Edith Marshall Lewis was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on the 4th September 1909, the daughter of John and Jane Marshall Lewis (née Morris). Her father was a cotton buyer, and the family home was at 10. Elm Road, Wood Hey, Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.
In the spring of 1915, the family was returning to England from a business trip to the southern states of America. Her father had booked second cabin passage for the three of them on the May sailing of the Lusitania which was scheduled to leave New York for Liverpool, at 10.00 a.m. on 1st May 1915. Having arrived at the liner’s berth at Pier 54 in time for the sailing the family found it had been delayed until the afternoon. This was so the vessel could embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel the S.S. Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troopship, at the end of April.
The liner finally left harbour just after noon and six days later, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 twelve miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and about 250 miles away from her home port.
In October 1984, Edith Lewis’s mother, then aged 102, was interviewed by a representative of The Imperial War Museum for its Sound Archive section and described her Lusitania experience: -
Our reason for being in America was my husband's business. We'd finished the business. We always came home, then back again when the cotton started again. ..... We used to go down to the southern states. ..... I only had one daughter then and she was with me. She was five, just five.
We were on the deck. We were on the deck and it was just on the lunchtime, and we had just come down to lunch, and we were just inside the dining room, just inside the door so we could get out quickly, because we had heard rumours something might happen. So that we could get out quickly we took a dining room table by the door, and then when the awful noise came we could just get round the door and onto the landing and down the staircase.
But the people came pouring through the dining room from the other part of the ship, people fell down, people walked over them but you couldn't do anything because the boat was going sideways. We got out luckily because we were near the door otherwise we would never have got out because of the people.
Then we went down the stairs and instead of going up they went down and I fell down but we got down on to the lower deck and then we stayed there and we didn‘t go down on the ship any further and we were standing by a lifeboat on the ship waiting to see what we could do. There was nobody about where we were, hardly, but there were plenty in the water. And then my husband said that he had better go down to the cabin and get lifebelts and I said “No - you're not going down,” because I said “if you go down there, you'll never get up again.” , and then I said “If you are going we are all going together.”
Well we stayed there and there was a lifeboat, a small boat in the water and it was tied or fastened or something and we got in the boat but we couldn’t get away and not one of the men could find a penknife on them - they seemed to have lost them all. So we got away eventually and I was thrown into the boat because we had to be quick. So we went away from the ship for a time and the people were in the water everywhere. .....
And then we went on to Queenstown. We never stopped again. When we
got to Queenstown there was a howling mob there. To get off took us some time. So then we came (in). It was night time then. And we all had to try and get shifts on, to get to sleep. So we were given a bedroom, my daughter and I and my husband - he was helping with different things. And we were in bed. My daughter she was sick. It had upset her, the shock, I think. .....
I can't say that I really did feel really frightened. What I was thinking about was Edith, the little girl. I didn't want her to get, frightened. I didn't want to get her alarmed. She was very, very good. But of course it made her poorly. ..... She didn’t seem to understand what it was - just staring about her. She was very, very good, very good. I didn’t bother her very much - only to tell her that everything was all right. She was a very sensible girl. She had a very steady head on her; she could keep herself steady if she wanted to. No, she never cried nor fussed. .....
We had an eventful journey home from Queenstown, but oh dear me, it was an upset. And I know everyone was trying to do their best, but it was very difficult! .....
Mrs. Lewis concluded the interview by stating: -
I’ve had a good life. Mind you, I suppose I’ve looked after myself too. But I had the best of husbands that any woman could ever have in this world. I had three good children which have never given me an hour’s trouble - only their health. And they’re the same today as they were when they were all children. They’re all married and they’ve settled down and they’ve got a family and they’re all very happy! ..... And I never thought that I’d live to my age because I never was strong.
At the time of the sinking, Edith’s mother had been pregnant and gave birth to Edith’s brother, Kenneth Isaac in November 1915. Her final sibling, Mary Caulfield Lewis, known as “Mollie”, was born in 1917.
On the 14th February 1944, Edith became engaged to John Theodore Stanley, an accounts clerk, who was from New Hampshire, in the United States of America, and who at that time was serving with the U.S. Army. They married some weeks or months later. The couple established their home at 4. Oakwood Avenue, Ainsdale, Southport, Lancashire, and they had a least one child, a daughter named Jane.
In 1997, Edith Stanley was interviewed by an American television company for a programme networked in 1998 under the title Murder On The Atlantic where she reminisced about her Lusitania experiences.
Edith Stanley died on the 14th February 1998, aged 88 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1919, U.S. Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad 1835 – 1974, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1939 Register, New Orleans Passenger Lists 1813 – 1963, Cunard Records, IWM SA 7361, Liverpool Echo, Murder On The Atlantic, UniLiv D92/2/207, Graham Maddocks, Lawrence Evans, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.