Mrs. Ball Fell Exhausted as She Pulled Oar

Ada Elizabeth Balls

Second-class passenger

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First Survivor To Reach Baltimore Tells of Terror On The Sea

LEAKY LIFEBOAT SHIP INCOMPLETE

Only One Man In Craft With Loose Plank – She Just Realizes Danger.

Mrs. Ada Ball, the first survivor of the Titanic to reach Baltimore, this morning told many things to the discredit of the White Star Line in its responsibility to passengers. She alleges that:

The lifeboat she was in had a loose plank and was always in danger of being swamped. Women bailed it constantly.

She was sent adrift in a boat filled with women, only one man being aboard.

The Titanic was sent from Southampton incomplete.

There were no searchlights to point out icebergs.

The lifeboats contained no lights. Places for them were ready. The passengers burned handkerchiefs to illuminate their leaky craft.

That a woman was thrown into her boat, fell and missed deck, but was saved.

The women were so weak another boatload, containing MANY men, tossed a rope and towed them.

The loss of life would not have been so great if the officers had notified us in the first place of danger.

Visiting Nephew Today.

Mrs. Ada Ball is at the home of her nephew, Ernest Bateman, 722 North Carey street.

In a manner that indicated absolute truth and sincerity, without the slightest bit of trying to be sensational or to exaggerate, Mrs. Ball, with her quiet English accent, told of the perils they encountered in their long vigil during the night and how, in an exhausted condition, their boat, with only one man in it and he practically useless, had been lifted from the water by the rescue ship Carpathia.

From Mrs. Ball's account it was learned that the Titanic had left Southampton, England, without being properly equipped. In a measure this was responsible for the accident, as with equipment which was lacking the iceberg which ripped open the hull of the gigantic steamer might have been sighted.

Not A Single Searchlight.

It was lack of searchlights, according to Mrs. Ball, which was most glaringly noted. The boat left its port without a single strong flash with which it might "feel" its way through dangerous and close quarters and with which, when warned of the proximity of icebergs and the imminence of dangers while in that zone, the ship might have sighted the death-dealing foe of modern shipbuilding and prevented the most horrible sea catastrophe that has ever shocked the world.

The sky was perfectly clear and the sea for a distance was lit up by the stars that gleamed across the ocean. But with a powerful searchlight playing across the waters off the bow of the Titanic the immense berg would certainly have been sighted in ample time to have afforded an opportunity for a change in course and to have prevented the accident.

The lifeboats which were put out from the sinking ship with their loads of human freight – for the survivors were literally thrown from the top deck into the boats as they were being swung from the davits and lowered to the black water below – were not equipped with the lights which they are always supposed to carry.

They Burned Handkerchiefs For Light.

Provision had evidently been made for the lanterns to be swung from the lifeboats, but the lights were lacking, and the passengers in Mrs. Ball's boat were forced to burn their handkerchiefs in order to give the other boats an idea of their position and enable them to keep in touch with each other. The one male passengers proved his incalculable worth at that moment when he brought forth one tiny box of safety matches, which were indeed at a premium and which were conserved with more care than the ordinary man on land would save his most valuable belongings.

Mrs. Ball, after her nerve-racking experience, is only beginning to realize the danger and suffering through which she passed, and it is just beginning to have its after effect upon her. She appeared to be at ease and to have absolute control of her nervous energies while she talked engagingly of her experiences at the home of her nephew this morning. But beneath that enforced calmness was a perturbation that gradually forced itself upward until she broke out nervously:

"Oh, I can't talk about it any more. It was all so terrible that I want to forget it as soon as possible."

Woman Of Strong Nerve, Who Kept Control Of Herself.

Mrs. Ball is probably 40 years of age, but she carries well her years. As she entered the room where lay Ernest Bateman, ill from the shock of his father's loss, her shoulders dropped noticeably. But her strong face and her black hair, with a very slight streak of gray in it; her protruding chin, clinched lips and determined eyes that seemed to have lost some of their blaze after the exposure and suffering on the ocean, all told that it was a woman of strong determination and that she had passed through her suffering with a grim determination to be one of the survivors.

The long eight hours she spent on the cold water, clothed only in scanty night dress and a coat which Rev. Mr. Bateman in his last moment with her as he handed her into the boat had thrown over her shoulders, had their effect on her. Just a short while before the Carpathia hove in sight to the joy of the boatloads of half-frozen survivors, Mrs. Ball had fallen semiconscious against one of the passengers sitting back of her. Her feet were soaked in the icy waters which had forced their way through the bottom of the boat, and the extreme energy she was forced to exert in pulling the boat away from the sinking ship and handling an oar during the long weary hours of that cold Monday morning had their effect. She was absolutely played out; she gave way to natural forces and dropped her oar.

