Titanic Cat

[dressagetraks]

From my current meal book, Ghosts of the Titanic by Charles Pellegrino. I’ve read a few books on the Titanic, but this one is unique in a good way. It’s a cross between very vivid old stories from the people there plus forensic analysis of the current wreck to recreate on scientific data the last moments (how close was the ice berg really when spotted and could it have possibly been dodged, how close was the Californian - the ship the Titanic saw and which saw the Titanic but did not respond - etc.). I’m enjoying it. It, like almost all my books these days, came from Paperbackswap.com.

Quote below is from where he’s talking about animals on the Titanic. There were several dogs, and three of those made the lifeboats. But regarding cats,

“Only one cat is known to have been aboard the Titanic, and she is said to have disembarked before the ship left Southampton (cat-lovers take note of further evidence that they are an intellectually superior species after all). A stoker named Jim Mulholland reported that he had cared for the ship’s cat and for its four kittens born en route to Southampton. Mulholland signed off from the crew after “Mouser” carried her babies one by one off the ship. He explained to journalist Paddy Scott, “That cat knows something.””

[Event4Life]

Cats definitely have a sixth sense. Clever kitty!

[Anne_FS]

Thanks for this. I’ve gotten such good book recommendations from COH.

[clint]

Clever cat, and not a random move, since she moved her family. Makes me smile.

[jess_h]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing

[mvp]

Check out the cat who did go on an ill-fated arctic expedition in 1913. She lived:

http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/featuring/adv13.html

[clint]

mvp, thank you so much for sharing that article.

[dressagetraks]

A fantastic book on the Karluk 1913 expedition: The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven. Several hundred pages, and the cat is definitely part.

And another fairly fact-based book, though fictionalized into a “cat diary”: Mrs. Chippy’s Last Expedition by Caroline Alexander, about Shackleton’s ship’s cat on the ill-fated Endurance voyage. The author did her best to consult all human diaries (all of them mention the cat), follow actual events, and she has “cat voice” down pat. Mrs. Chippy did not survive, but the book, being the cat’s diary, does not include the end.

[danceronice]

Sorry, I don’t think that’s true. Not saying Pellgrino’s ever KNOWINGLY inaccurate, though he LOVES to tart up a story (his older book I wanted to vomit with his overdramatic purple prose first chapter about Thomas Andrews.) However I’ll run it by Don Lynch and the rest of the Titanic Passengers and Crew crowd and see if there are multiple sources for the story.

Of the dogs: The three who made it out were little lap dogs including the Harpers’ Sun Yat Sen, a Peke. (Also in that lifeboat besides Mr. and Mrs. Harper was the Egyptian dragoman he’d won in a card game and was bringing home as something of a joke. Yes, I mean a person.) Most famous dog NOT to make it was probably Kitty Astor, the Airedale. No one knows who opened the kennels and let the dogs out, though there’s some conjecture it was Astor himself. Whenever I give my Titanic talk I skip over our local first-classer’s dog Frou Frou, whom she left in their suite because she didn’t think it would look right, taking a dog into the boats. It’s too sad. I would have smuggled him (he was a toy breed) under my coat or something, though given the Bishops were both in boat 7 with only 23 people, they probably could have just taken him along.

Famous dog myth about the lady corpse seen in the water with her arms around her dog (variously a Great Dane or a St. Bernard) is unconfirmed, largely because no one can pin down a large dog like that (the story of a Newfie being aboard is fiction, along with any stories of Captain Smith having a dog aboard) and because no one can pin down a First Class female victim who matches the story.

[mvp]

Oh, and that website I linked above is a bottomless pit of Cat Adventures— in exploration, war, politics. They are everywhere, but the British seem to give the Cats In Epic Events In World History the most airtime.

And the website has some sound, too: A good purr when you first click on the homepage.