Don Manuel Uruchurtu
Carolyn
I lost the original thread that was asking about this Mexican passenger, but I
did recall I had corresponded with another friend who liked the musical (coming
up from Mexico City for it, in fact) and this Mexican passenger came up. I
can't verrify it all, of course, but Horacio seems pretty truthful. It seems
the Uruchurtus were indeed a prominent family.
"So...Who was Don Manuel Uruchurtu?
Let me tell you:
Don Manuel was born in 1872 in Hermosillo, state of
Sonora, Mexico. He was born with, as you americans say, with a silver spoon.
His family was already one of the most influential households in Mexico. He
came to Mexico City to study law in what today is the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM, my alma mater) and married with a fellow student
and stayed here to settle a practice. By the time of the Porfiriato
(Porfirio Diaz was a president who decided he liked so much the job that he
stayen in it for 30 years), Don Manuel was a very reconized figure of the
national cultural and political scene. When the revolution started (1910) Don
Manuel was in a less than favorable personal situation since his financial
status immediately put him amongst the "catrines", i.e. wealthy people with
very well defined alliances with the former stablishment. In 1911, Don
Porfirio Diaz was exhiled to France along many other former government
officials on board the German liner Ypiranga (more funny stuff about this ship
later). In late 1911 or early 1912, Don Manuel, now a man of 40 years of age
decided to go to France and visit his former friend General Ramon Corral
who was a very distiguished military strategist to Don Profirio with
strong friedship bonds with the Uruchurtus. Don Manuel after interviewing
himself with Don Ramon and probably also with Don Porfirio himself, decided
that it was time to go home to his wife (in a very mexican fashion she stayed
home to take care of domestic minutia). A friend of his bought for him a
ticket on the newest of the White Star's floating palaces: The Titanic....
Legend says as a farewell gift, some mexican friends now in exhile, offered
him a party that lasted all night long on april 9-10th. Don Manuel overslept
and was afraid he would miss the ship at Cherbourgh. But he made the ride
from Paris to Cherbourgh anyway. As it turns out, MGY was delayed at
Southampton because of the New York incident and was herself delayed, so Mr.
Uruchurtu would not miss his ship.
I know very little of whatever activities Mr. Uruchurtu
did while onboard, but being a very well read fellow it is very easy to see
him reading on a deck chair or in the library and engaged in small talk
with some of the latinamerican passengers onboard like the
Artagaveytias... I don't know, but I would really love to!
The night of the sinking, Don Manuel was already seated
on lifeboat 11, when a sudden rush of 2nd. and 3rd. class passengers arrived
through the second class stairs. Among these passengers was Ms. Elizabeth
Ramell (Nye) and Mrs. Leah and Master Frank Aks (a little baby at the time).
What follows is only speculation, but kind of fits the facts..
Ms. Ramell approached lifeboat No. 11 and somehow got a hold of little Frank
Aks. When Mr. Uruchurtu saw this promptly stood up and gave up his seat to
Ms. Ramell. (The Uruchurtu family relates that Don Manuel gave his seat to a
woman and her little son, the woman is identified by them as Ms. Ramell,
since she visited the family here in Mexico and told them about what Don
Manuel did for her). We now know that Ms. Ramell traveled alone sharing a
secon class cabin with a maid to the Allison Family (yes those Allisons!!,
small world!!). Mrs. Aks got away in lifeboat 13 and was later reunited with
her son in New York.
Don Manuel disappeared from the scene and died in the sinking. His body was
never recovered, so I suppose that he went back into the ship, probably to
the smoking room or somewhere else deep inside the ship and went down with
her.
That is as much as I know about Don Manuel Uruchurtu...
Anyway, I hope that this information is of some help for
you to get acquainted with some of the lesser known stories that
occured on that fateful night of april in 1912.
Sincerely
Horacio Cazarin Ruiz Amargado :)"
Like I said, I can't verify it beyond the fact that Don Manuel was aboard in
first class and did not survive. I've asked Horacio to verify as much as
possible and send it to Phillip Hind for his website, but I don't know if he
has.
Carolyn
Who already has her seat for March 28 at the Lunt-Fontanne
"Shredding the instructions for the shredder. Talk about your mindblowing
irony.....Dare I?......Look at it go!....Now where the hell is that speed
control??"
- Jimmy James, 'Newsradio'
Tytanyck
and he has also shared this great information with me.
Horacio is working on creating a web site dedicated to our country fellow man:
Mr Manuel E. Uruchurtu.
If anybody else has some information about him please post in this thread.
Eduardo in - unseasonable warm- Denver.
amar...@my-dejanews.com
Well, first I would like to thank Carolyn's kind words about me, everybody
here at the con-artists ward seem to regard me as a truthful guy. :)
But seriously, I am yet to get in touch with Phillip Hind about my research on
Don Manuel mostly because it is still full of gaps ( I still don't know what
stateroom he was in, for example ). Most of my current theroies about Don
Manuel's final moments aboard MGY are pure speculation and I am currently
trying very hard to find any shred of evidence to corroborate them.
I have also been very fortunate to stay in contact with very knowledgeable
people on this NG, including you two guys, in regard to this issue and I
greatly appreciate all the help and encouragement I have received so far from
you all.
So that's how things are at the moment, so to whomever is interested, I'll be
posting the URL of my site for you to visit and tear it to pieces <g>.
Horacio Cazarin Ruiz
amargado :) <--- who is terribly envious of you for having tix for Titanic's
final sailing from the Lunt-Fontanne... I will be here in sunny Mexico
submitting a paper on G. R. that very day... :(
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sdavmor
of a handful of usenet groups I still subscribe to. Every once in a
while a post like this comes along that makes hanging around worthwhile.
--
SDM a 21st century schizoid man in SoCal
Systems Theory website www.systemstheory.net
Through The Looking Glass radio show at www.deepnuggets.com