Florence ‘Flor’ O’Sullivan, also known as “Sullivan”, was born on the family farm at Clounlea (also known as Churchground), Kilgarvan, County Kerry, Ireland, on the 7th January 1885, the son of Florence and Elizabeth O’Sullivan (née Lyne). He was the second eldest of six children.
As well as working on the family farm, he also worked on his neighbours farms as a labourer, and then, on the 26th April 1912, he boarded the Baltic at Queenstown and immigrated to the United States of America. On arrival in New York City on the 4th May, he made his way to his brother, Timothy, who was already living and working in Somerville, Boston, Massachusetts. On the 7th May 1912, he made a declaration of
his intention to become a naturalized U.S. citizen; however, he never completed this process.
He found employment as a motorman on the Boston trams, and met Miss Julia O’Neill, who was also an Irish immigrant, and who worked as a maid for the well-known and affluent Branders family. The couple became engaged to be married, and when Julia introduced Flor to the Branders, they formed a favourable impression of him and used their influence to get him a job as a barman at The Stuyvesant Club, in New York City.
On the 30th August 1914, Flor and Julia married in Boston and later moved to New York City. The Branders had died and left some of their valuable furniture to Julia/
By this time, Flor O’Sullivan’s aging father, back in Kilgarvan, had been pressing his son to return home and take over the family farm. Unless someone took over the farm, it would be lost, so the couple decided, albeit reluctantly, to return to Ireland.
Consequently, at the end of April 1915, they packed up all the expensive furniture left to Julia by the Brander family and had it loaded onto the Lusitania, berthed at New York. They had already booked second cabin passage on the ship, as Flor and Julia Sullivan, and joined her in time for her sailing just after, on 1st May. As Purser James McCubbin was a personal friend of Flor O’Sullivan, he had made sure that they were allocated the best second cabin rooms, so long as they took his advice and boarded early! The O’Sullivan’s friendship with James McCubbin meant that during the voyage, they enjoyed many of the privileges of saloon class passengers.
When the liner was torpedoed, Flor O’Sullivan and his wife were on deck excitedly looking at the coast of Ireland through binoculars lent to them by James McCubbin. They had already made friends with Pat Callan, another ex-patriate Irishman, who, having lived in America for some time, had taken out United States citizenship, and was now returning home to take over the running of the family business.
The O’Sullivan’s immediately made for their cabin, where Flor had to kick down the door as the explosion had jammed it. He managed to retrieve family papers, money and share certificates, and the two of them then made for the boat deck, where they found Pat Callan urging them forward to jump into one of the lifeboats which was in the process of being launched. He and Flor O’Sullivan jumped in, but Julia O’Sullivan refused to make the jump and persuaded Flor to jump back onto the deck with her. Her refusal possibly saved their lives, however, because moments later, the lifeboat tipped up, spilling its occupants into the sea and killing many of them, including Pat Callan.
As the ship eventually began to sink, the O’Sullivan’s were pitched into the sea, and kept afloat by their lifejackets, both struck out to swim as far away from the Lusitania as possible. In the process of this, they became separated, although both were to survive.
Flor O’Sullivan was eventually rescued from the sea, and landed at Queenstown, where he was finally re-united with his wife - she had been picked up from an overturned lifeboat and landed at Kinsale. Together they made it back, in a borrowed
motor car, to Kilgarvan.
In the summer of 1915, they applied for financial assistance to The Lusitania Relief Fund, which had been set up after the disaster by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local dignitaries. They were granted the sum of £10-0s-0d., to replace clothing lost in the sinking.
For the rest of their lives, they farmed the land at Kilgarvan, and had eight known children.
Flor O’Sullivan died at his home on the 7th July 1941, aged 56 years. The year of 1941 was a terrible year for the family, for in January, their daughter, Mary, died of natural causes at their home, aged 21 years, and then, on the 20th April, another daughter, Nellie, was killed in a German air-raid at St. Peter’s Hospital, London. According to reports, she was a nurse at the hospital and was in the process of evacuating ten children from one of the wards when she was killed in the blast from an exploding bomb. She was aged 19 years. Miraculously, all ten children escaped unharmed.
Julia O’Sullivan died on the 18th October 1948, aged 62 years.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Massachusetts U.S. Marriage Records 1840 – 1915, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1911 Census of Ireland, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Massachusetts U.S. State and Federal Naturalization Records 1798 – 1950, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Birmingham Daily Herald, Nottingham Journal, Liverpool Record Office, Seven Days to Disaster, PRO BT 100/345, Seven UniLiv D92/2/427, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.