Doctor Alice, the Saks heiress, and the accidental nanny: Fascinating New York women who survived the TItanic

The Waiting Game: Down at the White Star Line's Broadway offices near Bowling Green, anxious New Yorkers line the streets waiting for news about the sunken vessel. 1912

Over fifteen hundred people died the night the Titanic sank, April 14-15, 1912. The early reports from the New York newspapers, of course, spent their time mourning the city's most connected figures to society. Even from some of the most obsessive sources on the Titanic, the details on the lives of dozens of men and women who died below deck are sometimes hard to locate.

There's always been something slightly unsettling to me about using primary news sources for Titanic research. The weight of wealthy lives over poor ones -- of women over men, and of American and British lives to all others -- can be a little unsettling. For instance, an anecdote from an April 20, 1912, article in the New York Times: "...[I]t became known among those saved from the Titanic were six or eight Chinamen who were among the steerage passengers on the big liner. It seems that they climbed aboard one of the lifeboats without anybody making objection, despite the fact that many of the women in the steerage of the Titanic went down with the ship."

Steep yourself in the gravity of this weekend's many centenary Titanic remembrances fully knowing they sometimes embody a Gilded Age slant towards the great loss to New York high society. But this was indeed a tragedy that shook most of the entire world to its core and, in particular, changed the lives of many Americans, from tenements to townhouses.

The old-family names and the wizards of business (Astor, Straus, Guggenheim) have been well documented. But here I present the fates of five well-off but perhaps lesser-known New York women who survived the sinking of the Titanic with intriguing stories of their own to tell:


Dr. Alice Farnham Leader 
Born in New York, May 10, 1862
Alice would have been among the second generation of women trained in medicine, and a career in pediatrics was one of the few that a women of her day could ably progress towards. As late as 1907 she was employed at Bellevue Hospital as 'a social service nurse'.  However she wasn't a practicing doctor by the time she boarded the Titanic; the 49 year old had retired when her husband died in 1908.


She was rescued by lifeboat no. 8, commanded by one of the Titanic's most famous names: Noëlle Rothes, the Countess of Rothes. "The countess is an expert oarswoman and thoroughly at home in the water," Alice told the press, who sadly seemed more interested in the fate of the the titled gentry than of this mysterious doctor who appears to have avoided the spotlight for the remainder of her life.

Afterwards: Dr. Leader is mentioned in a Utah newspaper in 1916, discussing the crisis of graying hair.  Her solution: "A head exercise for circulation is to lie on the couch with the head projecting beyond the couch. Bend the head forward, backward, to each side, to each side, then rotate."
Died: April 20, 1944

Irene (Rene) Harris
Born: June 15, 1876
A New York stage actress with some considerable credits to her name, Harris boarded the Titanic with her husband Henry Birkhardt Harris, the theater impresario and partner (with Jesse Lasky) in the Folies Bergere, which has just opened in midtown the year before.

 Irene made it to a lifeboat but her beloved husband perished on the Titanic. The Times recounts her cable to the Hudson Theater: "Praying that Harry has been picked up by another steamer."

Afterwards: Returning to the New York theater in grief, she sued the White Star Line for a large petition of damages, and perhaps with good reason; she discovered when she got home that her husband was nearly bankrupt from the Folies Bergere venture and other flops. So she decided to make her own money, soon becoming one of Broadway's first female producers with such shows as 'Lights Out' and 'The Noose' and buying a Park Avenue apartment.

But her wealth didn't make it out of the Great Depression, and she spent her last days living in Manhattan hotels.  In 1958, she was subjected to a screening of the Hollywood film 'A Night To Remember'. "I think your film title is a mistake," she said. "It was a night to forget."
Died: September 2, 1969


Margaret Hays
Born: December 6, 1887
If not for the tragic sinking of the Titanic, Margaret Hays' fate might have made a charming family comedy. The young woman lived at 304 West 83rd Street and had gone to Europe with two school friends Olive and Lily. And there was another lady, or rather, Lady, Margaret's Pomeranian dog.

