Lutie Parrish

Lutie Parrish was a Second Class passenger on *Titanic*.  She was not at all satisfied with the service in her part of the ship, like her daughter, who traveled with her.

## Biography

Lucinda Davis Parrish was born on 16 July 1852, in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. Her father was William Temple, and her mother was Margaret Eliot. Mrs Samuel Edward Parrish (Lucinda Davis Temple), 60, was born in Lexington, Kentucky on 16 July 1852 the daughter of William Temple and Margaret Eliot

Samual Edward Parrish became her husband on 24 May 1870, after marrying in their home town.

On 2 July 1886, in Lexington, Kentucky, their daughter Imanita was born. She had a brother, that was adopted. When Imanita got older, she and her mother would travel frequently over the world.

## *Titanic*

At the early months of 1912, Lucinda and her family had moved to Deer Lodge in Montana. Lutie and Imanita were in England in February. They made plans to return to the USA, and took voyage on *Titanic* in Southampton.

She noticed that there were a lot of teething pains on *Titanic*, which made her and her daughter suffer on the voyage. So bad in fact, that the actual disaster had less of an impact on them.

She was 60 years old at the time of voyage, and had been ill and it didn't help that the ship's heaters didn't work.  When arriving at their cabin,  they discovered it was cramped and they couldn't upen their trunkcase, it was ice cold and a third person couldn't enter before they moved onto the berths.

Her daughter was furious and went up and down to the Second Class Pursor's office with complaints and demanded that she and her mother should be transferred to a  better cabin. She saw the pursor at least 11 times. Seven times before arriving at Queenstown, and Imanita was told nothing could be done. When all Imanita got was false promises,  Lutie decided to write an angry letter and that had effect. Four stewards carried Lutie and their luggage to a better, roomier cabin, while 'apologising endlessly' according to Lutie. However it was still too cold in there, and the furniture seemed half-finished.

The problem was that only 3 cabins could be heated in the whole of Second Class. Other passengers had complained because the heat was too intense,  so they had decided to turn it off entirely.

Lutie felt like the Second Cabin accomodations on the Cunard Line vessels were a lot better, especially in terms of having nice furniture.

The waiters didn't have serve trays in the Second Class Dining Saloon. They had to carry food bowl after bowl and passengers had to wait endlessly, to be served cold dishes.  Another annoyance was that the lavatories weren't installed completely. Many were waiting in crates on the hallway.

To her it looked like nothing was organised and that she had paid for the best Second Class voyage but got the worst service imaginable.

## Disaster

On the evening of the 14 April the temperature had dropped by a lot. The shock as well as the engines being turned off, woke them up. Voices were heard by them from the hallway, and they overheard someone saying that they had run into an iceberg. They called for a steward. The ladies were told that everything was okay and they should go back to bed. Another steward came down the passage shouting "All on deck with lifebelts on." He brought two lifebelts for Mrs Parrish and Mrs Shelley and showed them how to tie them on. Then he said they should go up to the Boat Deck. They made it to lifeboat 12, and she and her daughter were thrown in. A passenger from a presumed Italian or mediterranean nationality leaped into the boat and landed on her, which caused her a lot of pain.

## Later life

She had to recover from her injuries she sustained when boarding lifeboat 12. For many years, she and Imanita did lots of more traveling, going across the whole of America but also visiting Asia. Often, their adventures didn't include their husbands. They settled in Hawaii in the 1920s and Imanita remarried at some point.

Lucinda passed away in Hawaii in 1930 on the 7th of August, after suffering for a week from a cerebral hemorrhage. She was buried in the Oahu Cemetery in Honolulu.

## Sources

1. 'De Titanic, de ware verhalen' ©2012 *Edward P. De Groot*