Mrs.
THEODORE NAISH (BELLE SAUNDERS), Second Cabin Passenger
[No Picture Provided]
Belle Naish, 49, was the wife of Theodore Naish and they lived in
Kansas City, Missouri, United States. On the day of the Lusitania's
departure, Theodore read and ignored the German warning. He
believed that if the warning were official, then "each American
passenger would have had warning sent and delivered before boarding the
vessel."
Onboard, the couple's cabin was on D Deck. They also deposited
$390 in gold with Purser James McCubbin. Belle was delighted that
the Atlantic was smooth "like the Detroit River on the finest
afternoon" and the "the sky was clouded only enough to make the light
easier for the yes than the brilliant sun would have been." Even
so, Theodore was seasick for most of the voyage and spent most of his
time in the cabin.
Belle and Theodore awoke to the sounds of the crew loosening the ship's
boats and swinging them outboard the morning of 6 May. Belle
jumped up and asked, "Oh what can it be?"
The still-seasick Theodore answered, "Keep cool, don't worry, just take
a look."
On deck, Belle was far from reassured at the sight of the lifeboats
being swung out. She went back to the cabin and told Theodore
that "our only hope lay in our life preservers, as the boats seemed
very small and the
passengers were by hundreds."
Theodore was well enough for Belle to take him to the ship's concert
that Thursday night. There, the Naishes and others in the
audience were reassured by Captain
Turner that upon entering the war zone they would be in the care of
the Royal Navy.
Still seasick on Friday, 7 May, Belle Naish went down to the second
cabin dining saloon and brought lunch back for Theodore. While
Belle was doting on him, Theodore asked, "Why don't you go on deck and
take a look at
the Irish islands? They're very pretty."
Belle only enouraged him to eat and replied, "Your word is good enough
for me, Theodore. We'll see them on our return trip."
Theodore persisted, and to please him Belle promised to do so once he
had finished his lunch. Reaching the Boat Deck, Belle was
surprised
to see Ireland so close. Belle felt that she could almost reach
out
to touch the trees, the fields, and even the lighthouse. She then
looked down at the water and thought, "I could run faster than we are
moving."
Going back to the cabin, Belle had turned from the rail and was halfway
to the second class entrance when she heard "a crash." Seawater
rained down on her and a wave of passengers, shrieking and cursing,
were in her
way as she worked against the tide to join her husband on D Deck.
Only
when the crowd thinned did she find passengers willing to help each
other.
In the cabin, Belle found Theodore freeing the tapes of their
lifebelts. She helped him with her lifejacket and he with hers.
To save
time they tied the tapes at the neck, chest, and waist. They
struggled
up the companionway to the Boat Deck where an officer told them, "She's
all
right. She'll float for an hour."
Belle saw that the angle between the horizon and the deck was widening
all the while and turned to Theodore. She said, "We're sinking
fast.
It can't be long now."
The Naishes continued to help others as well. They saw a woman
who put her lifejacket outside of her fur coat and they had to persuade
her
to take off the coat. Another woman needed her lifejacket tapes
tied
securely, but she refused to be parted with her blue-veiled hat.
A
third woman had on a woolen coat with a large collar, strapped her
two-year-old
inside, and over everything was her lifejacket.
"Madam," Theodore told the woman, "if you wish to save your child take
him out and hold him up; you will both go down that way, and you must
take
off that coat." He then advised the woman to tied the child to a
chair, "which would float easily."
Having finished helping the woman with the lifejacket, "there seemed to
be a great roar and a splintering sound, then the lifeboats or
something swung
over our heads." Belle threw up her left had in preparation "to
ward
off a blow, then the water was up to my waist; it was dreadfully cold
on
my back below my shoulders; something seemed to push my feet upwards,
and
I felt as though I were shot upwards and forward, but saw and heard
nothing." She found herself resting on the pillow of her
lifejacket, tinking
, "How beautiful the sunlight and water are from under the surface."
She felt a bump against her head and reaching out, found the
lifeline of lifeboat #22. A man reached down to her saying, "Give
me your hand. My back is hurt. But I'll do what I can."
"I can hold on," Belle told him, "take somebody else."
"Come on," the man insisted, "there's no one else I can reach."
Belle was pulled in, shivering "with chattering teeth." She
feared that she would upset the boat, but was hauled aboard safely.
She remembered that deep intakes of air expelled quickly kept the
body warm, so she recommended all those the boat to try. Belle
continued to say that it was Divine Providence that they had been
shipwrecked on a clear day, a calm sea, a
soft breeze, and the sun on their backs.
According to Hickey and Smith, Belle heard Cyril
Wallace playing a harmonica to cheer up those in the boat, but then
someone said, "Don't you think you should stop playing? Otherwise
we won't hear any cries for help." With that, Wallace promptly
put the harmonica away. This testimony, however, is not
substantiated by either accounts by Belle or Wallace.
Looking around, she was overwhelmed to see rescue finally arrive:
"Smoke, then, in several places ahead on the horizon, finally the
smokestacks, and then the bows of the vessels seemed suddenly to come
to view . . . the wonder we all felt when we realized that the sea was
so smooth we could see the
spray on the bows and the swells behind each boat coming to our rescue."
The trawler Julia picked up the lifeboat and the sailors
treated Belle Naish with tea and a hot brick. The sailors then
went looking for woolen socks and slippers for her and other survivors.
At that time,
Belle was comforting 7-year-old Robert Kay.
His
mother had been lost and he was also suffering from measles.
Belle then saw Theodate
Pope,
unconscious, being hauled onboard with boathooks and laid out among the
dead
"like a sack of cement."
Belle could not believe that Theodate was dead and encouraged the crew
to try artifical respiration. After two hours Theodate's
breathing became steady. Although still semiconscious, the crew
wrapped Theodate in a blanket and placed her on the floor beside the
charcoal fire in the captain's cabin.
In Queenstown, for the first few days she roomed with Robert Kay.
She who wrote several letters in which she mentioned Robert,
describing him
as being a source of strength to her and a brave boy who cried for his
mother but once. Belle also wrote to the mother of Richard Preston
Prichard, who had sent several letters to Lusitania
survivors inquiring
of her son's fate.
Contributors:
Jim Kalafus
References:
Hickey, Des and Gus Smith. Seven Days to Disaster.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1981.
Preston, Diana. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy.
Berkeley Books, 2002.
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