Mabel Ward was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, on the 16th January 1863, the daughter of William Henry and Augusta Ward (née
Broad). Her father was a railroad contractor, specializing in building bridges, and Mabel was the eldest of four children – all girls.
On the 5th January 1887, she married Dr. Frederick ‘Fred’ Stark Pearson, of Lowell, Massachusetts, who was at that time a civil engineer. They had two sons and one daughter.
Having set up home in Lowell, they later bought a property named 'Coombe House', at Coombe Warren, Kingston Hill, Surrey, England, as Fred Pearson became more prosperous. They also had properties in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and another at 271 Calle Mallarca, Barcelona, Spain. They were in England in February 1915, for the marriage of their daughter and immediately afterwards, they left for New York, U.S.A., on business.
They decided to return to Surrey in early May 1915 and consequently booked as saloon passengers on the Lusitania’s sailing which left New York just after mid-day on 1st May 1915. When they boarded, (with ticket number 46094), they were allocated room B51, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Walter Wood, who came from Seaforth, near Liverpool.
Six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, the ship was sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the southern Irish coast and only hours away from her Liverpool destination. Both Mabel Pearson and her husband perished as a result of this action. Mabel Pearson was aged 51 years and her husband was aged 54.
An article in The Surrey Advertiser for Saturday 15th May 1915 states: -
Both were expected to arrive at their residence at 9 p.m. on Friday last and dinner was laid for that hour, among those awaiting them being their only daughter, who had been married in February and had not seen them since she and the bridegroom went away for their honeymoon.
Dr. Pearson's body was one of the first to be taken out of the water, but it wasn’t until a week after the disaster that Mabel Pearson’s body came to light. It was found in the sea on Friday 14th May, by a naval patrol boat, with four other bodies, eight miles south west of the Fastnet Rock, about 50 miles from where the Lusitania sank. Having been transferred to the harbour tender Flying Fish; it was landed at Queenstown, where it was first labelled No. 216 in one of the temporary mortuaries there. Once a positive identification had been made, however, it was sent to the London Necropolis at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey and from there to the nearby St. John’s Crematorium in Hermitage Road, Woking, where it was cremated on 21st May 1915. The ashes were then sent to America - presumably to New York, for disposal there.
Property recovered from the body, which probably aided its identification was handed to the United States Consul at Queenstown, on 17th May 1915. Although a list of passengers published by The Cunard Steam Ship Company in March 1916 states that Mabel Pearson was British, this was not the case.
Bedroom Steward Wood, who looked after the Pearson’s on their journey across the Atlantic in room B51, survived the sinking and eventually made it back to his Seaforth home.
The Pearson’s sons, and Mabel Pearson’s two unmarried sisters, Katherine L. and Grace Ward, filed a claim for compensation for the deaths of Fred and Mabel with the U.S. State Department. This claim was decided by the Mixed Claims Commission after the war, awarding their sons the sum of $50,000.00 each, and Mabel Pearson’s sisters $3,000.00 each.
Massachusetts U.S. Marriage Records 1840 – 1915, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, 1870 U.S. Federal Census, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1911 Census of England & Wales, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 579 & 581, Southern Star, Surrey Advertiser, Surrey Comet, Woking Crematorium, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, James Maggs, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.