Chastina Grant was born Chastina Janet Moore, although some sources state that her maiden name was Bull, in Campbell County, Virginia, in the United States of America in 1872. Nothing is known of her family, except her mother’s name was Cindy Moore. It is possible that she came from a broken home, and took the maiden name of her mother, or she could have been married to a man named Bull at some time.
On 13th April 1893 she married Montague Tassel Grant, who was a British subject, in Gordonsville, Orange County, Virginia. He was a salesman for The American Can Company
of Chicago, Illinois and in 1905, the couple made their home there. In 1915, they lived at 1412, Hyde Park Boulevard, Chicago.
Montague Grant’s sister Jessie M. Grant lived at ‘Glendower’, Brittany Road, St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, and in the spring of 1915, the couple decided to travel there to visit her. Consequently, Mr. Grant booked saloon passage for them both on the Lusitania and they joined her in New York harbour, (with ticket number 26005), on the morning of 1st May 1915, before she set out on her final voyage. Once they had boarded, they were allocated room D39, which was the responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward William Barnes who came from Wallasey in Cheshire, on the opposite bank of the River Mersey from Liverpool.
When the liner was sunk, six days out of New York and only hours away from her Liverpool destination, by the German submarine
U-20, both of the Grants were killed. Chastina Grant’s body was one of the first to be recovered from the sea, however, and landed at Queenstown. Before it was identified, it was given the reference number 47, in the temporary mortuary set up in the yard next to Cunard’s office at Lunch’s Quay on the harbour front at Queenstown.
Once a positive identification had been made of the body, probably from property taken from it, it was buried in the Old Church Cemetery, just outside the town, on 10th May 1915, in Mass Grave C, 5th Row, Lower Tier, where it lies today. It was on 10th May that most of the victims of the sinking were buried, after a long funeral procession which began outside the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay, on the waterfront. Chastina Grant was aged 43 years.
Her husband’s body was also recovered, but not until later in the month and it was then despatched to Deptford, Kent, in England, for burial.
In a newspaper account syndicated all around the world just after the sinking, fellow saloon class passenger James H. Brooks spoke of the Grants. He said: -
Among friends he has lost in the disaster, Mr. Brooks mentioned Mr. Montague T. Grant, (a representative of the American Can Company), who was on a trip with his wife to visit friends or relatives at Eastbourne. He last saw them on the Marconi decks when the torpedo struck, and as they had not arrived at Queenstown at the time he left, he fears both drowned.
Eastbourne is about twelve miles around the coast from St. Leonards-on-Sea.
Bedroom Steward Barnes, who had looked after the Grants in room D39, survived the sinking and eventually returned to Wallasey.
Property recovered from Chastina Grant’s body was sent to Cunard’s New York office on the S.S.
Orduña on July 8th, to be handed over to a Mr. Frank A. Lasley, who was an attorney, on behalf of Merchant Loan and Trust Co., the Chicago executors of her estate. On 8th August, an acknowledgement of receipt and indemnity for Chastina Grant’s jewellery was received by Cunard at Liverpool. It listed a gold signet ring, and an 18 carat gold wedding ring inscribed with
M.T.G. TO C.M APRIL 13TH 1893. It is likely that the initial
‘M’ stood for her correct maiden name - Moore. Other jewellery received was a gold bangle, a pearl and enamel antique brooch with the initials CG inscribed on it and a diamond and ruby ring, set with three stones and inscribed
M.T.G. TO C.G. 1893 - 1913. This latter was obviously a wedding anniversary present.
As a result of the above identification, which had been made at the end of July, friends and relatives and the executors of Chastina Grant’s estate wrote to Cunard requesting that her body be exhumed and buried alongside that of her husband in Deptford. Obviously, after over a month’s interment in the lower tier of Mass Grave C, exhumation of the body would have been impossible and it was never carried out.
Some sources state that Mrs. Grant’s forename was Chaftana.
Virginia Select Marriages 1785 – 1940, New York Passenger Lists 1820 - 1957, Cunard Records, Yorkshire Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, PRO BT 100/345, PRO 22/71, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.