Marie Grice Young

Marie Grice Young
Born(1876-01-05)January 5, 1876
DiedJuly 27, 1959(1959-07-27) (aged 83)
New York City, US
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPiano teacher
Known forSurvivor of Titanic

Marie Grice Young (January 5, 1876 – July 27, 1959) was an American woman who survived the sinking of RMS Titanic.

Early life

Marie Grice Young was born on January 5, 1876, the daughter of Samuel Grice Young and Margaret Brown (Wilson) Young.[1][2] She belonged to a political upper-class family in Washington, and was the niece-in-law of Alexander Robey Shepherd, who had married her aunt, Mary Grice Young.[3] The Young Family was originally from Virginia.[4][5]

Music and the Roosevelt family

In 1897 she studied music under John Porter Lawrence.[6] In 1904 she toured with a musical reading, "Enoch Arden", Young at the piano and Helen Weil reading the poem.[7] The Young family was very involved in music. Young's brother, Wilson Young, was himself involved as his wife was a known soprano in New York, and his daughter Hildreth Young also eventually became a singer.[2][8] Young herself also sang as soprano occasionally at their local St. Matthew's Catholic Church.[9]

In the middle of the decade of the 1900s, Young was a piano teacher who numbered among her pupils Ethel Roosevelt, Archibald Roosevelt, and Quentin Roosevelt, the children of President Theodore Roosevelt.[5][10][11][12][13] Her extensive involvement with the Roosevelt family allowed her in 1907 to provide information regarding management of their household.[14] She remained in the Washington, D.C. area until around 1911.[15]

Titanic

For a long time she shared her house with Ella Holmes White;[10][16] already in 1911 there are reports of the two of them travelling together by car in France.[17] Young was a close personal friend of Thomas Nelson Page and his wife, Florence Lathrop Field.[1]

Marie Grice Young boarded the Titanic on April 10, 1912 at Cherbourg with White, traveling in first class.[18] They also brought along some exotic French-bred chickens, intending to keep them at their New York country home.[19] She was the last woman passenger from first class to leave the Titanic.[20] She was covered by The Washington Post as one of the several women in the lifeboats that took charge to ensure more lives were saved by taking passengers from the waters into the lifeboats.[21]

Historian Jonathan Ned Katz suggested that she was intimately related to her travel partner, 20-year older Ella Holmes White, making her an LGBT passenger aboard Titanic.[22]

Death

When White died in 1942, she was living at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan with Young. White's will bequeathed to Young "personal effects and life estate in a trust to yield $250 per month for life" ($4,662 in 2023 dollars).[23] Young died on July 27, 1959.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "The Misses Young Safe – 17 Apr 1912, Wed • Page 8". Evening Star: 8. 1912. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b "16 Aug 1908, Sun • Page 14". The Washington Herald: 14. 1908. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  3. ^ "25 Jun 1905, Sun • Page 7". The Baltimore Sun: 7. 1905. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  4. ^ Hinman, Ida (1895). The Washington sketch book; a society souvenir. Hartman & Cadick, printers. p. 113 (supplement). Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Return of the President's Family Revives Interest – 29 Sep 1903, Tue • Page 6". The Baltimore Sun: 6. 1903. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  6. ^ "Mr. Lawrence's Pupils – 26 May 1897, Wed • Page 13". Evening Star: 13. 1897. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  7. ^ "New Musical Reading of "Enoch Arden" – 26 Jan 1904, Tue • Page 5". The Washington Times: 5. 1904. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  8. ^ "23 Aug 1908, Sun • Page 38". Evening Star: 38. 1908. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  9. ^ "24 Dec 1904, Sat • Page 28". Evening Star: 28. 1904. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  10. ^ a b c "MISS MARIE YOUNG DIES - Wednesday 29th July 1959". New York Times. 1959. Archived from the original on 9 August 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  11. ^ "14 Apr 1907, Sun • Page 23". Evening Star: 23. 1907. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  12. ^ "11 Feb 1906, Sun • Page 9". Evening Star: 9. 1906. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  13. ^ "22 May 1904, Sun • Page 4". The Scranton Republican: 4. 1904. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  14. ^ West, Monticello (1907). Splendid Misery: Domestic Life in the White House. Lulu.com. p. 6. ISBN 9781312245365. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  15. ^ Zottoli, Maureen (2016-06-23). The R.M.S. Titanic and Washington,: One Hundred Years: 1912 to 2012 – People, Government Process and Precedent, Investigations, and Locations. AuthorHouse. ISBN 9781524624200.
  16. ^ "17 Aug 1916, Thu • Page 5". The Washington Post. 1916. p. 5. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  17. ^ The New York Herald, 1911
  18. ^ "Death Notice of Sante Reghini – Saturday 4th May 1912". New York Times. 1912. Archived from the original on 2018-01-07. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  19. ^ Geller, Judith B. (1998). Titanic: women and children first. Patrick Stephens. p. 104. ISBN 9781852605940. Archived from the original on 9 August 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  20. ^ "She Saw Maj. Butt with Col. Astor Go Down to Death – 19 Apr 1912, Fri • Page 13". The Evening World: 13. 1912. Archived from the original on 9 August 2024. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  21. ^ "Lives Saved by Woman's Insistence – 21 Apr 1912, Sun • Page 12". The Washington Post. 1912. p. 12. Archived from the original on 9 January 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  22. ^ White, Barrett (2015). "103 years later, OutSmart dives into the lives of LGBT passengers aboard the Titanic". OutSmart Houston's LGBTQ Magazine. Archived from the original on 9 January 2018. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  23. ^ "Wills for Probate (1) – Friday 6th February 1942". Encyclopedia Titanica. 1942. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2017.