All three friends and her little dog too made it to a lifeboat, but Margaret's story was just beginning. Onboard the rescue ship Carpathia were two small frightened French boys. They had been separated from their father Michel who was never found. Hays, who spoke French, took the boys into her care during the somber voyage and well after they arrived in New York. They stayed at her home on West 83rd -- she distracted the distraught boys with carriage rides up Riverside Drive -- until their mother arrived from France.

On her arrival, it was revealed that their father had taken the two boys against their mother's will during a bitter divorce battle.

Afterwards: Hays married a Rhode Island doctor and lived in relative comfort, dying during a vacation in Argentina.
Died: August 21, 1956

Below: The 'Titanic orphans', named Michel and Edmond (not Louis & Lola!), below with their mother at Hays' West 83rd Street townhouse.

Leila Meyer
Born in New York, September 28, 1886
The young socialite and daughter of Andrew Saks (founder of Saks Fifth Avenue) met aspiring Wall Street broker Eugene Meyer and married him in 1909. While traveling, Leila was wired the tragic news that her father had died. (Later, she discovered that a sizable part of their fortune had been willed to her.) Leila and her husband boarded the Titanic to return home. She made it to a lifeboat; her husband died aboard the ship.

Afterwards: She later remarried and lived the remainder of her life at 970 Park Avenue, rarely speaking to the press about her tragedy, although her spectacular jewelry collection was frequently remarked upon in women's magazines.
Died: November, 27, 1957


Mrs. Charlotte Appleton
Born in New York, December 12, 1858

Charlotte was well versed in the thrill of ocean travel. Her father, once a well-known dry goods importer, worked for the firm which operated the Black Ball Line, one of the oldest shipping companies in New York and no stranger to a few shipwrecks of its own. She married into the prestigious Appleton   publishing family and was on the Titanic with two sisters, returning from a funeral in England.

Afterwards: Mrs. Appleton's name is familiar with Titanic buffs as she was an acquaintance of Col. Archibald Gracie IV, the great-grandson of the man who built Gracie Mansion and one of the more notable bold-faced names on the Titanic. Mrs. Appleton lived the remainder of her life at 214-33 33rd Road, the oldest house in Bayside, Queens.
Died: June 25th, 1924

Some pictures and many of the birth/death dates above are courtesy Encyclopedia Titanica. Top picture courtesy the Library of Congress.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post accidentally killed off Archibald Gracie IV on the Titanic! The gentleman survived. In fact, his survival memoir became one of the core sources for early Titanic historians. More about that in our podcast on his ancestor, the first Archibald Gracie and Gracie Mansion.

Ten fabulous facts about 70 Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights, aka 'the Truman Capote house'

The strange, yellow Brooklyn Heights mansion best known as the home where Truman Capote wrote 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' has finally been sold for $12 million, after many months of humbling markdowns from its original hefty pricetag.

Located in the heart of old Brooklyn, the new owners will be winning more than a literary prize. The house has a rather unusual past full of influential inhabitants and has been used in some curious ways:

1) 70 Willow Street, in the popular Greek revival style of the day, was built in 1839 by Adrian Van Sinderen, the descendant of original Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam and a fiery Revolutionary War-era reverend from Flatbush, Ulpianus Van Sinderen. Van Sinderen's lavish urban villa -- it has almost a dozen fireplaces -- is one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood, but not the oldest. There are a few neighboring houses that are older, including 24 Middagh Street, just a couple blocks away and built in 1824.

2) The house passed to his son Adrian Jr., a prominent New York lawyer, who fell spectacularly from grace when he mishandled the family trust. He died nearly penniless and alone in New Lots, far outside the sphere of wealth, in 1864. (There's an avenue near that east Brooklyn neighborhood named for the Van Sinderen family.) His descendants appear to have done better. Another Adrian Van Sinderen has an annual book-collecting competition named for him at Yale University.

3) The 'estate of Van Sinderen', as it was often called then, was built for a single family, but by the late 1860s, the roomy floors were being split up for several tenants. From an October 1869 classified ad in the Brooklyn Eagle:"One large, handsomely furnished second floor room for gentleman and wife or gentlemen willing to room together."***

4) The primary resident during the late 19th century was the banker William Putnam, better known as a significant trustee for the Brooklyn Museum in its early years. He betrothed to the museum paintings by Rembrandt and Monet, as well as some 'Royal Copenhagen  porcelain' that rivaled that of European rulers, according to the Times.

