Sara E. Griesemer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, on 4th August 1882, the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Levi B. Griesemer. Her father and his brother ran a grocery store in the city. On 2nd June 1905, she married William Sterling Hodges, and in 1915, the family home was at 2926, Lehigh Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the couple lived with their two sons, William Sterling Junior, better known as ‘Billy’, who was born in 1907 and Dean Winston, who was born in 1909.
Her husband was employed by The Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia from 1899, and having travelled extensively for that company, in 1915, he was asked to take over the running of the French branch of the company in Paris. As a consequence, he booked saloon passage for himself and his family on the Lusitania which was scheduled to leave New York on May Day.
Having left Philadelphia at the end of April, the family arrived at the Cunard berth, at Pier 54 in New York harbour on the morning of 1st May and boarded the liner with ticket number 14677. The four of them were then escorted to their first class accommodation, Mr. and Mrs. Hodges to room A16 and the two boys to A18. Both of these rooms were under the personal supervision of First Class Bedroom Steward John Perry who came from Seaforth on the outskirts of Liverpool.
The liner’s departure from New York was delayed because she had to wait to embark passengers, cargo and some crew from the Anchor Liner the S.S.
Cameronia, which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty for war service and she finally left her berth just after mid-day. 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 about 250 miles from her Liverpool destination.
All four members of the Hodges family perished as a result and one report states that as the ship was obviously sinking, Sarah Hodges was heard to say: -
If we go down, we’ll all go down together!
So perhaps all four of them were together as the ship actually went down. Only the bodies of Billy Hodges and his mother were recovered and identified. Hers was taken from the sea and landed at Queenstown, where it was sent to one of the temporary mortuaries set up there, given the reference number 209 and described as: -
Female 33 or 34 years. 5’ 4” dark hair and eyes, well shaped face, slight build, corded brown dress, good teeth, slightly long features, long neck, refined looking, and white woollen jacket with white bone buttons, 1 gold ring with initials W.L.H. and S.E.G. June 2nd 1905, 2 gold rings set with diamonds, 1 hair comb.
Then, on 16th May, it was buried in The Old Church Cemetery, above the town, in Mass Grave B, 5th Row, Lower Tier. Sara Hodges was aged 32 years at the time of her death.
It is probable that as her burial was carried out in Queenstown, the body was not identified before its interment, as the bodies of most American saloon passengers were embalmed in preparation for burial in their home country. Thus it is likely that the identity of body No. 209 was ascertained at a later date, by family in Philadelphia, from property recovered from it.
Either way, this property - described above- was put on board the Cunarder
Saxonia on 28th September 1915, for shipment to Cunard’s New York office, from where it was delivered to a Mr. W.B.S. Ferguson, of 501, Lincoln Building, Philadelphia, who was an attorney. He, presumably, then made sure that it was given to the remaining family.
Bedroom Steward Perry, who had looked after Mr. and Mrs. Hodges in room A16 also perished in the sinking and never saw his Seaforth home again.
After the War, Sara’s widowed father, Levi B. Griesemer, and William’s widowed mother, Mrs. Mary B. Hodges, filed claims for the loss of their respective children with the Mixed Claims Commission, claiming that they were both dependant on their off-spring.
Mr. Griesemer’s claim stated that for more than a year prior to his daughter’s death, he had been too ill to work and was financially assisted by her. She used to send him small sums of money to help him get by. He eventually recovered sufficiently to return to work, but had again fallen ill in 1922 and was again unable to work and was an inmate of the “Red Men’s Home”. He was now being assisted by another of his daughter’s, who was older than Sara.
On 21st February 1924, the Mixed Claims Commission awarded Levi B. Griesemer the sum of $2,500.00 compensation.
Pennsylvania Births Certificates 1906 – 1911, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, U.S. Passport Applications 1795 – 1925, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 274 & 481, Philadelphia Public Ledger, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/8-11, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Stuart Williamson, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.