Leslie Hawthorne Lindsey was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, on the 11th June 1886, one of the daughters of William and Ann Hawthorne Lindsey (née Sheen) of Boston. Her father was a millionaire and possessed many talents - he was a writer, an actor and a patron of drama. He had made most of his fortune by persuading the British Army to adopt a fabric belt for feeding ammunition into the Vickers machine gun, in 1899. Then, on the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war, he built factories in England, and on continental Europe, to supply the ensuing need! The family home was a stone built mansion overlooking the Charles River in Boston.
On 21st April 1915, at Emmanuel Church, Boston, Leslie Lindsey married Stewart Southam Mason, a merchant, of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They intended to make their home at Bayswater Road, in Boston, but first decided to honeymoon in England.
Consequently, at the end of April 1915, they set out from Boston and travelled to New York where they embarked as saloon passengers on the Lusitania, at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour. Once on board, (with ticket number 1295), they were allocated room B77, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward James Collins, who came from Formby, a small town along the Lancashire coast from Liverpool.
The liner’s departure for Liverpool was then delayed until the early afternoon, so that she could take on board passengers, cargo and crew from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war work as a troop ship. Then, six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland by the German submarine U-20. At that stage of her voyage, she was only 250 miles from the safety of her home port.
The newlyweds were obviously separated before the liner went down, for Oliver P. Bernard, fellow saloon passenger and scenic director of the Boston Opera House described seeing Mrs. Mason as the ship was sinking. This was described in the book The Last Voyage of the Lusitania by authors Adolf and Mary Hoehling: -
Close by, oblivious to all else, a frightened passenger, Mrs. Stewart Mason, was seeking help.
“Where's my husband?” wailed the dark-haired young bride from Boston. The tears welled in her eyes. Oliver P. Bernard was doing his best to comfort her. ”It's all right now, we go ashore directly so don't worry”, he said.
Leslie Mason kept staring at Bernard “like one demented”, as she asked, “Where's my husband?” Bernard had known her father, William Lindsey, in Boston. Now he took the girl by the shoulders and shook her.
“Stay right here,” he said. “Don't move from this spot and your husband will find you here, surely, as they will be lowering the boats from this side. I'll find some lifebelts in case we need them.” He told her to pull herself together.
Bernard then made his way below to 'B' Deck and the Masons' cabin, but there was no sign of Stewart Mason. By the time he returned to the deck, Leslie Mason was gone and he never saw her again, dead or alive. The liner went down shortly afterwards.
Her body was eventually recovered from the sea, however, by the Dutch salvage tug Poolzee of Rotterdam and landed at the Cunard wharf at Queenstown at about 2 p.m. on 10th May 1915. It was initially tagged with the number 152 in a makeshift mortuary at the rear of the Cunard offices at Lynch’s Quay. Once it had been positively identified, however, it was embalmed there, in readiness for being shipped home.
Wesley Frost, the American Consul at Queenstown saw it there on an improvised embalmers slab and said of it later: -
She lay like a statue typifying assassinated innocence.
On 19th May 1915, her body was put on the Red Star Liner S.S. Lapland and sent back to Boston for burial there. Leslie Mason’s father was upset at this arrangement, however, as he had hoped that the body would be shipped on the faster liner S.S. New York, which, he stated in a letter to Cunard’s Boston office: -
..... would have saved the family the suspense of having to hold over the funeral service until the arrival of the Lapland.
Cunard’s response to this was simple and to the point and stated that it had done its best to get the body home at the earliest opportunity!
The newly wedded husband and wife were divided in death, however, as Stewart Mason's body, washed ashore round the coast from Queenstown, was buried in the town cemetery, there, on 10th May 1915.
Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey never got over the death of their daughter and the Hoehlings wrote of this: -
The news was cabled to Lindsey in Boston. It "hung" - forever afterwards - like a cerement over his big stone house next to the Charles River. It
made the great hall, and the oaken staircase flaring upwards on either side, from which Leslie had thrown her bride's bouquet days before, seem to Lindsey like a mausoleum.
As a memorial to her, her parents erected a chapel, The Lindsey Chapel, adjoining the Emmanuel Church, where the family worshipped, at 15, Newbury Street, Boston. The chapel survives today and has come to be recognised as a structure of architectural and artistic distinction and is a major centre of musical activity in Boston.
Property recovered from Leslie Mason's body was handed over at Queenstown to her father-in law of a mere two weeks, Mr. Hubert Wilberforce Mason, of Sproughton Manor, near Ipswich, Suffolk.
Bedroom Steward Collins, who had looked after the couple in room B77, survived the sinking and eventually made it back to Formby.
Massachusetts U.S. Birth Records 1840 – 1915, Massachusetts U.S. Marriage Records 1840 – 1915, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Cunard Records, Dictionary of American Biography, East Anglian Daily Times, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Probate Records, UniLiv.D92/1/7, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, James Maggs, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.