2014 Ella Dickey Literacy Award Winner for A Rare Titanic Family
From Betsi Yvette via Facebook:
"I finished reading A Rare Titanic Family. It’s an absolute treasure, so moving that I cried in the end.❤️ Thank you, Julie Hedgepeth Williams!"
Click the radio to hear the terrific podcast about the Caldwells on the Titanic:
All
New!
Little Newspapers on the Prairie: The Frontier Press Career
of Carrie Ingalls
Julie Hedgepeth Williams,
author and speaker
Click the cover of my new booklet, Little Newspapers on the Prairie, to find out about Carrie Ingalls' career in the press.
The cover of A Rare Titanic Family is a photograph of the Caldwell family on the deck of the Titanic on sailing day. My family found the rare photo among Albert's papers when he died in 1977.
Click on the cover above to go to my web page about A Rare Titanic Family. There you'll find lots of family pictures.
*Meanwhile, click here for Exploring History's excellent presentation of an interview of Albert Caldwell done in 1976.
My Own Rare Titanic Family
Winner of the 2014 Ella Dickey Literacy Award for books that preserve history
Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were a pair of idealistic young missionaries whose world went sour. Assigned to Siam, the two soon found that their overbearing boss was a slavedriver, reusing to allow them to leave, even though the doctor said Sylvia would surely lose her mind if she stayed in the tropics much longer.
The Caldwells finally managed to get permission to leave Siam in 1912, but as soon as they had left with their baby son, Alden, the boss changed his mind, and his agents were trailing the Caldwells around the world, ready to get back the money the church had spent on getting them home to the Midwest.
The Caldwells ultimately chose the Titanic to get home. It was a fairy tale voyage... at first. Albert, who was my great-uncle, went around the ship, taking pictures. He photographed stokers shoveling coal into the furnaces... and then had an idea. He wanted a 1912 version of a selfie. He asked the stokers to take his picture shoveling coal. He and a stoker exchanged shovel, camera, and, most importantly, names. That exchange ultimately saved his life.
On April 14, Sylvia felt the ship hit the iceberg and the family obediently got out of bed, but the Caldwells didn't believe the boat could sink. Finally, however, a group of stokers appeared on the deck where they were waiting. One of them recognized Albert from the day of the photograph. The stoker called my great-uncle by name, and said, "Mr. Caldwell, if you value your life, get off this ship. I've been below, and the hold is filling up with water, and this ship WILL go down."
Now convinced, the Caldwells got off on Lifeboat 13, where the hazards threatening them were just beginning.
I loved hearing Albert tell me the story of the Titanic over and over again when I was young. A Rare Titanic Family is rich with his first-person recollections that he told anyone who'd listen... and the secrets he never told a soul.
Don't miss the excellent video from Exploring History, with me telling our family's Titanic story. To see it, click here.