A True Survivor

A minister appeared out from under the seat. He must have gotten in before the lifeboat even left the deck. He sat with his chin on his walking stick moaning about all the years of sermons he had lost. One woman all but turned and flew at him - "If you can give me my husband and son back I'll pay for your sermons.
We were near the stern of the boat and Paddy talked to me a great deal, told me about the stars, etc. but said they had no compass and no rudder in this boat so all we could do was row a little and hope we would see something coming. We had been told before we left the ship that this was all precautionary measures and the Olympic (Titanic's sister ship) would be along shortly to pick us all up. So after a while I saw a light away in the distance and called to Paddy. He answered that it wasn't a ship but one of our own boats who must be lucky to have a light. I wanted to know how he could tell, and he said from the height above the water.
We didn't get aboard the Carpathia until about 9.a.m. There was a rope ladder with a belt. My mother said, "Go on, you can climb that. I went up without the belt." The captain roared down, "Don't let anyone come up without a belt on."
I climbed the rope ladder without a belt. I had always been good at athletics in school and I think that morning I could have even climbed a single rope. But the Captain was very angry. We were all given hot toddy and a blanket, and some slept wherever they found a spot.

At our table on Titanic was a very fine couple, Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Weisz ... He was one who never came home. He had done a beautiful drawing in my autograph album, but alas, that went with all other things. That first day on the Carpathia, she was in a bad way. My good mother must have walked miles with her up and down the decks while the ship stayed around all day Monday hoping to pick more up. Well, Mom finally got her calmed down and got her interested in helping a whole big table full of mothers and children who could not speak English. Madame Weisz could speak seven languages so sat at this table every meal and ordered for these folk. A great tribute should be paid her for her patience and help when her own heart was breaking."
The Irish deckhand, 'Paddy,' who kept Robertha's company on the lifeboat, was probably Mr. James. R. McCough, a deckhand who survived the sinking in Lifeboat 9. His nickname was 'Paddy.' Although the last resided in England, he was probably Irish in heritage due to his Irish-sounding name and nickname. Additionally, the woman who 'all but flew' at the minister was probably Mrs. Jane Herman, due to her emotional status and the fact that she was the only woman in Lifeboat 9 who lost both her husband and her (adopted) son, 14-year old George Sweet. Hot toddy, which Robertha recalls eating on the Carpathia, was a drink consisting of whiskey, brandy, and other liquors mixed with hot water, sugar and spices. Autograph albums, such as the one Robertha mentions, were albums in which many sophisticated young girls in the Victorian and Edwardian eras would collect autographs, poems and pictures from friends and acquaintances.
The sinking, at first, had a great impact on Robertha, who as Elizabeth recalls was still in a bad state of shock on the Carpathia and went off eating for several days. There was so little room on the crowded rescue ship that the Watts had to sleep in the sailor's quarters. Because mother and daughter had lost nearly all their clothing on board the ship, Elizabeth stitched together a crude skirt made out of blankets for Robertha. Makeshift clothing sewn together with scraps was a common sight on board the Carpathia, as teams of both wealthy high-class ladies like Daisy Spedden and hardworking immigrants like Emily Goldsmith worked to replace the clothing their children had lost. (In fact, there is a well-known picture of 3-year old William Rowe Richards wearing a ragged pair of pyjamas sewn from a quilt donated by a Carpathia passenger.)
When the survivors reached New York City, Elizabeth and Robertha were met by Mrs. Watt's brother, Mr. James Milne, who was infuriated at how badly they had been neglected in the lifeboat and later wrote in the Newark Evening News,

​"Their dresses, constructed of blankets, were cut to fit the figure very crudely. Neither of them had shoes on when placed in the lifeboats. The story my sister tells me is outrageous and shows negligence which is worse than criminal."
One of the Watts' roommates, Miss Marion Smith, who was engaged but had lost the address of her fiance on the Titanic, was invited to board with the Wattses until her husband-to-be could be located. The two lovers were soon reunited and married, with Elizabeth Watt as the bridesmade and James Milne giving Marion away. Robertha and her mother kept up a strong relationship with the new Mrs. Marion Woolcott and her husband for the rest of their lives, attending all the births of the Woolcott's sons. Robertha kept up the friendship after her mother's death in 1951.
In 1923, after graduating from college, Robertha married a Canadian dentist, Leslie Marshall, and they moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Robertha soon became an official Canadian citizen. Unlike many survivors, she was not scarred for life after the disaster, but would rather have forgotten the whole thing and gotten on with her life. In fact, completely unafraid of water, she and Leslie often sailed the coastal waters of the Pacific throughout their married life. In 1985, when a reporter attempted to tie her in with the propaganda surrounding the discovery of the Titanic's wreck, she officially shunned publicity and fame in favor of a more quiet family life, responding to them, "I​ don't give a damn."
However, she wrote to Mr. Lord regarding his book A Night to Remember in the 1950's, she was emphatic in her criticism of J. Bruce Ismay, a Titanic passenger who also happened to be a high-ranking member of the White Star Line which had constructed the ship. Ismay's escape, probably in one of the last lifeboats to be lowered (despite what Robertha claims here), remained highly controversial for years, with many branding him a coward and believing he ought to have gone down with the ship. Robertha said:
"How this has been a point of anger to me over the years, it's hard to explain. In one inquiry, Ismay was picked up by the Carpathia a good two to three hours ahead of us. Mr. Ismay was all tucked away in bed in a cabin long before half of us were landed on the Carpathia. Now they try to tell people how brave he was andhow he helped women into boats and only went into the last boat under pressure; well, we never saw him and we knew some of the people in the last boats off and he wasn't there either. So no one will ever whitewash him from me."​

One of Robertha's most treasured possessions would always be a second-class passenger list she had salvaged from the Titanic. "A day or so out, passengers were given booklets with the names of those in the same class," she would recall. "My mother had it in the pocket of her tweed coat. When we were picked up by the Carpathia, the officers borrowed it to radio the names of the second class passengers to New York." Robertha kept the list securely locked in a bank vault.

She died at the age of 93 on March 4, 1993, and faded into obscurity as just another name on the Titanic's passenger list...