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Thank you so much for visiting me at kickassbaker! I'm Kim. I'm a working mom and home baker who's constantly in search of a life in balance. Sharing easy and approachable baking recipes and tips for busy families like my own. Thanks for joining me on my journey called everyday life!
I broke a reading slump by reading something different from my normal fare: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson, which is a nonfiction book about the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
A K ABI chose to write about these two women because they express different types of kickass-ness, and because I love the fact that this friendship between women was literally lifesaving. Theodate was rich and privileged and kickass as a feminist trailblazer in the public sphere. Belle Naish was a privileged but otherwise ordinary person who behaved extraordinarily during and after a harrowing situation and followed the sinking with a quiet life of philanthropy and service.
The Lusitania was a British ship that had already crossed the Atlantic safely 201 times when she was sunk by a German U-boat while en route from New York City to Liverpool. She was sunk off the Irish coast in 1915, directly causing 1,198 deaths. While often paired in the public mind with the Titanic sinking, there were some key differences:
Theodate designed Hill-Stead, a stately home in Connecticut, as a home for her parents and their extensive art collection. Hill-Stead was intended to become a full-time museum, and it remains in operation today. She also became interested in Spiritualism, as were many progressive intellectuals of the time. Theodate was an intellectual leader, socializing with author Edith Wharton, artist Mary Cassatt, author Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, and many other intellectuals and artists of the day. Her dream was to design a school for boys that would implement progressive ideas about education in a beautiful setting.
Theodate suffered from depression all her life and found that she could sometimes relieve especially acute bouts of it by traveling. At the age of 48, she set sail on the Lusitania accompanied by her maid, Emily Robinson, and her friend, Edwin W. Friend, a fellow spiritualist whose pregnant wife had chosen to stay home. They hoped to win English support for a new American spiritualist society.
When the Lusitania sank, Theodate, Edwin, and Emily jumped into the water together but were immediately separated. Theodate lost consciousness but was wearing a life belt. She was pulled onto a rescue boat and taken for dead until a woman she had befriended on the journey, Belle Naish, saw her and thought she saw a sign of life. She begged sailors to try to revive her and after two hours of effort Theodate regained consciousness. Edwin and Emily did not survive.
They befriended Theodate, Edwin, and Emily on the ship. Theodore Naish had been born in Britain, and the couple were taking a belated honeymoon. Like most people on the Lusitania, including Theodate Pope, they were worried about German submarines, but were reassured by the fact that the ship was said to be faster than a U-boat and they assumed, along with most passengers, that the British would send a convoy to protect the ship when it got close to Britain.
Belle was picked up by the ship Julia, a trawler which was picking up as many bodies, living and dead, as it could and ferrying them to shore. The crew saw Theodate floating, unconscious, and believed she was dead. They pulled her onto the deck with a boat hook and left her there with the other bodies while they continued searching for others. While looking for her husband, Belle found Theodate and refused to believe that she was dead. She insisted that the sailors cut off her wet clothes, wrap her in a blanket, and massage her vigorously for two hours before she regained partial consciousness. It took another two hours in front of a fire for her to fully regain consciousness.
The next weeks were chaotic as the small town where the survivors were taken struggled to care for the survivors and tend to the dead. Seven-year old Robert Kay was separated from his mother in the water (she did not survive). He had the measles, and Belle took him under her wing for many days until he could be reunited with a grandparent. She also wrote to families who were asking for news, trying to help connect them with their loved ones.
The small town in Ireland where the Lusitania passengers, both dead and alive, were taken is called Cobh (pr. Cove). It is a port town in Co. Cork, and was known as Queenstown at the time of the Lusitania sinking. It was also the last port of call for the Titanic on her final trip across the Atlantic. There are monuments to both ships in Cobh. The building where the Lusitania victims were laid out for identification is now the public library. Despite all the tragedy associated with Cobh, it is my favorite place in Ireland.
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