Name
Lifeboat from Titanic
Lifeboat to Carpathia
Confidence Level
Buss, Miss Kate 9 9 5.00

 


From On Board RMS Titanic, page 220, letter written on the Carpathia:
    “We just rowed out beyond the suction of the Titanic, and then the men rested on their oars while we watched her sink. Soon the tide came in, and we drifted for hours near the Gulf Stream. We heard sometimes shouts and sometimes singing from the other boats, but they had no lights, half of them, neither had we, but we lighted matches and reserved the torch possessed by someone, with about half-an-hour’s store of light, until we could sight a ship. We had no compass either, and it was some time before they could find a rudder, yet ours was the most comfortable experience. We had no water in the boat, we only had 35 passengers, and when we were lowered in the water, a distance of 75 to 90 feet, we touched it almost without a splash, unless indeed I was past all feeling. There are so many accounts that one wonders if they can depend upon themselves. One woman, a Frenchwoman, made a good deal of noise. I shouted out once for silence myself, because the poor seamen got worried. They have reported the women as being far braver than the men, and I think they were. One big fellow, near me, fidgeted a sailor so, that he said to me, “He hasn't been on the water ten minutes, and is worrying like a baby.” I lent my rug to a little girl, as she had no skirt on. The seaman lent me his coat, and I returned it just before I climbed the ladder. After an hour or two I found my own rug on the back of this said man, so I claimed it, and kept it until the night before I landed; then, as the steamer rugs seemed to be used by all sorts, I lent it to the poor fellow who was knocked about so on the raft. During the night they carried him to a first-class cabin given up by a gentleman to him. He said he saw the rug there, but when I went for it, it had gone, so I had to do without it. I saved my little bag (not a farthing in cash) with my bank book and papers, needlework, etc.”

Her mention of 35 passengers, 75 to 90 feet to be lowered, and the Frenchwoman (
Leontine Aubart) points to lifeboat #9.

A letter written to Miss Buss, then Mrs Willis, identified the man who loaned her the coat as Steward Joseph Chapman, who we also think was in #9.