Janet Hall was born in Iveston, County Durham, England, on the 14th December 1870, the daughter of Timothy and Janet Hall (née Little). Her father was a coal miner, and Janet was the fifth of ten known children.
On the 20th May 1893, she married William Mordue at the Lanchester Register Office, County Durham, and the couple had three children – Janet, born towards the end of 1893, Hannah, known as “Edie” and “Edith”, born in 1896, and Elizabeth born in 1898. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died shortly after her birth, and Janet died in 1904, aged 11 years. It would appear that William Mordue deserted the family around 1899, and had died by 1911. To support her family, Janet worked from home as a dressmaker, and later ran her own dairy.
In the summer of 1912, she married Thomas Moses in Lanchester, however, this marriage did not appear to last long, and nothing is known about Thomas Moses, or what became of him.
In October 1913, Janet, travelling as Janet Mordue, and her daughter, Edith, arrived in Quebec, Canada, on board the Virginian, and then crossed the border into the United
States of America. Their destination was the home of Janet’s maternal uncle, Thomas Little, in Murphysboro, Illinois.
By the spring of 1915, she was living in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, when she decided to return to England to visit friends and relatives there. Consequently, she booked third class passage on the May sailing of the Lusitania from New York to Liverpool.
Having left Wilkinsburg sometime during April, she arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York port on the morning of 1st May 1915, in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. sailing. This was then postponed until the early afternoon, however, because the Lusitania had to take on board cargo, passengers and crew from the Anchor Liner Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for service as a troop ship.
After a fairly uneventful voyage, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland and only hour away from her home port.
Janet Moses managed to survive this action, however, and after being rescued from the sea, she was landed at Queenstown, from where she eventually managed to reach her Newcastle destination. She was aged 44 years at the time.
In the summer of 1915, she applied for financial assistance to The Lusitania Relief Fund, which had been set up after the disaster by The Lord Mayor of Liverpool and other worthy dignitaries, to help those survivors and relatives of the dead, who found themselves in difficulties as a result of the sinking. It is not known if she received any award as surviving records state “Enquiries being made”. It is not known what the results of these enquiries were.
After recovering from her ordeal, she decided to return to America and The Cunard Steam Ship Company granted her free passage from Liverpool to New York, which she accepted. She was originally booked to sail from Liverpool to New York on board the Anchor Liner, Cameronia, on the 6th October 1915, but failed to board. Cunard Records show that she was then scheduled to leave Liverpool on the 25th October 1915, on board the Cunarder Saxonia, but again she decided not to travel, and she eventually returned to New York in March 1916, on board the Orduña.
She returned to Wilkinsburg, where she lived on Penn Avenue, and opened an egg and butter store.
Although no record can be found, she may have married Benjamin Frank Rosensteel, who was a widower. Frank was a locomotive engineer, and his wife had died in 1921. Whereas they lived together as a married couple at 109. Beatty Street, Wilkinsburg, it might have been that they could not have legally married if Janet was still married to Thomas Moses.
Janet Hall Mordue Moses Rosensteel died at the Wilkinsburg Private Hospital on the 29th April 1929 when she fell into a diabetic coma. She was aged 58 years. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Wilkinsburg, where her last husband, Frank
Rosensteel, had been laid to rest in June 1928. It is not known if they are buried together.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Pennsylvania U.S. Death Certificates 1906 – 1967, 1871 Census of England & Wales, 1881 Census of England & Wales, 1891 Census of England & Wales, 1901 Census of England & Wales, 1911 Census of England & Wales, 1920 U.S. Federal Census, Canadian Passenger Lists 1865 – 1935, U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S. 1895 – 1960, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Liverpool Record Office, Durham County Advertiser, UniLiv.D92/1/1, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.