Amy Lea Duncan was born in New York City, New York, in the United States of America, on 12th November 1880, the daughter of John Paterson and Susan
Whitewright Duncan (née Stuart). Her father was a successful businessman, and Amy was educated privately.
On the 15th April 1909, she married Major Frederic Warren Pearl, known as Warren Pearl, who was a retired surgeon-general, having served in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The family home was at 20. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, England, but they also maintained a home at 375, West End Avenue, New York City.
Mrs. Pearl had their first child, Stuart Duncan Day, in 1910, followed by Amy Whitewright Warren, in 1912, and Susan Whitewright, in 1912. From early 1914, the family had spent most of its time travelling abroad. In fact, Susan Whitewright Pearl had been born in London, England, and a local girl, Alice Lines, was engaged to act as nurse to the three children at this time.
On the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, the family was in Stockholm, Sweden, and Frederic Pearl managed to obtain clearance to travel to Petrograd, Russia, intending to offer his military experience to the Imperial Russian Army. When the fighting on the eastern front intensified, however, he decided, instead, to remain for a while, in Denmark, and booked the family into a hotel in the seaport of Skagen.
Whilst there, he took the opportunity to travel to England to enter his son Stuart’s name on the roll for future entry into Eton School and decided to return to Skagen via Belgium and Germany, thinking his neutral status would protect him! However, whilst in Lübeck, in northern Germany, he was arrested by two German officers who assumed that he was an English spy!
His wife was still waiting for him in the hotel in Skagen at this time and had no idea what had happened to him, until eventually she received a telegram dictated from his prison cell, summoning her to help him! On her arrival there, she too, was arrested and had to enlist the help of the United States Consul there, before being allowed to return to Denmark. It was not for another two weeks that her husband was released, however, and eventually re-united with his family!
By this time, Mrs. Pearl was pregnant with her fourth child, and as she wanted it to be born in America, she decided to return home to New York. Alice Lines had already engaged a Danish girl, Greta Lorenson, to help look after the three existing children and the family then set out for New York on a German ship - Miss Lines posing as an American citizen to avoid any problems with the German authorities.
Their fourth child, another girl whom they named Audrey Warren, was born in February 1915 in New York, and still wishing to be involved in helping the Allied cause in the war, Amy and Frederic Pearl made plans to return to Europe. Warren Pearl decided to report his willingness to help to the United States Embassy in London, and he intended to join The Queen’s Hospital at La Panne, in Belgium - a hospital set up by Belgian surgeon Antoine Depage and his wife Marie to help wounded Belgian soldiers there.
Consequently, the Pearl family and their servants booked saloon class passage on the
next sailing of the Lusitania, which was scheduled to leave New York on the morning of 1st May 1915. Once on board, Amy Pearl and her husband occupied suite E51, which was under the personal supervision of First Class Bedroom Steward Vincent Settle. who came from Anfield, a suburb of Liverpool. Greta Lorenson took Stuart and Audrey into room E67, whilst Alice Lines took Amy and Susan into room E59 with her. The ticket for the whole family group was numbered 46071. Another of the saloon passengers on board was none other than Marie Depage!
With her children in safe hands, Amy Pearl and her husband then enjoyed the opulence of the Lusitania’s saloon accommodation and the company of the other saloon passengers, many of whom they would have known. Then, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, their comfortable existence came to an abrupt end when the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, whilst within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hours steaming time away from the safety of her Liverpool destination.
When they heard the torpedo explode, Amy and Frederic Pearl frantically tried to locate their children, going in separate directions, meeting up again later without finding them and then separating again. When the liner went down, they were still not together and Amy Pearl was pitched into the water only managing to survive by clutching onto some floating planks, before being rescued from the se and landed at Queenstown.
Once there, she was taken to the home of Vice Admiral Coke to recuperate at the naval base there, until she was fit again. Whilst there, she was reunited with her husband and also learned that her son, Stuart, and her daughter, Audrey, had been saved by Alice Lines. She also had to accept; eventually, that Amy and Susan, together with Greta Lorenson, had perished. They had last been seen being lowered in a lifeboat, but this had then pitched all its human cargo into the sea!
Bedroom Steward Vincent Settle did survive the sinking, however and eventually made it back to his Anfield home. Marie Depage, who had probably inspired the Pearl family to travel to Europe in the first place, perished in the sinking, however.
When the Mersey Enquiry into the sinking convened in London on 15th June 1915, Amy and Frederic Pearl, accompanied by Alice Lines attended as survivors, but were not called as witnesses.
Some time after their terrible experience, Frederic and Amy Pearl filed a claim for damages, which was decided by the umpire of the Mixed Claims Commission, Edwin B. Parker on the 21st February 1924. He awarded the couple their full claim of $11,000.00, and in addition awarded Frederic Pearl the sum of $19,714.00 which was the total amount he claimed for the loss of their personal and household belongings which he claimed were lost when the great liner sank.
In the years that followed, Amy Pearl gave birth to three more children – two sons, Vivian Whitewright Warren, born in 1916, and Warren Whitewright Duncan, born in 1921, and a daughter, who they named Amy Susan Pearl in remembrance of their two daughters lost on the Lusitania, who was born in 1922.
The family continued to reside at 20. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, and Frederic Pearl was attached to the U.S. Embassy in London as a U.S. Public Health Surgeon until his retirement.
On the 26th March 1943, their son, 123448 Pilot Officer Warren Whitewright Duncan pearl was killed, aged 22 years, when his aircraft, a Miles Master, crashed at Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, England. He was serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 2nd Glider Training School, at the time.
Amy Pearl spent most of the rest of her life in Great Britain, although she made frequent visits to New York with what remained of her family. On a voyage of the Cunarder R.M.S Queen Mary in the summer of 1939, they were reunited with one of the bedroom stewards who had looked after the family on that historic voyage in 1915. He must have been Vincent Settle or Alf Wood, but either would have been aged 74 years at the time! In keeping with all the Lusitania’s survivors, the Pearl’s were granted a 25% discount on all Cunard’s trans-Atlantic voyages!
She was later created a Commander of the British Empire for her charity work.
She died as a result of heart failure at her home at 10. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, on the 1st February 1964, aged 83 years, and after her remains were cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, her ashes were interred in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, where they remain today. Probate of her estate, which amounted to £11,665 in England, was granted to her son, Vivian, who was stated to be a pensions consultant.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, New York U.S. Extracted Marriage Index 1866 – 1937, U.S. Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad 1835 – 1974, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1939 Register, U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 244, Seven Days to Disaster, Probate Records, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Audrey Lawson Johnston, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.