5) The house was a pivotal location for the women's suffrage movement. Scratch that, the anti-women's suffrage movement. The newly married lady of the house, Caroline Putnam, and her sister Lillian joined other local ladies of means in organizing protests against granting women the right to vote or, in the words of their 1894 petition, to protest "the obligations of the ballot upon the women of the state." Mrs. Putnam also hosted French conservation classes and literary salons from her parlor here. [source]

The picture at top shows the house as it looked in 1922. At right, the home in 1936. (Pictures courtesy New York Public Library.)

6) After Mrs. Putnam died in 1940, the house sat entirely vacant until 1944, when it was donated to the Red Cross. They used the house as a classroom, teaching arts and crafts, Braille to the blind and cooking classes to the wives of returning soldiers from World War II.

7) In 1953, the old house landed in the hands of renown Broadway stage designer Oliver Smith, responsible for the original scenery from great American musicals like Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls and West Side Story. In his lifetime, he was nominated for 25 Tony Awards. With some of his earnings from the musical On The Town, Smith bought 70 Willow Street and lived here until he died in 1994.

8) From 1955 to 1965, he lent the basement apartment to his friend Truman Capote. The blond Southern writer was simply wild about Brooklyn Heights and basically charmed himself into a permanent room on Willow Street. From his essay 'A House on the Heights,' Capote describes, "We [Smith and Capote] sat on the porch consulting Martinis -- I urged him to have one more, another. It got to be quite late, he began to see my point; yes, twenty-eight rooms were rather a lot; and yes it seemed only fair that I should have some of them."

9) Decked out in green wallpaper and odd knickknacks, "an atmosphere of perpetual Christmas," the house would prove a place of great inspiration for Capote. He wrote part of 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' here. Perhaps more notably, it was here that he picked up a New York Times are read about the brutal slaying of a Kansas family. Capote set about working on what became 'In Cold Blood' the next day.

10) I can't leave the tale of 70 Willow Street without mentioning one of its most famous lunch guests -- Jackie Kennedy. Capote conveniently left out the fact that the house was Smith's, not his. "She laughed about it, because suddenly in the middle of lunch she got the idea that it wasn't his," Smith recalled later. "I suppose I acted as if it were mine."

And here's some literary bonus points -- it's just down the street from the old home of Arthur Miller (155 Willow Street)

***A reader emailed me to say that the addresses for Willow Street were differently numbered before 1865 and that this ad probably refers to a neighbor of 70 Willow Street. In that case, I'll replace that fact with one I should have mentioned in the lede of this article -- as reported by Brownstoner, the $12 million final price tag for 70 Willow Street makes it the most expensive house purchase in Brooklyn history. Does this mean that nobody has yet bought my dream apartment in DUMBO?

Marilyn Monroe's surprising link to a few Broadway classics

Monroe on the New York set of 'The Seven Year Itch', the film version of a Broadway box office success.

The heavily-hyped 'Smash' debuted last night on NBC, a glossy musical-drama unspooling the backstage tribulations of a new Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Although Monroe was once married to one of Broadway's greatest playwrights (Arthur Miller) and personally coached by the stage's most renown drama coaches (Lee and Paula Strasberg), she never hit the legitimate stage herself.

I'm surprised this 'Marilyn Monroe musical' idea is taken as such a revelation in the show. Many of Marilyn's big cinema breakthroughs were plucked from Broadway shows, and her film resume has even inspired a couple Broadway musicals:

'All About Eve' (1950)
Inspired the musical 'Applause'
Opened: March 30, 1970 at the Palace Theatre (aka the 'haunted' theater)

The Role: You would hardly call the Oscar-winning 'Eve' a true Marilyn movie, although her brief scene as Miss Caswell is indeed a memorable one. For the Betty Compton/Adolph Green musical adaptation, her role was entirely deleted. People were too busy lavishing praise upon Lauren Bacall, stepping into the Bette Davis role, to notice.




