Gunnar Isidor Tenglin

Gunnar Isidor Tenglin was a young Swedish immigrant aboard Titanic. He was born on 2 March 1887, in Stockholm. His parents were lda Carolina Blom and Gustav Valfrid Tenglin.

Gunnar migrated to America in 1903, and lived in a large Swedish community in Shoquoquon, Iowa.

In 1908 he returned to Stockholm, as he had promised his mother. He married Anna Amelia Anderson on 6 April 1910, in Stockholm.  In 1911 they had a son also called Gunnar.

## Voyage

**In April 1912**, Burlington, Iowa-bound Swedish immigrant Gunnar Tenglin attempted to book passage on the transatlantic liner *SS Saint Paul*. He was returning to Burlington in Iowa from Sweden to start a new life. Thanks to a coal strike, the young farmer ended up on the *Titanic*, his family (including his wife and young son back in Sweden) none the wiser. At first, the 25-year-old viewed the switch as a lucky break: The *Titanic*’s “food was wonderful,” and its bars “stayed open until 2 or 3 a.m.,” he later said.

Tenglin and another young Swede, journalist August Wennerström (aka Andersson), and another passenger named Carl Olof Jansson were traveling together and were berthed beneath the starboard bow on G-Deck with the other Third Class single men.

## Emergancy

On the night of April 14, 1912 around 11:40 P.M., Titanic glances an iceberg. Tenglin, just about to prepare to go to bed, feels a “jar,” a “nudge,” a “thud.” Though “it’s not a hard shock,” he gets dressed and ventures topside with Wennerström, leaving his shoes and life belt behind.

About 10 minutes later, Tenglin and Wennerström arrive on C-Deck and find it covered with ice. They ask a passing officer if there’s any danger; he says no and tells them to go back to bed. Instead, they walk aft to investigate.

## April 15

Five minutes past midnight, they find themselves on C-Deck, where various people have gathered and are in a bit of a panic,  Tenglin and his friend keep watching. Meanwhile their bunk is filling with seawater. Around 12:40 A.M. they decide to go back to their place but the water is already way up to E-Deck in the front bow. They continue to go back up and move along Scotland Road, the very long corridor for crew and Third Class. Gunnar enouncters a stewards who asks him to be his translator to help move more foreigners up to get lifebelts and go up deck. Luckily Gunnar learnt English in the United States where had had lived before, many of his compatriots and most other Scandanavian steerage passengers on Titanic couldn’t speak the language. He agrees and follows the crew member. He is not very succesful, sadly.  Shockingly, around 1:10 A.M.,  the steward locked some Third Class passengers up in a saloon, who are drinking, they are believed to have been southern Europeans who didn’t want to listen to come along.

At 1:15 A.M. Now on A Deck with Wennerström and other Swedes, Tenglin can feel that the ship’s sinking. Lifeboats 13 and 15 are both being loaded; he boards one and then the other, but changes his mind every time to go step out and get back to the Boat Deck to make room for women and/or children.

Around 1:40 A.M. Tenglin watches the remaining lifeboats being loaded. At some point, he hears the sound of shots. A short while later, he sees a young third-class woman attempt to toss her baby into a lifeboat passenger’s outstretched arms; she misses and the baby drops into the Atlantic, upon which the mother screams and jumps in after her child.

At 1:50 A.M., lifeboat 4 leaves. He assumes it’s the last lifeboat.

Just around 2:00 A.M. he noticed a group at the front trying to get Collapsible A loose from her fixed position on the roof of the officer’s quarters.  He decides to aid in the preperation.

Less than 10 minutes later, Collapsible A was off the roof and had landed on the Boat Deck. But there was no time. The sea had already reached the bridge since the sinking process was ever speeding up, and suddenly Titanic took a nosedive. Water rushes up the Boat Deck and Collapsible A drifts off before its canvas sides have been pulled up. Tenglin steps in (or clings to the “raft” as it floats away, then pulls himself aboard). Dozens of others do the same, and the Collapsible immediately fills with seawater. Unable to sit, Tenglin and the others are forced to stand for hours in icy ankle-deep water.

Collapsible A is 200 yards away at this time; he hears “people on the decks praying, singing, and yelling” as the ship goes down with all her lights on. (He doesn’t hear the band over the noise.) Titanic disappears completely at 2:20 A.M.

