Eldridge Courtland Luck was born in San Francisco, California, in the United States of America, on the 10th October 1903, the son of Arthur Courtlandt and Charlotte Louise Luck, (née Field). He had a younger brother named Kenneth, who was born in 1907, and the family home was in San Francisco.
His father was a mining engineer and worked for the firm of Graton & Knight Manufacturing Company, of Worcester, Massachusetts, and in the spring of 1915, he had been working in Great Britain, maybe carrying out work connected with the war effort.
Mr. Luck decided to send for his wife and two boys and the firm booked saloon passage for the three of them to travel from San Francisco to New York and then on to Liverpool on the May sailing of the Lusitania. Consequently mother and two sons left their home town at the end of April and boarded the liner at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915. Their ticket was number 10541 and their cabin was room D61, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Edward Huther, who came from Liverpool.
What must have seemed like an perfect adventure for all three of them came to an abrupt end on the afternoon of 7th May when the liner was torpedoed and sunk off the southern coast of Ireland by the German submarine U-20, - only hours away from her Liverpool destination, where Arthur Luck was waiting for them. Tragically, he had to cable his relatives in San Francisco to say that: -
..... he had received no details concerning the catastrophe, nor any word that would indicate wheth
None of the family was safe as all three were initially reported to be missing after the sinking. Eventually, as no trace of them was ever found, all three were presumed to have died! Eldridge Luck was eleven years old!
Bedroom Steward Huther who had had the responsibility for the Luck’s saloon room D61, also perished in the sinking and never saw his Liverpool home again.
His father submitted a claim before the Mixed Claims Commission seeking compensation for the loss of his wife and children, and on the 21st February 1924, the Commission awarded him the sum of $20,000.00 for the loss of his wife and children, and a further $3,900.00 for the loss of their personal belongings in the sinking.
U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 7, PRO BT 100/345, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.