Marie Pauline Picard was born in Ixelles, near Brussels, Belgium, on the 23rd September 1872, the daughter, and one of four children, of Désiré Émile Picard, and his wife, Julie Marie Victorine Héger. Her father was a renowned engineer. On completion of her education, she trained as a nurse, and also demonstrated a talent for painting and drawing.
On the 8th August 1893, she married Doctor Antoine Depage, who was a renowned Belgian surgeon, and the chairman of the Belgian Red Cross, and in 1915, they lived in a large house in the Avenue Louise, in Brussels. The couple had three sons – Pierre, Lucien, and Jean.
Doctor Depage was founder of the Societé Internationale de Chirurgie (the International Society of Surgery) in 1902, and he and Marie Depage, (who had helped him establish and run the society), were well known in medical circles in Europe and America, as a result. In fact, she had accompanied her husband across the Atlantic to lend him support in his rôle as president of the Societé Internationale, which had held its 1914 meeting in America. He was also able to count the Belgian king Albert, amongst his patients!
In 1912, during the Balkan Wars, Antoine and Marie Depage, together with their eldest son Pierre, who was also a medical doctor, had gone to Constantinople, then the capital of Turkey, to man a military ambulance and after the German Army invaded Belgium in August 1914, Marie Depage went to war as a nurse in another mobile ambulance until the retreat to the River Yser, after which she joined her husband. She then helped to train nurses in Brussels, where she worked closely with the English nurse Edith Cavell, who would be executed and martyred by the Germans in October 1915, for helping British soldiers to escape from Belgium.
On the outbreak of war, Antoine Depage, from his experiences, had immediately seen the need for special military hospitals to treat wounded soldiers, and set up L’Hôpital de L’Océan (often known as The Queen’s Hospital or The Depage Hospital), at La Panne, Belgium, where he was appointed Chief of the Belgian Surgical Staff, and L’Hôpital Jeanne d’Arc at Calais.
Not wishing to be left out of the war effort, however, Madame Depage encouraged her three sons to enlist in the Belgian Army and then decided to embark upon a course of fund raising for Belgian war relief in general and for wounded Belgians in the hospital in particular. Consequently, she decided to return to The United States of America, where she had made many friends and contacts the previous year. She was an excellent linguist and could speak and write English fluently.
On 4th February 1915, she arrived in New York via Liverpool, on the White Star Liner Adriatic and began a course of fund raising across the nation, as an official representative of the Belgian Red Cross Society. By this time, her eldest son, Pierre, was serving with the Belgian army, and her second son, Lucien, was preparing to enlist.
Having managed to raise over 700,000 Belgian francs, she was originally scheduled to return to Belgium, on the Red Star Lines vessel S.S. Lapland on 6th May 1915, but decided instead, to sail on the Lusitania, on the following day, so that she could address one last fund-raising meeting on the evening of the 6th, at the home of Mr and Mrs. Charles Alexander, of 4, West 58th Street, in New York. Before she joined the Lusitania, she stayed at 16, East 64th Street, New York and once on board, (with ticket number 46086), she was allocated saloon room E61, which was under the personal supervision of First Class Bedroom Steward Alfred Wood, who came from Liverpool.
Whilst on board, she renewed her acquaintanceship with fellow saloon passenger Doctor James Houghton from Saratoga Springs, New York, who was on his way to join Marie Depage’s husband as a doctor at the hospital at La Panne. In fact they were together when the liner was struck.
In their book The Last Voyage of the Lusitania, the authors Adolph and Mary Hoehling described what happened next: -
The Belgian woman had been busily calming children, a few women as well, and assisting them into lifeboats. She had just finished bandaging the hand of a man who had hurt himself while helping the crew lower the boats: Matt Freeman, amateur lightweight boxing champion of England.
Matt Freeman was crew member Waiter Mathew Freeman who came from London and may not have been a boxing champion at that time.
