Grigory Nieboreski was born in Nowa Niwa, in Czarist Russia, in 1893, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Konstantin Nieboreski. Nothing is known of his family or life in Russia.
In 1910, he left there for the United States of America, and having first travelled across Europe, at Rotterdam in Holland, he boarded the Uranium Lines ship the S.S. Uranium for New York. Having arrived there on 30th November, he eventually settled in Oxford Furnace, New Jersey where he obtained work as a labourer.
However, in the spring of 1915, perhaps because of the critical state of the Imperial Russian forces on the eastern front, he left Oxford Furnace, probably by rail, to travel to return to New York, and the Cunard berth at Pier 54 on the west side of the city. There, on the morning of 1st May 1915, he boarded the Lusitania as a third class passenger, with ticket number 33944, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing to Liverpool on the major part of his return journey. The sailing was then delayed until 12.27 p.m., however because the Cunarder had to embark passengers, cargo and crew from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service as a troop ship, at the end of April.
Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger within sight of the coast of southern Ireland. At that stage of her voyage, she was only about 250 miles away from the safety of her home port.
Altogether, there were 68 Russian nationals on board when the steamer foundered. Of these, 29 survived the sinking and 39 were killed, and Grigory Nieboreski was, unfortunately, one of those killed.
Another of those lost was 24 year old Boris Murazko, who was also travelling from Oxford Furnace. As his ticket number was 33943 - only one digit different from that of Gregory Nieboreski - it is likely that they knew each other in Oxford Furnace or even before that in their mother country and were intending to travel home there together!
New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.