her mother's arms whilst at a great height, surrounded by people and with many hands reaching around her and the sounds of screams. She later attributed this vision to an early-life memory of her time on Titanic.

Eleanor's father received word via telegram that his wife and children were safe and being cared for in St Luke's Hospital in New York and fainted in a dead stupor, overcome with emotion. Not wishing to wait any longer he asked those in his community if he could borrow the money for his fare to New York. Instead on loaning him money, charitable souls raised funds of over $100 for him to travel to New York and return with his family.

Back in America Eleanor and his family resettled in St Charles and in 1913 she and her brother Harold were gifted with a sibling in 1913, Herbert. Sadly her father Oscar died on 31 October 1917 aged 35 and her mother was remarried in 1918 to Hans Thorvald Amundson (b. 1881), a Norwegian man. The marriage was tragically brief and Amundson died less than a month later on 23 December. However, Eleanor gained a half-brother from this union, Vernon Hans Amundson (b. 1916). Her mother took another husband in 1920, dairy farmer Carl Oscar Peterson (b. 1885) who was a widower, bringing to his second marriage four step-siblings for Eleanor: Clifford, Einar, Hedwig and Esther. Another half-sibling would also come from the marriage, Irene (b. 1925).

The large blended family consisting of nine children settled in Wayne Township in DuPage County, Illinois, appearing there on Smith Road on the 1930 census.

Eleanor later worked in a watch factory in Elgin, Illinois. It was here that she met her future husband, Delbert Earl Shuman (b. 13 September 1909), a native of Elkhart, Indiana and who was of mixed Swiss and German ancestry. The couple were married and made their home on Liberty Street, Elgin, appearing there on the 1940 census. Whilst Delbert still worked in the watch factory, Eleanor was now working as a telephone operator for the Telephone Company and continued in that role until her retirement in 1962. Their only child, Earl Delbert, was born on 6 July 1944.

During the 1950s Eleanor, her mother and brother Harold were guests at screenings for both Titanic (1953) and A Night to Remember (1958). She was also a guest of honour at two screenings for Titanic (1997), experiences she found emotionally draining and she was also the only Titanic survivor that director James Cameron met. She was interviewed for radio, television and newspapers countless times and was called upon to sign endless autographs. She also attended several conventions of the Titanic Historical Society and was aboard a special cruise to the wreck site in the late 1990s.

Eleanor became a widow when her husband Delbert died on 2 September 1981. She lived at her own home in Elgin, Illinois for the remainder of her life before she died in the Sherman Hospital in Elgin on 7 March 1998 aged 87.

Pictures

Eleanor Johnson Shuman in her Elgin, Illinois home  (1997)  ELEANOR JOHNSON SHUMAN IN HER ELGIN, ILLINOIS HOME

Articles and Stories

Unidentified Newspaper (1998) ELEANOR I. SHUMAN, 87, TITANIC SURVIVOR Unidentified Newspaper (1997) UNKNOWN TITLE (2) Chicago American (1959) 3 VICTIMS LAUD TITANIC FILM Chicago Daily Tribune (1912) MERCHANT FAINTS FROM JOY New York Times (1912) LOST TWO IN IROQUOIS FIRE

Credits

Gavin Bell, UK Arthur Merchant, USA Becky Ross, USA Jon Neville, USA Leif Snellman, Finland

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Sep 16 2019, 18:02:44 UTC
• Reference: Full text- https://archive.org/details/truthabouttitani00grac/page/n6 "The Truth About the Titanic" by Colonel Archibald Gracie, IV 1913 pp. 296-299

BOAT NO. 15.*

Br. Rpt., p. 38, places this next to last lowered on starboard side at 1.35. No disorder in loading or lowering this boat.

Passengers: All third-class women and children (53) and Men: Mr. Haven (first-class) and three others (third-class) only. Total: 4.

Crew: Firemen: Diamond (in charge), Cavell, Taylor; Stewards: Rule, Hart. Total: 13.

Grand Total (Br. Rpt., p. 38) : 70.

. INCIDENTS

G. Cavell, trimmer (Br. Inq.) :

The officer ordered five of us In the boat. We took on all the women and children and the boat was then lowered. We lowered to the first-class (I. e. A) deck and took on a few more women and children, about five, and then lowered to the water. From the lower deck we took In about sixty. There were men about but we did not take them In. They were not kept back. They were third-class passengers, I think — sixty women, Irish. Fireman Diamond took charge. No other seaman In this boat. There were none left on the third-class decks after I had taken the women.

S. J. Rule, bathroom steward (Br. Inq.) : Mr. Murdoch called to the men to get Into the boat. About six got In. "That will do," he said, "lower away to Deck A." At this time the vessel had a slight list to port. We sent scouts around both to the starboard and port sides. They came back and said there were no more women and children. We filled up on A Deck — sixty-eight all told — the last boat to leave the starboard side. There were some left behind. There was a bit of a rush after Mr. Murdoch said we could fill the boat up with men standing by. We very nearly came on top of No. 13 when we lowered away. A man, Jack Stewart, a steward, took charge. Nearly everybody rowed. No lamp. One deckhand in the boat, and men, women and children. Just before it was launched, no more could be found, and about half a dozen men got in. There were sixty- eight in the boat altogether. Seven members of the crew.

J. E. Hart, third-class steward (Br. Inq., 75) : Witness defines the duties and what was done by the stewards, particularly those connected with the steerage.

Pass the women and children up to the Boat Deck," was the order soon after the collision. About three-quarters of an hour after the collision he took women and children from the C Deck to the first-class main companion. There were no barriers at that time. They were all opened. He took about thirty to boat No. 8 as it was being lowered. He left them and went back for more,' meeting third-class passengers on the way to the boats. He brought back about twenty-five more steerage women and children, having some little trouble owing to the men passengers wanting to get to the Boat Deck. These were all third-class people whom we took to the only boat left on the starboard side, viz., No. 15. There were a large number already in the boat, which was then lowered to A Deck, and five women, three children and a man with a baby in his arms taken in, making about seventy people in all, including thirteen or fourteen of the crew and fireman Diamond in charge. Mr. Murdoch ordered witness into the boat. Four men passengers and fourteen crew was the complement of men; the rest were women and children.

When boat No. 15 left the boat deck there were other women and children there — some first- class women passengers and their husbands. Absolute quietness existed. There were repeated cries for women and children. If there had been any more women there would have been found places for them in the boat. He heard some of the women on the A Deck say they would not leave their husbands.

There is no truth in the statement that any of the seamen tried to keep back third-class passengers from the Boat Deck. Witness saw masthead light of a ship from the Boat Deck. He did his very best, and so did all the other stewards, to help get the steerage passengers on the Boat Deck as soon as possible.