Maria, also known as “Marie”, Kelly was born in Cloosh, Kinvara, County Galway, Ireland, on the 25th February 1883, the daughter of Patrick and Bridget Kelly (née Fawl). Her family were farmers, and Maria was the eldest of nine children.
Around 1904, Marie Kelly had gone to the United States of America, and had settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where she worked as a domestic servant for the Lowell family, of 517. Hammond Street, Chestnut Hill, Boston. Her sister was already living and working there.
She returned home to see her parents in June 1914, and that September she got engaged to a local man who had returned from America. On the 30th September, she returned to Boston, presumably to settle her affairs and collect her personal belongings, before returning to Ireland to get married.
Therefore in April 1915, she was ready to return to her native land, and she booked a ticket as a third class passenger on the Lusitania, for her sailing from New York to Liverpool on 1st May 1915. Having left Boston at the end of April, she boarded the liner on the morning of the sailing at the Cunard berth at Pier 54.
She then had to wait until just after mid-day before the liner sailed, because she had to embark passengers, some crew members and the cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel Cameronia which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for war service as a troop ship.
Six days out of New York on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only about 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination and home port. Marie Kelly was killed as a result of this action. She was aged 32 years.
Soon after, however, her body was recovered from the sea and having been landed at Queenstown, it was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there, given the reference number 87 and described as: -
Female 32 years, 5’7” Black hair, brown dress, black blouse.
Then, on 10th May 1915 it was buried in The Old Church Cemetery, just outside the town, in Mass Grave C, 5th Row, Lower Tier, where it lies today. It was on this date that most of the victims of the sinking were buried, following a long funeral procession from Lynch’s Quay, outside the Cunard office in Queenstown itself.
After the burial, her brother, Mr. Peter Kelly, travelled to Queenstown and was able to identify her body from personal effects, but he can not have been properly accredited, as he was not allowed to remove it, or any of the property recovered from it. Later, when his sister in Boston learned this, she was outraged and wrote accordingly to the New York office, which passed on her views to Cunard in Liverpool. The Liverpool office then had to write to her in Boston, in an attempt to appease her in her distress!
On 9th June 1915, the property recovered from Marie Kelly’s body was sent to a Mr.
T.P. Corless, of the Corless Hotel, Kinvara, to be passed on to her father, at the home address. It consisted of a Sacred Heart ring, a brooch of white and blue paste, and a lady’s gold Hunter watch by Long of Boston, engraved SEPTEMBER 23RD 1913.
Soon after the sinking, her parents applied to The Lusitania Relief Fund, for financial help. This fund had been set up immediately after the liner had gone down, by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other local business dignitaries to help second and third class passenger survivors and the relatives of those who had perished, who had come upon hard times as a result of the sinking. It was thought that saloon class passengers were wealthy enough not to need help.
Each claim was met on its merits and her parents had applied on the ground that her daughter partially supported her from her wages as a domestic. They were awarded the sum of £5-0s-0d, with further enquiries to be made. It is not known if received any further assistance.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of Ireland, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1911 Census of Ireland, Massachusetts Passenger Lists 1820 – 1963, Cunard Records, Liverpool Records Office, Boston Post, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/542, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.