Amy Warren Whitewright Pearl, usually know as ’Bunny’, was born in New York City, New York, in the United States of America, on the 14th November 1912, the second child of Frederic Warren and Amy Lea Pearl, (née Duncan). She had an older brother, named Stuart, who was born in 1910, and two younger sisters, Susan, born in 1914, and Audrey, born in 1915.
In 1915, the family home was at 20. Lowndes Square, Belgravia, London, but the family also maintained a home at 375 West End Avenue, New York, in the United States of America, although her parents spent a lot of their time touring Europe. After the birth of her sister, Susan, a seventeen year old girl named Alice Lines was engaged to act as nurse to the three children.
Frederic Pearl was a retired United States Army surgeon-major, and was of independent means. However, once the Great War had broken out in Europe, he
decided to offer his skills at first to the Imperial Russian Army and then to Belgian doctor Antoine Depage, who had set up a special surgical hospital at La Panne in Belgium to treat war wounded. Amy’s mother also wished to offer her help to the same cause.
By this time, the family had returned to New York, where Amy’s little sister, Audrey, was born, and had also engaged the services of Danish national Greta Lorenson to help with the children.
Consequently, the family booked saloon passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool on the first part of their journey and boarded the liner at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York on the morning of 1st May 1915 for what became her last ever departure from the port. Once on board, Amy’s parents were escorted to suite E51, Alice Lines was given room E59 together with Amy and Susan, and Greta Lorenson took Stuart and Audrey into room E67. The latter room was the personal responsibility of First Class Bedroom Steward Alf Woods who came from Liverpool. The ticket for the whole family was numbered 46071. For the voyage across the Atlantic, Amy Pearl was jointly looked after by Miss Lines and Miss Lorenson and the nursery staff of the liner’s crew.
Following a fairly uneventful crossing of the Atlantic, on the afternoon of 7th May 1915, the liner was struck by a single torpedo fired by the German submarine U-20, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. Just before she was hit, Amy Pearl’s two nurses had taken the three older Pearl children to lunch in the first class nursery, leaving Audrey sleeping in room E59. Having finished helping to feed them, Alice Lines then returned to the cabin to feed Audrey and took Stuart with her.
Just after this, the torpedo struck and having managed to get on deck, Greta Lorenson, keeping a firm grip of Susan Pearl, passed Amy to a stewardess. Alice Lines spotted them on the boat deck and it appears that the nurse and the two children were able to get into a lifeboat. It would appear, however, that this was one of those which was unsuccessfully launched and tipped its occupants into the sea! None of them was ever seen again, nor were their bodies ever recovered from the sea and identified at a later time. Amy Pearl was just two years old.
According to Audrey Lawson Johnston, formerly Audrey Pearl, in an interview with Graham Maddocks in 1999: -
Greta Lorenson and Susan actually got into a lifeboat but it capsized and they were thrown out and they must have been drowned for they were never seen again.
Obviously Amy Pearl was also in the same lifeboat.
The other members of the family survived, however as did First Class Bedroom Steward Wood, who had helped look after the children in room E59. He eventually returned to his native Liverpool.
New York U.S. Birth Index 1910 – 1965, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, New York Times, Seven Days to Disaster, PRO 22/71, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Audrey Lawson Johnston, Geoff Whitfield, Michael
Copyright © Peter Kelly.