Kenneth Field Luck was born in Oakland, California, in the United States of America, on the 6th June 1907, the son of Arthur Courtlandt and Charlotte Louise Luck, (née Field). He had an older brother named Eldridge, who was born in 1903, and the family home was in San Francisco.
His father was a mining engineer employed by Graton & Knight Manufacturing Company, of Worcester, Massachusetts and in the spring of 1915, he had been working in England, possibly in connection with the war effort. He decided to send for his wife and two children to join him in England and consequently his firm booked saloon class accommodation (ticket number 10541) for the three of them, on the Lusitania sailing out of New York on 1st May 1915.
Having left San Francisco by rail, they boarded the liner at her berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May, and were shown to their saloon room D61, which was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Edwin Huther who came from Liverpool.
Six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May, the liner was torpedoed and sunk off the southern coast of Ireland, by the German submarine U-20. All three members of the Luck family on board were killed and as none of their bodies was ever recovered and identified afterwards, none has a known grave. Kenneth Luck was aged seven years.
Eagerly awaiting the arrival of his family, his father Arthur travelled to Liverpool to meet the liner, but initially learned nothing at all about the fate of the three of them. All he could do was cable home the pathetic message that: -
..... he had received no details concerning the catastrophe, nor any word that would indicate whether his family was safe.
Eventually everyone had to accept the tragic fact that all three had perished!
Bedroom Steward Huther who had looked after the three members of the Luck family also perished in the sinking and never saw his Liverpool home again.
Arthur Luck submitted a claim before the Mixed Claims Commission seeking compensation for the loss of Charlotte and the children. On 21st February 1924 the Commission awarded him the sum of $20,000.00 for the loss of his wife and children, and a further $3,900.00 for the loss of their personal belongings in the sinking.
U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission, PRO BT 100/345, San Francisco Chronicle, san Francisco Examiner, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Nyle Monday, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.