'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' (1953)
Original musical: 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' by Joseph Field and Anita Loos, Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Leo Rubin
Opened: December 8, 1949, at the Zeigfeld Theatre

The Role: Believe it or not, the role of Lorelei Lee on Broadway was originated by a young actress in her first starring role -- Carol Channing. That role would define Marilyn's sophisticated sexpot image in the Howard Hawks film edition.

And then: A quarter century later, Channing returns to Broadway in a re-tinkered version of 'Blondes' called 'Lorelei'. It was actually a bigger hit, in part to the genius lyrical contributions of 'Applause's Compton and Green.



'The Seven Year Itch' (1955)
Original play: 'The Seven Year Itch' by George Axelrod
Opened: November 20, 1952 at the Fulton Theater

The Role: When it arrived on film, the role of 'The Girl' gave us this iconic Marilyn image. It unfortunately had less effect on the career of Austrian-born Vanessa Brown, who originated the role.

Also in the Broadway cast: Tom Ewell, habitue of Sardi's Restaurant, who played opposite Marilyn in the film. Anybody looking for him could find him parked at Sardi's 'little bar'.





'Bus Stop' (1956)
Original play: 'Bus Stop' by William Inge
Opened: March 2, 1955, at the Music Box Theatre

The Role: Kim Stanley played the role of 'Cherie', Marilyn played a variation the following year, in a film loosely based on the stage play
Also in the Broadway cast: An Elaine Stritch so scrappy she was nominated for a Tony



'Some Like It Hot' (1959)
Inspired the musical 'Sugar'
Opened: April 9, 1972 at the Majestic Theatre

The Role: The musical debut of Marilyn's greatest film role was played by Elaine Joyce, later a popular television personality and best known, in some circles, as being the obsession of writer J.D. Salinger.


I couldn't find any video of Joyce in 'Sugar', so enjoy this clip of her on 'Match Game' instead:




Another Marilyn Monroe musical film, 'There's No Business Like Show Business' (1954), isn't based a stage musical at all, but took its title straight from a song in the Broadway musical 'Annie Get Your Gun' (which debuted in 1946)

On 'The Band Wagon': Grand glamour in a Great Depression

How about a little music for your Monday? I was flipping through some old photographs in the New York Public Library's Performing Arts/Billy Rose Theatre Division archive and came across some striking images from the musical 'The Band Wagon', which opened on Broadway eighty years ago.

The stage musical inspired a more famous Vincent Minnelli film, through the original was also a success when it debuted at the New Amsterdam Theatre in June 1931, a glittering, bejeweled distraction bowing in one of the worst years of the Great Depression. America was hit with staggering unemployment that year (15.9 percent), unsettled by a springtime banking crisis and paralyzed by a near-stagnant Congress. New York state was so badly hit that Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, using emergency powers, set up an $20 million unemployment fund, one of the first of its type in America and a harbinger of programs he would employ as president.

I mention this strangely familiar backdrop to underscore how spectacularly luxurious these 'Band Wagon' sets must have been to audiences in 1931. This was a time when entertainment was becoming ever more escapist, more refined. These sets reflected the allure of musical revue as a ravishing fantasy, echoed in the songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. Backstage, however, the show's producers were panicking. Theaters were closing and ticket prices were being slashed (primo orchestra seats for $2.50!) as the financial crisis infiltrated every aspect of the New York entertainment business. 'The Band Wagon' closed in January 1932; as did a great many Broadway productions that year, almost two-thirds of them.

But in 1931, Fred Astaire and his sister Adele were still hoofin' it here. Amongst the other dancing tuxedos of 'The Band Wagon' was another star, Frank Morgan, who would sweep off to Hollywood by the end of the decade to portray the Wizard of Oz.

These sets were designed by Albert R. Johnson, who decorated Broadway stages well into the 1960s.

Had you been one of those cashpoor audience members who scored a ticket to a performance, this song would have helped you forget your troubles:


Pictures courtesy the NYPL Billy Rose Theatre Division