Helped By Rest After She Became Unconscious.

The respite did her good and when the Carpathia was nearing the little boats riding the slow swell she recovered just enough to sight the ship and drop off again into a semi-conscious state.

"When I felt a rope being slipped about my waist and felt myself being pulled up into the air I was really too far gone to realize the great truth. My feet didn't seem to touch the boat when I walked along the deck of the Carpathia with some one at each side," she said.

"In the boat we were all dazed and the work told on us. The one man in the boat seemed to know nothing about handling an oar and it all devolved upon us. We had to bail the water from the boat, for it came through the bottom and occasionally the board was forced up. Some one always saw it and with their foot pushed it down again before the water flooded and swamped us.

"If We Had Gone Down All Would Have Been Satisfied."

"I was really hoping that we would be swamped, and when one of the women said, 'This boat can never live out here,' it was encouraging to me. If it had gone down we would all have been satisfied, for we were too exhausted to want anything else but rest in any form. The spirit in the entire women couldn't be drowned out, though. And then, too, there was a poor little baby wrapped up in blankets that had been tossed into our boat just as it was lowered. It seemed absolute cruelty to have its little life wasted. Our boat, too, had more children in it than any of the others. It was the last one to leave and was about the most crowded of the entire 16.

"One woman was tossed down to us just as we were lowered. She missed the boat and fell with a scream on the deck just below. We picked her up on the way down, though, and she was saved.

"I doubt if we ever would have been fortunate enough to get away if the boat just preceding us had not tossed us a rope as we were pulling away which we attached to our bow. They had a number of men at the oars and realized our plight. We did all we could with the oars, but with an overcrowded boat and scarcely room enough left to get a full pull at the oars it would have been an extremely difficult matter for us to keep up with the others, who had a number of sailors and men in them.

"When we left the ship we had a sailor on our boat who was expected to take charge, but one of the officers called him back to search for more women, and he didn't get back in time for the boat. The poor fellow, I know, was drowned, for ours was the last boat that left the ship and I was the last passenger who was placed in it, outside of the woman who was tossed down and the little bit of baby wrapped in blankets.

"We rowed all night – I don't know in what direction – and didn't think we had accomplished much until in the morning I asked one of the men on the Carpathia how far we were from the place where our ship went down.

"'Oh, that's miles and miles back,' he answered. 'You must remember you've been rowing all night.'"

Boat Went Down Enveloped In A Cloud Of Smoke.

"We were not far away when the Titanic went down, and I watched hoping to see brother. But we couldn't see anything. Finally the lights gradually went out or disappeared under the water and when the boat took its final plunge it was enveloped in a cloud of smoke that almost hid it entirely.

"The list of the dead wouldn't have been been so great," she broke off. "If the officers had notified us in the first place of the danger. I guess they didn't realize it themselves, but when I went on deck, after being awakened by a kind of grating and bumping, it was slanting so that I was forced to hold to something to keep on my feet. I seized a rail and stood there for a moment.

"Nothing But An Iceberg."

"'It's nothing but an iceberg that we hit,' said one of the officers whom I accosted, and I returned to my stateroom. Then the cry to put on life preservers rang through the ship and not until then did I realize that we were in danger.

"If that had been done in the first place and the people on the Titanic had only realized that the boat was going down rafts could have been built from doors and like, and the early boats, many of which went off with plenty of room, could have taken a great many more passengers."

They Held Services, Even Of "This Is A Pleasure Boat."

Rev. Mr. Bateman and another minister on board the ship held services Sunday in the saloon of the Titanic. Mrs. Ball made inquiry of her brother whether there were any services to mark the Sabbath on the boat.

"This is a pleasure boat," he replied. "and there are none."

With Mrs. Ball, they arranged for services and sang hymns until the officials forced them to leave the saloon in order to enable the passengers to eat dinner.

Three hours after this portion of the ship's immense load had been praising their Maker the boat struck the berg which sent it to the bottom of the sea.

Here Wearing Clothes Some One Gave Her.

Mrs. Ball was placed on a train in New York yesterday afternoon and came to Baltimore last night. She was met at Union Station by Earl and Herman Lohmeyer, after Mr. Bateman here had been notified through The Evening Sun of her coming. [Mrs. Ball] wore this morning the clothes which had been given her after their arrival on board the Carpathia. She will likely leave the home of her nephew tomorrow taking the 2 o'clock train for Jacksonville, Fla., to visit Mrs. Robert J. Bateman, widow of the minister who went to his death praising God.

It is not likely that she will ever now return to London, her native home, but will remain in this country, and console one of those families left bereaved by the greatest of calamities that ever befell the liners that pace the Atlantic.