Emma Jane Haynes, always known as ‘Emmie’, was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, in early 1879, the eldest child of John Henry and Mary Ann Haynes (née Truelove). Her father at various times was a Chemist’s Porter and a Blacksmith. The family moved to Peterborough, Northamptonshire, while Emmie was a child.
On the 23rd May 1904, she married Richard George Hill, who was a bricklayer, and in 1905 the couple had a daughter, Sylvia. The family resided with Emmie’s parents at 98. Eastgate, Peterborough, Northamptonshire.
In February 1913, Richard Hill travelled to Montreal, Canada, where he found work with the Harris Bread Manufacturing Co. as an oven builder. In October, Emmie and Sylvia joined him and the family eventually found their way to Schenectady, New York, in the United States of America in February 1914.
In the spring of 1915, Emmie booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania’s
scheduled May sailing from New York to Liverpool, presumably to return home to see her family. Her husband and daughter remained behind.
Having boarded the liner at her berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, she had to wait for her to leave the harbour, as her departure was delayed to embark passengers, crew and cargo taken from Anchor Liner, the
Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troopship.
The steamer left harbour at approximately 12.25 p.m., and six days out of New York, she was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of southern Ireland by the submarine
U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walter Schweiger. At this stage of her voyage, she was within fourteen hours sailing time from the safety of her home port.
Emmie Hill was one of some 230 second cabin passengers who managed to survive this enemy action and having been rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, she was able to complete her journey to Peterborough.
It’s not known when Emmie Hill returned to her husband and daughter, but by 1919, the family were residing at 1831. Master Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1921, Emmie and her daughter travelled to England for a holiday, and no doubt to visit their family in Peterborough, but travelling back to Philadelphia with them, was William Ernest Inch, an engineer, originally from London, and who, like Emmie Hill, was a survivor of the sinking of the Lusitania! The trio also made another return visit to England in 1924.
Shortly after their return to the United States of America in 1924, William Inch married Sylvia Hill, and by 1925, Richard and Emmie Hill, and William and Sylvia Inch, were residing at 141. Longview Avenue, White Plains, Westchester County, New York.
The family lived there for many years, and Emmie Hill died in January 1968, aged 88 years, and was laid to rest beside her husband, Richard, who had died in 1937, in Kensico Cemetery, Westchester County, New York.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Northamptonshire England Church of England Marriages 1754 – 1912, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1925 New York State Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1940 U.S. Federal Census, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Boston Passenger and Crew Lists 1820 – 1943, Cunard Records, Tragedy of the Lusitania, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.