Celiney Decker's Letter to Walter Lord

I was a bride of 50 days. My husband and I were on our way to America to make it our home. He had been to America before where he had a business.

When I first realized that something was wrong, it was 11 o'clock at night and I was fast asleep. Suddenly, I heard a tremendous noise and immediately knew the ship had been hit hard. It almost threw me off the bed. The motor stopped at once. My husband and I jumped up and ran to see what had happened. We went to the engine room and saw the crew trying to repair parts of the ship. We were still wearing our nightclothes.

We rushed back to our rooms to put on our life preservers and then went up on deck.

Later we returned to our rooms to try to get our clothes, money and jewelry, but we found our room to be flooded with water. We went back on deck and we all started praying. We thought we could never be saved.

All the lifeboats were being lowered. There were only 14 lifeboats. My husband and I headed for the lifeboats. He put me on and as he tried to join me, two policeman grab[bed] him as they wanted to save all the women and children first. I began yelling and crying as I wanted to join him on the sinking ship. The boat was paddled away from the Titanic so fast that I couldn't jump off to be with my husband.

We were about five minutes away from the ship, but we could still see it as the lights stayed on until the Titanic sank. The people on the Titanic were yelling and crying as it was slowly sinking.

When the ship sank it made a tremendous noise that I will never forget. The impact of the sinking was so great, it shook the waters and we thought our lifeboat would sink too. Everyone screamed.

After the sinking, which was right at midnight, we were without any lights.

As our boat was being paddled in the dark, everyone prayed.

I had fainted and I was very depressed. There were 14 people aboard our lifeboat.

The next morning we saw a big ship. We were all taken aboard one by one with a rope and a board. On this ship, I met my sister who was also on the Titanic and had been put on one of the other lifeboats. We were given hot tea, blankets and clothes.

After four days, we arrived in New York. I was ill and was taken to the hospital where I stayed for a week. After a week, I was united with my father.

Curator's note: This transcription is an excerpt from the full letter that is preserved in the archive of the collections of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This transcription has been lightly edited for readability. Line breaks, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization have been adjusted to conform to modern conventions. These changes have been made solely to enhance clarity, and the original intent, tone, and content of the letter have been carefully preserved.