Sarah Mary Rogers was born in North Petherton, Somerset, England, on the 3rd June 1882, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Ann Rogers (née Harden). Her father was a butcher, and the family resided at Fore Street, North Petherton. She was one of nine children.
On the 18th August 1903, she married Joseph Fish in North Petherton. Her husband was described as a contractor, and the couple established their home in Bristol, Gloucestershire. Their first daughter, Sadie Eileen, was born on the 24th February 1905, followed by their second daughter, Marion Enid, born on the 10th April 1907.
In 1909, Joseph Fish immigrated to Canada and found work as an automobile salesman in Toronto, Ontario. On the 25th September 1912, Sarah and their two daughters arrived in Montreal, Quebec, and travelled overland to be reunited with him. The family resided at 441. Sackville Street, Toronto. In late 1914, the couple welcomed their third daughter, Joan Elizabeth, into the world.
Joseph Fish enlisted in the Eaton Machine Gun Battery of the Canadian Army in January 1915, and was commissioned as a lieutenant. He was scheduled to travel with his men to England in June 1915, in preparation for their entry into the war on the Western Front.
Perhaps because of this and the military situation in Europe, Sarah Fish decided to return to Bristol with her children. Consequently, they left Toronto at the end of April and joined the Lusitania at New York on 1st May 1915, as second cabin passengers. Also accompanying her on the journey, were her brother Richard Rogers and her sister Elizabeth Rogers.
When the Cunarder was struck, baby Joan was with her aunt Elizabeth and was subsequently drowned but Sarah Fish and her other two children survived.
On their arrival back in Bristol, Sarah Fish told of her escape and that of Eileen and Marion, to a reporter from local newspaper The Western Daily Press. The account stated: -
When the torpedo struck the doomed liner, Mrs. Fish and one of her daughters were having lunch. The other child was somewhere on deck and it is an astonishing fact that although all was chaos, the passageways and gangways being thronged with passengers, the mother and child hurrying upstairs met the other daughter coming down.
Recollections of the terrible experience which followed are not, in this moment of grief, clear, but Mrs. Fish remembers with gratitude that a gentleman - quite a stranger - came to her and proffered a lifebelt. Mrs. Fish told one of her children to fasten it on, but the brave little girl would not take it from her mother. Thereupon, the gentleman took off his own and gave this to the child.
One of the girls still had no lifebelt, and to her the mother clung as the great ship went down, dragging them far below the waves. They at length came to the surface, and for over an hour struggled in the sea. Reaching an overturned boat to which several passengers were clinging, her appeal for her child was answered and she herself was later taken into a collapsible boat, in which, strange to say, her other daughter was. Then a tug picked them up and took them to Queenstown.
Despite her survival and that of her sister Elizabeth and two of her daughters, her brother Richard was killed, and no trace of his body or that of her youngest daughter Joan, was ever found.
The family survivors eventually got back to Bristol, having travelled to Rosslare in County Wexford, from Queenstown from where they caught a ferry to Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, Wales. By sheer coincidence, Sarah Fish had bumped into her sister Elizabeth on Cork railway station, having believed her, like her brother, to have perished and travelled home together!
Joseph Fish sailed for England from Montreal on the 4th June 1915; however, he never reached mainland Europe as he was hospitalised and had his appendix surgically removed, and then in April 1916, he was tried at a general court martial for unknown offences, and dismissed from the army.
It appears that his marriage to Sarah ended sometime after this and he returned to Canada, alone, in 1921.
Sarah Fish died in Bridgwater, Somerset, on the 23rd October 1955, aged 73 years. At the time of her death, she was still recorded as being married to Joseph Fish; however, it is known that he married on two further occasions in Canada, so either they had divorced, or he was a bigamist!
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Somerset England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1914, Somerset England Marriage Registers Bonds and Allegations 1754 – 1914, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, Cunard Records, Western Daily Press, Bristol Press, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, Graham Maddocks, Rick Rayner, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.