Margaret Waters was born in the townland of Mullaghmore, Killarga, County Leitrim, Ireland, on the 19th March 1887, the daughter of Philip and Mary Waters (née Sheridan). Her family were farmers and Margaret was one of ten children.
On the 7th April 1905, she boarded the s.s. Cedric at Queenstown and travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to find work as a domestic servant in New York City where one of her older sisters, Mary, was living.
When one of her older brothers named Thomas died in 1910, she returned to her home for a holiday before returning to New York City in April 1911. She was later joined by her younger sister, Catherine, who was known as “Kate”.
Margaret Waters left domestic service and qualified as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital, which was a Roman Catholic hospital in the Manhattan area of New York City. Her sister, Kate, was also described as a nurse, but whether she was a medical nurse or a children’s nurse in domestic service is not known.
Margaret went to Los Angeles, California, to live with her brother, John, but apparently became ill and her sister, Kate, escorted her back to New York City.
In the spring of 1915, Margaret and Kate Waters decided to return to their home in County Leitrim. Their mother was ill and it is likely that they decided to return to their
home to care for her.
Consequently, they booked second cabin passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania, and joined the liner at her berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for her scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing.
This sailing was delayed until the early afternoon, however as the Lusitania had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the liner Cameronia which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service at the end of April. The sisters would have had their last glimpse of their adopted country just after that, as the liner left the harbour and made her way out into the Atlantic Ocean for the last time.
Six day later, they were both dead, killed after the Lusitania had been torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only 250 miles away from her Liverpool home port.
As the bodies of neither sister were recovered from the sea and identified afterwards neither has a known grave. Margaret Waters was aged 28 years.
Margaret was survived by her father, and a brother and sister in Ireland, two brothers in California, John and Stephen, a sister, Bridget, residing in Nebraska, and another sister, Elizabeth, residing in New York.
Their mother died at her home on the 13th May 1915, but it is not known if the loss of her daughters hastened her death.
Her brothers and sisters residing in the United States filed a claim with the U.S. State department seeking compensation for the deaths of both sisters, but as they were British subjects at the time of their deaths, the Mixed Claims Commission refused their application. Also, her family filed a claim in the New York City Courts against the Cunard Steam Ship Company Limited, holding the company responsible for their deaths but it is believed that their case was unsuccessful.
Cunard records state that the sisters were travelling from Elcentra, California, which was probably El Centro, but it is likely that this is where their brother, John, was residing at this time and he gave his address as being theirs in the event that any information pertaining to them became available.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1911 Census of Ireland, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 2186, New York U.S. Wills and Probate Records 1659 – 1999, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Standard Union, 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.