Interview with Ruth Becker

Ruth Elizabeth Becker

Second-class passenger

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We took the train from London to Southampton to get on the Titanic. My mother had to see the purser and she said, "You know, I am not one bit happy about going on this ship to New York City." And he said, "Why?" And she said, "Because this is the first trip it's ever made." And she said, "I'm just a little nervous about it." And he says, "Madam, you don't have to be afraid of anything." He says, "You know that the Titanic has watertight compartments, and if anything does happen, these watertight compartments will keep the ship up until they get help."

I do remember it being very beautiful and very big. My little brother was two years old, and to pass the time away, I would wheel him up and down the deck. I would look in the dining room and it was the most beautiful sight I ever saw. You see, it was new – absolutely new. I just stood there and marveled how beautiful everything was.

My mother went out in the hall and asked the first cabin steward she saw, "What is the matter? Why have we stopped in the middle of the ocean?" And so he said, "No, there's nothing wrong at all. There's just had a little accident and they're going to fix it and we'll be going on in a few minutes."

There was so much noise upstairs. They were running – running upstairs and running in the halls and yelling and all that. We had the two kids with us and we dressed them and we didn't dress ourselves, so we put our coats over our night clothes. We did not put on any life belts. We didn't take time for that.

We went up the steps and came to this great big room, and it was full of women in all kinds of dress and undress. They were crying or they were scared because they didn't know what was going to happen.

We were there for about five minutes. My mother came to me and she says, "Well, Ruth, it's so cold outside." She said, "Would you please go down and get three blankets from our cabin to wrap around?" My little brother was two and my sister was four.

Two officers came in and they said, "Well, it's time to get into the lifeboats now." So one officer took my brother, the other one took my sister, carried them, and my mother and I climbed an iron ladder to the top deck to get into the lifeboat.

They took us to Boat Number 11. The officers put my little brother and sister in. They said, "That's all for this boat." And my mother just yelled, screamed. She says, "Please let me in that boat!" She says, "Those are my children!" And so they did. They let her in the boat.

Well, I was left on the Titanic, so I went down and saw an officer putting people in the next boat. And I asked him if I could get in the boat, and he says, "Sure." And he picked me up and dumped me in. I evidently was the last one put in that boat because they started lowering right away.

We rode away from the Titanic just as fast as we could, and there were five or six decks, and they were just lined with people standing there at the edge looking over. I suppose they were wishing and hoping someone would come and rescue them.

When we were about a mile away, the boat was just beautiful. It was very, very dark, black night, and the ocean was very calm. It was just like a mill pond, just like we were going out for. A ride on a pond.

The Titanic was going down very slowly, and these people were standing there at the decks, at the railing, wishing somebody, I suppose, would come and rescue them.

But finally it did go down, and all the people who were standing at the decks at the railing jumped. They jumped out and they screamed and they yelled for help. And, of course, nobody came to help, but that was a terrible, terrible time when I can still hear them jumping from the deck and screaming and yelling for help and the boat finally went under the water. There was nothing left.

We rode away just as far, fast as we could because these people were screaming and yelling, and they – they wanted to get into our boat. We had about 65 or 70 at our boat. We couldn't take any more.

Finally, we were out, away from the disaster and away from these people. Of course, we had no compasses, no food, which we were supposed to have. We were all scattered all over the place. Stokers were rowing the boats, and they just had sleeveless shirts and shorts because it's so hot down there in the Engine Room, and they were very cold. The officer asked if I would give up my blankets to put around the stokers to keep them halfway warm. And then, of course, rowing the boat, why, that kept them warm, too.

We rowed and rowed and rowed from 1:00 to 4:30 in the morning. And in the distance, way in the distance, finally, we saw this great big light, and then we saw rockets going up. We just yelled, screamed. We were so happy. So we rowed and rowed and rowed to this light, and it was the Carpathia.

We finally got to the Carpathia. They let down a swing for me to get into it. Well, I was so cold that I was numb with the cold, and I couldn't hold on at all. So they tied me in the swing and pulled me up to the top.

They had the blankets piled to the ceiling. They had brandy and hot coffee to warm us up and they had an officer there to meet each one of us and a lady came up to me and she says, "Is your name Ruth Becker?" And I said, "Yes, it is." And she said, "Well, your mother has been looking every place for you." So I was reunited with my mother and my brother and my sister, and they were alright.

When the men put their wives into the lifeboats on the Titanic, they said, "Well, we will meet you when we are saved by another boat, we will meet you there." So on the Carpathia, the women were all standing at the rail watching for their husbands to come in later boats, and they never came.

At 12:00 noon, we started for New York. Now, this is one of those things that stands out in my mind. You can imagine what it was with these women who knew then – who knew then that their husbands had gone down with the ship.

Nobody was allowed to get off the ship unless they had friends, good friends or relatives in New York meeting them there. My father was in India and a very good friend of ours, cabled my father and said, "All Beckers saved." Well, my father didn't know what we were saved from, but he figured we were saved from a train wreck.

Reporters came out of the walls. I mean, they must have taken some boats out there and gotten on the Carpathia and mother was so nervous that she cried all the time. I mean, when anybody asked her, she cried, and she'd say, "Don't ask me any questions. Ask Ruth, and she'll tell you."

Curator's note: This transcript is pieced together from clips of the same interview source used in the documentaries, Titanic: Death of a Dream and Titanic: The Legend Lives On (1994, A&E Networks), and Titanic: The Survivors Story (1997, Channel 7 Australia). The original date of the interview is unknown.