Iwan Michalkowicz is believed to have been born in the Minsk area of Belarus, then within the Imperial Russian Empire, in 1889. He was married, and worked as a farm labourer.
On the 7th June 1913, he arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, on board the Kursk, and declared that he was destined for Chicago, Illinois, in the United States of America, to the home of his brother-in-law. On arriving in Chicago, he found employment as a labourer.
In the spring of 1915, however, he decided to return home, perhaps because of the poor showing of the Imperial Russian forces against those of the Central Powers on the eastern front and maybe wishing to help his motherland, or to see his wife and family and escort them back to Chicago. Consequently, he booked third class passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool for the first part of his journey home.
Having left Chicago sometime in April, he boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York, on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure, with ticket number 170786. This was then delayed until the early afternoon of that day as she had to load cargo and embark passengers and crew from the Anchor Lines vessel the S.S. Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship.
Six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed off the coast of southern Ireland, by the German submarine U-20 and sank in just 18 minutes. At that stage of her voyage, she was only about fourteen hours steaming time away from the safety of her home port.
Altogether there were 68 Russian nationals on board the Lusitania. Of these, 39 were killed and 29 survived. Iwan Michalkowicz was one of the unlucky ones who lost his life as a result of the action, however and as his body was never recovered and identified after the sinking, he has no known grave. He was 26 years of age at the time.
U.S. Records of Aliens Pre-Examined in Canada 1904 – 1954, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, Cunard Records, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.