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Polly (Harelkin) Verigin: Recalling the Titanic
by
Gary Lewchuk
Polly
(Harelkin) Verigin was eight years old when the ship she was on passed
within a dozen miles of the sinking Titanic. Reproduced from the pages
of The Canora Courier newspaper (Canora, Saskatchewan: March 4,
1998) and ISKRA No.1850 (Grand Forks: U.S.C.C., March 25, 1998), the following
article by Gary Lewchuk recounts one Doukhobor family's historic connection
to the infamous "Californian Incident".
As
the movie Titanic rekindles interest in an 86 year old story, Polly
Verigin of the Canora Gateway Lodge recalls the actual scene. She was just
eight years old when her family immigrated from Russia and they were aboard
the SS Californian, the ship which became famous because its captain refused
to believe the SS Titanic was in trouble. Due to heavy ice flow, the Californian
had stopped for the night and was an estimated 12 to 14 miles from the
Titanic.
Verigin
recalls running around and playing on the deck when the crew spotted flares
on the horizon. Her father hoisted her up to his shoulder so that she could
have a better view. The captain had to be awakened to be informed of the
Titanic's plight, but he refused to believe it, saying the Titanic was
unsinkable. He surmised that instead of emergency flares (rockets) those
were fireworks and a celebration of the maiden voyage.
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| Sinking
at the bow, the Titanic fired distress rockets in a vain attempt for help. |
Historical
accounts show that the Titanic hit an iceberg at about 11:40 p.m. on April
14, 1912. Before it sank at 2:20 a.m., more than 700 passengers and crew
members escaped on life boats, but 1,522 souls met their fate in the frigid
water. At 3:30 a.m., the RMS Carpathia arrived at the scene to answer the
SOS distress call and managed to rescue the 705 survivors from lifeboats.
It
wasn't until the early morning that the SS Californian realized that the
Titanic had indeed sunk and it steered towards the disaster site. At about
8:30 a.m., when the Carpathia was pulling in the last life boat, the Californian
steamed through the floating wreckage to check for survivors. None were
found.
That
was a story retold many times during Verigin's life, said her daughter,
Irene Stenko of Kelowna, B.C. When she celebrated her 94th birthday on
February 18, 1998, it seemed fitting to tell the story again, especially
with the amount of interest rekindled by the movie. Verigin's actual birthday
is on February 23. Actually her mother should have arrived in North America
a full month before the Titanic disaster, but her family was delayed in
Liverpool, England. Her parents, Alex and Mary Harelkin were immigrating
from Russia with their four children when they were stopped in Liverpool.
A pimple was observed on her sibling's face and the immediate fear was
that it was the dreaded small pox. The Doukhobor family was kept in quarantine
for one month before it was established that small pox was not present.
In the meantime, all their luggage and personal belongings remained aboard
the ship and were never recovered.
When
her family eventually arrived in Canada, they travelled to Yorkton, Saskatchewan
where they were met by Verigin's uncle. He had immigrated to Canada earlier
and they lived with him for a short period before buying a house in Canora.
Her father worked for the railroad. In 1925, Polly Harelkin married Nick
Verigin and they farmed in the Buchanan area. In the mid 1980's they moved
to Buchanan and after he died, she continued to live in her home and then
in a senior's housing unit until 1996 when she moved to the Gateway Lodge.
Verigin has three daughters, Irene Stenko, Pauline Riddy of Naniamo and
Verna Jolley of Sigamoore, B.C.; six grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.
More
About the S.S. Titanic
The
Titanic was destined to be the pride of the White Star Line which was owned
by an American company, but it still flew the Union Jack and carried a
British crew. It is regarded as the last grand dream of the Gilded Age.
It was designed to be the greatest achievement of an era of prosperity,
confidence and propriety in a society of classes.
The
Titanic was 883 feet long (1/6 of a mile), 92 feet wide and weighed 46,328
tons. She was 104 feet tall from keel to bridge, almost 35 feet of which
were below the waterline...even so, she stood taller above the water than
most urban buildings of the time. There were three real smokestacks; a
fourth, dummy stack was added largely to increase the impression of her
gargantuan size and power and to vent smoke from her numerous kitchens
and galleys. She was the largest moveable object ever made by man. Her
accommodations were the most modern and luxurious on any ocean, and included
electric light and heat in every room, electric elevators, a swimming pool,
a squash court (considered terribly modern), a Turkish Bath, a gymnasium
with a mechanical horse and mechanical camel to keep riders fit, staterooms,
and first class facilities which rivaled the best hotels of the time. The
final construction cost was estimated at $75,000,000.00.
On
its maiden voyage, it set sail on April 10, 1912 en route to New York.
After receiving passengers all along the European coast, the SS Titanic
left Queenstown, Ireland on April 11. It covered about 900 miles of the
transatlantic crossing when it received various ice warnings. Ice flow
was uncommon for that time of year, but the unseasonably warm winter allowed
unprecedented amounts of ice to break loose from the arctic regions.
The
Titanic was cruising at 20.5 knots when it struck an iceberg, towering
at about 60 feet above the water.