Doctor Houghton then fastened a lifebelt around Madame Depage and they jumped into the sea together, holding on to each other. The Hoehlings continued the story: -
Dr. Houghton remembered hitting his head as he went underneath. The force of the water separated him from Marie de Page (sic). He looked back for a moment, saw her struggling, then she was swept away. He lost sight of her.
Although Dr. Houghton survived to be rescued from the sea, Madame Depage did not and was killed. She was aged 42 years.
Her body was recovered from the sea, fairly soon afterwards, and after being landed at Queenstown, was taken to one of the temporary mortuaries there, where it was given the identification number 57. It was first identified by her friend James Houghton, who gave authority for it to be embalmed and then, after her husband Antoine Depage arrived at Queenstown, he also saw it, and gave further proof of its identity. He had travelled in the first instance to England to meet his wife and Doctor Houghton, to accompany them to La Panne, before he had heard the news of the loss of the vessel. He was also given property recovered from her body whilst in the town.
On 11th May, her body was despatched to London and then on to Belgium for ultimate burial there. This took place in either late June or early July in a lonely spot, in the sand dunes outside La Panne. The funeral was attended by a huge throng of people, which included family, state officials, many of the nurses who had worked with her and Belgian Army officers. Amongst the wreaths which were placed on her grave, was one from King Albert and another from Queen Elizabeth.
In his book The Tragedy of the Lusitania written not long after the sinking American author Captain Frederick D. Ellis paid the following tribute to Madame Depage: -
A few days before sailing, she received a message that her 17-year old son would soon enter the Belgian army, and take his place in the trenches. For this reason she started homeward somewhat earlier than she originally expected.
In her ministrations to the sufferers in Belgium, those who came in contact with Madame Depage pronounced her the sweetest, most lovable woman they ever met. In the Belgian hospitals near La Panne she performed those little kindnesses for the dying - Belgians and Germans alike.
She would write letters for stricken soldiers to their mothers. One day a German asked her, "Why do you do this for me? I am an enemy." " No," she replied; "to me you are just a wounded man who needs help." That typifies her whole spirit. Her mission was one of mercy, and she made no discrimination as to nationality.
After news of her death reached America, the treasurer of the local fund raising committee in New York, Doctor Richard H. Harte, was quick to reassure those who had contributed to the fund that none of the money raised was lost on the liner: -
“Under the plan adopted by the committee, one third of the ..... sum is to be used in this country for the purchase of supplies for the Melis-Depage hospitals. The other two thirds have been remitted to London for the use of the committee in Belgium.
Madame Depage was very cautious and clear headed regarding money matters, and it is absurd to suppose she would carry such a large sum of money in actual cash. As a matter of fact, all the money she collected was remitted from time to time through Dexel & Co., and J.P. Morgan & Co., who acted as depositaries in this country for the Melis-Depage Belgian Red Cross Field Hospital Fund.
Those who contributed to this cause need feel no anxiety as to the proper disposition of the funds as the work will doubtless be continued by Doctor Depage and those associated with him in Europe as well as by myself.”
Marie Depage was one of three Belgian nationals on board. Etienne de Thomaz de Bossierre also lost his life, while Philippe Yung, who came from Antwerp, survived.
Bedroom Steward Alf Wood, who had looked after Madame Depage in room E61, also survived the sinking and eventually returned home to Liverpool.
In 1920, a memorial was erected at Uccle, which is on the southern side of Brussels, commemorating the deaths of both Marie Depage and Edith Cavell. The memorial, which still exists today, is situated at the intersection of Rue Marie Depage and Rue Edith Cavell, next to the Edith Cavell Hospital. An inscription on the monument reads – “Passant, dis-le à tes enfants, ils les ont tuées” – which translates as – “Passer-by, tell your children, they killed them”!
Marie’s husband, Antoine Depage, died in 1925.
New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Lancet, Last Voyage of the Lusitania, Lusitania Saga and Myth, Philadelphia Public Ledger, Tragedy of the Lusitania, War Illustrated, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, David Evans, James Maggs, Walter Pieters, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Stuart Williamson, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.