## After the foundering of Titanic

After the ship had submerged, Gunnar sees around 150 people frantically swim around the collapsible, attempting to cling on. Those on the craft’s edges continuously push them away to avoid being swamped. Tenglin hears “a tremendous shrieking and groaning,” a “howling mob, with no sanity left.” Years later, he tells a reporter it sounds “just like the animals at the Chicago stockyards.” He hears “three great explosions,” after which his raft is pushed away from the site by a “10-foot wave.”

**For the next half hour,** Tenglin loses his feeling in his hands or feet. Shoeless feet submerged. (The circulation in his feet will be permanently impaired). Dozens on the collapsible succumb to exposure; as they die, their corpses are thrown overboard and people in the water take their place. Four in the raft — three men and the one woman — go “insane.”

An hour after Titanic’s death, Collapsible A is met by lifeboat 14 manned by Fifth Officer Lowe. They transfer the survivors of Collapsible A since it’s sinking drastically. Interestingly enough, he can’t memorize the transfer.

## Carpathia and arrival in New York

**At 7:15 A.M,** Lifeboat 14 reaches the Carpathia’s side. Tenglin is lifted aboard and given food, blankets and a hot drink; considering his physical state, he is most likely taken to the Third Class Dining Saloon to be examined by Hungarian doctor Árpád Lengyel.

Tenglin and nine other Swedish survivors — including Wennerström — are met by Salvation Army representatives and taken to the Salvation Army Training College, located on West 14th Street. There, Tenglin is temporarily housed and gifted with $10, a suit, an overcoat, other clothes, and a First Class train ticket to Burlington, Iowa. At some point, he also receives $25 from a second relief committee, and “$5 from a man who was giving away money right and left.”

**On April 29,** Tenglin mails the photo postcard that was created in New York to his mother in Stockholm. According to a translation published in Iowa Heritage Illustrated, it reads in part, “Here you’ll see a couple of Swedes who were saved from the Titanic.” It is a good thing that he also sent a telegraph to his relatives, because he was pressumed dead by them. But that was all a misunderstanding.

His name was spelled wrong by many passengerlists. Examples are: Tongling, Tongdin and Tonglitz.

## Strange stories

Gunnar Isidor Tenglin has stated he saw some strange stuff,  but it’s questionable if this actually happened.

·        On April 13, he had seen Captain Smith telling some crew off when those were snooping around and lounging in some third class quarters. He threatened a 5 pound fine if he ever saw them do that again. Keep out, and don’t hang with the passengers is what he must have said to them.

·        He sees three lifeboats tip while being lowered, dropping people into the sea; subsequent boats are lowered on top of the struggling swimmers.

·        He saw a tragic scene unfold before his very eyes, something he hasn’t forgotten about throughout his life, because of the horror. He sees a young Third Class woman attempt to toss her baby into a lifeboat passenger’s outstretched arms; she misses and the baby drops into the Atlantic, upon which the mother screams and jumps in after her child.

## Quotes:

> “The lifeboats all gone, it looked to us as if we were doomed to perish with the ship.”  (About his situation around 1:50 A.M. when lifeboat 4 leaves).
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> "It was a terrible experience and when I look back at it, I can scarcely believe my good luck in getting away, There were so many chances against me.”  (Interviewed by the local newspaper after arriving in Burlington in the evening)
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> “The ocean was carpeted with dead. There were corpses floating everywhere.”  (Same interview)
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## Further life

Tenglin lived in Burlington from his arrival just after the Titanic disaster until his death, except for a one-year period in the 1920s when he and his wife and son lived in Florida. A farmer when he left Sweden, Gunnar Tenglin ultimately became a millwright at J.I. Case in 1937; he retired from that job after working there for more than 20 years, in 1959.

He became widowed when his wife Anna Amelia Tenglin died on March 11, 1968.

Gunnar died on 6 February 1974, in Burlington, Des Moines, Iowa, United States, at the age of 86, and was buried in Aspen Grove Cemetery, Burlington, Des Moines, Iowa, United States.

## **Iowans on the Titanic**

Historian David Wendell told Patch.com in a 2012 interview that 17 people from Iowa or who listed Iowa as their final destination were aboard the Titanic on his final voyage. Only two of the 17 survived, Wendell said. One was Mahala Douglas, wife of Cedar Rapids businessman Walter Douglas. The other was Gunnar Tenglin.