Margaret Hardt-O'Shea

Miss Margaret "Maggie" Madigan, 21 (? 25), boarded the Titanic at Queenstown as a third class passenger (ticket number 370370, £7 15s). She was on her way from Askeaton, Co Limerick to New York City.

Margaret survived the disaster, escaping in lifeboat 15.

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/margaret-mag...

• Name: Miss Margaret Madigan
• Titanic Survivor
• Born: Monday 11th August 1890 in Askeaton, County Limerick, Ireland
• Age: 21 years 8 months and 4 days (Female)
• Marital Status: Single
• Last Residence: in Askeaton, County Limerick, Ireland
• Nationality: Irish
• 3rd Class Passengers
• Ticket No.: 370370, £7 15s
• First Embarked: Queenstown on Thursday 11th April 1812
• Destination: New York City, New York, United States
• Rescued: (Boat 15)
• Disembarked Carpathia: New York City on Thursday 18th April 1912
• Died: Saturday 14 December 1968 aged 78 years
• Buried: Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, New York City, New York, United States
• 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

Titanic Survivor.

Maggie was born in the small County Limerick village of Askeaton, the third child and second daughter of laborer James Madigan and his wife Margaret (née Duggan). They named their daughter Margaret and she became Maggie to family and friends in Askeaton. She had a much older brother, Simon (born in 1878), and a sister, Mary, who was three years older than Maggie. This small family lived frugally on Church Street in the village. Maggie spent her early years living the life of a typical Irish peasant with church and family the focus of her life. The family’s life was forever altered when her beloved sister, Mary, emigrated to America in 1904 at the age of 19. She was suddenly alone, as her older brother, Simon, had a family of his own by then and her parents were very advanced in years. She decided she would join her sister in America as soon as the necessary money could be secured. James Madigan died about 1910 and Maggie received money from her sister Mary to sail for America. Simon, the ever-protective elder brother, would not allow her to sail until he had found others from the Askeaton area who would watch over Maggie on her trip to America. In early 1912, the opportunity came when Daniel Moran, a New York City policeman, and his sister Bridget (Bertha), returned to settle the estate of their father, who owned a small farm in Toomdeely North, townland adjoining Askeaton. They were returning to the New York City region with a friend, Patrick Ryan, a cattle dealer from Toomdeely, who was emigrating to New York City at age 32. The threesome were well known to Simon and he entrusted Maggie’s care to them. The group, including Maggie, secured accommodations on the small White Star liner Cymric. However, due to the British coal strike, Cymric, like so many other small liners, was taken from service and its passengers were transferred to other White Star liners. The foursome from Askeaton were given accommodations on the luxurious Titanic, due to begin its maiden voyage on April 10 in Southampton and pick up passengers at Queenstown in Ireland on April 11. The night prior to Titanic’s sailing, the foursome lodged at the McDonnell rooming house at The Beach in Queenstown. The morning of the 11th of April, the group from Askeaton joined scores of other Irish immigrants at Mass in St. Colman’s Cathedral and then made their way to the Deepwater Quay, where they would board the tender America and be ferried out to the Titanic, moored off Roches Point. Maggie’s tragic adventure had begun. On the half-hour trip to the Titanic on the America, Eugene Daly, an Irishman from Athlone in County Westmeath, played the soulful Erin’s Lament on his bagpipes and Maggie found herself nostalgically wondering if she would ever again see her cherished homeland or her aged mother. Once aboard Titanic, Daniel and Patrick separated from Bertha and Maggie to find their quarters. Daniel and Patrick were berthed in the bow with the other single men and Bertha and Maggie were given accommodations in the stern area of the ship with the other single women. The voyage was relaxing but largely uneventful, with most of their time spent in the third class general room aft on Titanic’s C deck.Maggie and Bertha had retired early Sunday evening, April 14, and were asleep when Titanic had her fateful brush with the iceberg. Having a cabin so deep within the ship, they felt the collision much more vividly than the first and second class passengers with accommodations on higher decks. They were actually jolted awake by the collision and roused from their sleep by the commotion in the hallway outside their cabin. Confused and frightened, Maggie and Bertha were soon joined by Daniel and Patrick who hustled them to the third class promenade area where they managed to climb to the boat deck with many other steerage passengers, after having been held back by crewmen for a period of time. Having ascended to the boat deck at the stern of Titanic, Maggie and her friends found Father Thomas R. D. Byles, an English priest from Ongar, Essex, ministering to and consoling many of Titanic’s steerage passengers, reciting prayers and trying to calm them as attempts were being made to place the women and children in the last of the lifeboats, notably numbers 13, 14, 15 and 16. Daniel and Patrick fought to place Maggie and Bertha into lifeboat 15 shortly before it descended from the boat deck. After narrowly avoiding crushing boat 13, which had become entangled under it as it descended from the boat deck, the overcrowded lifeboat hit the water and barely stayed afloat that long cold night. They never saw Daniel and Patrick again. Following her rescue from the freezing Atlantic by the Carpathia, Maggie was removed to St. Vincent’s Hospital for a few days recovery from her ordeal. She then went to live with her married sister, Mary Horgan, in Manhattan. After working as a domestic in New York City for a year, Maggie met a Swiss-Irishman named Alphonsus Hardt, who had been born in New York City of a Swiss father and an Irish mother. After a short romance, the couple were married in St. Bernard’s Catholic Church on West Fourteenth Street on December 28, 1913 and lived nearby in a tenement at 30 West Nineteenth Street in Manhattan. Al Hardt worked hard as a longshoreman on the docks to support Maggie and a son, Alfred, born in 1915. Maggie suffered two monumental tragedies during the 1920’s. Her beloved son, Alfred – her only natural child – drowned tragically about 1925 and her husband, Alphonsus, died suddenly in September of 1928 at age 50. Maggie was again alone and went back to work as a domestic. A few years later, she was introduced to Thomas O’Shea, whose mother was a cousin of Patrick Ryan from Toomdeely townland near Askeaton in Ireland. They were married shortly after. Tragedy again struck Maggie when Mary Madigan Horgan, her only sister and relative in America, died suddenly. Maggie was devastated at the loss of her sister, but took on a maternal role in the raising of Mary’s two teenaged children during the 1930’s. She evidently led a very normal and uneventful life with husband, Thomas O’Shea, until his untimely death at the age of 48 in June of 1951. Maggie, at age 60, was alone once more. She survived by domestic household work and whatever other menial work she could find as a laundress, seamstress or day laborer. After years of toil for her basic survival, she died at the age of 78. She had lost everything dear to her in life – two husbands, her only son, her beloved sister. As inauspicious as she had been in life, so she is in death – buried with her two husbands in a single unmarked grave.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Sep 18 2019, 20:28:51 UTC
• Reference: [https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:9FSB-CT7 - SmartCopy: Sep 18 2019, 20:42:07 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.