Liba Bella Chirurg (also Khirurg) was born in Pandelys, Rokiskis, Lithuania (then part of Imperial Russia) in 1847, the daughter of Abraham Joshua and Sheyna Guta Chirurg. She had at least six siblings, and whereas nothing is known of her family or childhood, the town where she was born and grew up in, was predominantly a Jewish community. It is thought that her father was a medical physician.
It is not known for certain how many times she was married, but her first marriage, around 1867, was to a man named Orchick Snitzer, although other forenames, Oram and Chaim, seem to be associated with him, as well as the surnames Schnit, Schmidt, and Smith, which appear to have been surnames used by some of their five children, especially after they emigrated to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Then, around 1880, Orchick Snitzer died, leaving Liba a widow.
Her second known marriage was to Louis (or Leib) Klass, and the couple had a son, Joseph David, born in 1886. It would appear that Louis Klass died not long after the birth of their son, perhaps in 1888, and then Liba married Samson Comras, who was a confectioner. Her husband had previously been married, and presumably widowed, and whereas the couple had no children together, both had a number of children from their previous marriages.
Sometime in the late 1890’s, Liba and her husband, along with several of their children, who were all young adults at this stage, immigrated to London, England. In 1895, her daughter, Rosa Snitzer (now using the surname of Schmidt), married Myer Comras, who was a son of Samson Comras, and was therefore Liba’s stepson! The inter-marriages didn’t stop there, for in 1901, her son, Marks Snitzer (now using the surname of Smith), married Bella Comras, a daughter of Samson Comras! Liba was widowed for the third known time in 1901, when Samson Comras died, aged 60 years.
In 1904, she married again! Her husband on this occasion being Abraham Jacobs, who had become a widower only five months before he married Liba. Abraham Jacobs was a mantle maker, and the couple lived at 134. Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London. Also in 1904, Liba became one of the first midwives to register in England under a new law – the Midwives Registration Act, 1904.
In the spring of 1915, she had been in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States of America on a visit to Joseph Klass, her son from her second marriage. For her return to London, she had booked third class passage on the May sailing of the
Lusitania from New York to Liverpool and was allocated ticket number 168882. Leaving Chicago at the end of April, she arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure. This was then delayed until the afternoon as she had to embark passengers, crew and cargo from the Anchor Liner
Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for service as a troop ship.
The Lusitania finally left New York just after mid-day and just six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May; she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20, twelve miles off the coast of southern Ireland and only 250 miles from her home port.
Liba Jacobs was killed as a result of this action, but her body was recovered from the sea soon afterwards and landed at Queenstown, where it was taken to the temporary mortuary set up in the yard of the Cunard office at Lynch’s Quay, on the waterfront. There, it was given the reference number 33, pending a positive identification. A Mr. David Gordon, a grandson of Abraham Jacobs and step-grandson of Liba Jacobs, apparently travelled to Queenstown after the sinking, to look for her or her body, but it would appear that she might already have been buried by the time he arrived, because although she was Jewish, she was buried on 10th May 1915, in the Old Church Cemetery, two miles north of the town, in Mass Grave C, Fifth Row, Upper Tier, which was in the Protestant section. It was on this day that most of the recovered dead were buried after a long funeral procession which began outside Cunard’s office on the waterfront. Her body had been described at this time as: -
Female, 55 years, stout, fair hair turning grey.
Before her burial, her body was photographed, which also suggests that at the time, she had not been positively identified and it was actually identified from this photograph by her daughter, Mrs. Rose Comras, of 375, Hackney Road, London. In correspondence with the family following this identification of the body, the family was told by The Cunard Steam Ship Company, that a re-burial would require a court order. Cunard also stated that this would be unlikely to be granted for reasons of public health! Liba Jacobs was aged 67 years at the time of her death.
Property which had been recovered from her body was jointly divided, by mutual agreement between her husband and her son, Mark Smith, of 41, Bridge Street, Southampton, Hampshire, on 12th September 1915. He was the eldest of her five children from her marriage to Orchick Schmidt and had obviously anglicised his original name to Smith. He took receipt of two gold watches, one antique, with a key attached, the other an 18 carat ladies type, made in Geneva, in a celluloid case and with the inscribed initials
O.F., an 18 carat gold plain buckle, an 18 carat gold padlock bracelet and gold brooch and a photograph.
Her husband Abraham Jacobs took possession of her gold wedding ring at the Spitalfields home on the same day.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, Cunard Records, Southampton City Library, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-10, UniLiv D92/2/43, UniLiv D92/2/100, UniLivPR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 - 1968, Graham Maddocks, Aubrey Jacobus, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.