The
original design called for 32 lifeboats. However, White Star management
felt that the boat deck would look cluttered, and reduced the number to
20, for a total lifeboat capacity of 1,178. This actually exceeded the
regulations of the time, even though Titanic was capable of carrying more
than 3,500 people (passengers and crew). Many of the lifeboats were set
on to the water filled with less than half the number of passengers each
was capable of holding.
Numerous
expeditions were held to find the wreckage, but it took 73 years. On September
1, 1985, a French American scientific expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard
finally discovered and photographed the remains of the Titanic at a depth
of 12, 460 feet on the ocean floor.
More
About the SS Californian
At
10:20 p.m. on Sunday April 14, 1912, the Leyland Liner Californian, a cargo
ship westbound from England to Boston, stopped at the eastern edge of an
impenetrable ice field. Around 11:00 p.m., her Captain and Third Officer
observed a light approaching from the east. Third Officer Groves thought
she was a passenger liner; Captain Lord thought she was a small tramp steamer,
somewhat like the Californian. Captain Lord went below; he later said he
had seen her green starboard light while he was on deck. At 11:40 Groves
thought he saw the other ship put her lights out and stop for the night;
by now saw her red port light, and the ship seemed to be stopped, pointing
north toward him.
At
midnight, the watch changed, and Second Officer Stone and Apprentice Gibson
took over from Groves. While Gibson went below decks on an errand, at 12:45
a.m., Stone saw a flash of light over the steamer, and as he watched he
observed several more - white lights in the sky, like rockets. Stone notified
Captain Lord. Gibson returned to the bridge and saw three more rockets
himself - which like all the others burst into stars. He too notified Captain
Lord. However, Lord neither aroused the wireless operator, nor came out
on deck to see for himself. Finally, soon after 2 a.m. the other ship seemed
to disappear, and at 2:40, Stone notified Lord one last time. When Stone
went off duty at 4 a.m., he informed his relief, Chief Officer Stewart,
about the rockets as well.
At
4:30 a.m., Captain Lord came back onto the bridge. Stewart repeated Stone's
story about the rockets to Lord. "Yes, I know, he has been telling me,"
Lord answered. At 6:00 they received a wireless message from the Frankfurt,
and then the Virginian, "Do you know the Titanic has struck a berg, and
she is sinking?" Captain Lord started his engines and headed for the last
known position of the Titanic. Within twenty-five minutes, Lord radioed
to the Virginian that they were close enough see the rescue ship Carpathia
taking on passengers from small boats. About this time, Stewart woke up
Third Officer Groves with the announcement, "The Titanic has sunk, and
the passengers are all in lifeboats in the water ahead of us." At
6:50 am Third Officer Groves arrived on the bridge and noticed that the
Carpathia and the lifeboats were due east - it had taken them less than
an hour to arrive at the same latitude as the lifeboats. When they finally
arrived alongside the Carpathia, the last of the survivors from the Titanic
were just being taken aboard.
When
the Californian resumed her course for Boston, her log for that day omitted
any mention of the rockets seen during the night; nevertheless, Lord privately
asked Stone and Gibson to write up separate affidavits describing what
they had seen and reported to him. In the end, however, he did not share
these accounts with the subsequent investigations. He also prepared a series
of charts and maps illustrating what he had done and where his ship purportedly
had been. Asked in London why he did this, he answered, "I knew at once
there would be an inquiry over this."
After
the Californian arrived in Boston, the ship's carpenter, James McGregor,
told the story of how the rockets had been seen to an obscure newspaper
in Clinton, Massachusetts. In response to rumors about the rockets, Captain
Lord told reporters in Boston that his ship had been 20 miles away and
that the location was a "state secret." Over the next few days he denied
that anyone on his ship had seen rockets, denied that he had asked his
Second Officer for a private report, and went so far as to say that Stewart
(not Stone) had been on watch at the time. Stone also denied having written
a report, even though the document he had signed was by now in Lord's possession.
On
the same day, Californian crewman Ernest Gill swore to an affidavit for
a Boston newspaper, that he too had seen rockets, and his story caused
a sensation. In due time, Lord was summoned first to Washington DC for
the US Inquiry into the Titanic disaster, where he conceded that he had
been told of one rocket. Three weeks later, in London, he and all of his
officers were summoned, where it came out that eight rockets had been seen
and reported to him, three times. He agreed that "it might have been" distress
signals that were seen, and he had remained in the chartroom. Both Inquiries
found him to have been within sight of the sinking Titanic and declared
that he had not responded properly to signals of distress.
Although
he lost his job with the Californian, Lord soon found work with another
shipping line, and life continued for him.
In
the 1950s, with the publication of the book and movie A Night to Remember,
which re-told the story of the Californian's proximity to the Titanic,
Lord enlisted the services of Leslie Harrison, General Secretary of the
Mercantile Marine Service Association, to help him clear his name of the
1912 charges. For more than thirty years Leslie Harrison wrote petitions,
articles, books and pamphlets with an eye to convince the British government
to re-examine the 1912 findings on the "Californian Incident." In 1992,
after thirty years of petitioning and seven years after the wreck of the
Titanic was discovered, the British government formally conducted an investigation
into the Californian's involvement in the Titanic disaster.
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