Sarah Jane Mounsey was born in Blufton, Indiana, in the United States of America, on the 6th October 1885, the daughter of William and Fannie Mounsey (née Sewell). Her parents were born in Keswick, Cumbria, England, and immigrated to the United States of America in May 1883, with their son, John Thomas. Having moved around the mid-western states, they eventually settled in Chicago, Illinois. By this time, they family had grown to nine children. Besides John Thomas and Sarah Jane, these were, Martha, George A., William E., Elizabeth, Ethel, Myrtle, and Bertha.
On the 3rd December 1907, she married Charles Henry Lund, who was a signal expert working for a railway company in Chicago, Illinois, where they made their home. They had no children.
In 1914, her mother, Fannie Mounsey had decided to return to her native Keswick, in Cumbria, England, for a holiday and accompanied by two friends from Chicago, she embarked on the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Ireland for the crossing from Quebec to Liverpool, which began on 28th May. The following morning, however, she was killed after the ship was sunk following a collision with the Norwegian vessel Storstad in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Not long afterwards, however, strange rumours began to circulate in Chicago that Fannie Mounsey had somehow managed to survive the sinking and had somehow got to Liverpool, in Lancashire, England, having lost her memory as a result of the disaster. The rumours were further fuelled by the fact that a woman claiming to be Fannie Mounsey, and resembling her quite closely, had been committed to a mental institution in nearby Ormskirk, exhibiting, amongst other characteristics, a mortal fear of water!
As a result, on the morning of 1st May 1915, Sarah Lund and her husband, Charles, and her father, William Mounsey, joined the Lusitania at New York as second cabin passengers, to sail to Liverpool to check out the ‘mad woman’ story!
Six days after the Cunarder had left New York, the family was further devastated after the liner was torpedoed and sunk, for both Sarah Lund’s husband and father were killed, only Sarah Lund surviving from the party of three.
When the liner was struck, she had been separated from them both and eventually found herself in the sea, from where, after some five hours, she was eventually rescued and landed at Queenstown. Having spent some time recuperating there, on the evening of Wednesday 12th May 1915 she arrived at the home of her aunt a Mrs. Tinnion, of Blencathra Street, in the former family home town of Keswick. Once there, she gave an account of her experiences to a representative of local newspaper The West Cumberland Times. It was published in the edition of 15th May and stated: -
Somehow or other, she said, she had almost a premonition that something was about to happen on the day of the disaster, and told her husband that he must not leave her alone.
She never saw the torpedo, but was looking directly at the place where the explosion occurred – the effect of which was to drench her with water, and cause a curious overpowering feeling. So quickly does the attack appear to have been made that only a few lifebelts could be obtained for the moment. There was, however, no panic, and everybody seemed to be cool and collected.
“I think,” said Mrs. Lund, “that people had read so much about the danger of panic that they all tried to keep their heads as much as possible.”
A gentleman standing by her, she added, took off his lifebelt and bade her take it. Seeing that others were still without, she drew attention to the shortage, and her husband at once rushed below to obtain more. That proved to be the last she saw of him.
Following her father – who proved to be remarkably calm throughout – Mrs. Lund climbed up a ladder as far from the reach of danger as possible, but the ladder quickly fell and precipitated both of them into the water.
She saw no more of her father, and her next experience was of rising to the top of the water, with the dead, blue-faced body of another woman floating beside her.
Of the subsequent horror which she underwent during the next five hours – all of which time she spent in the water surrounded by groups of dead and dying – Mrs, Lund cannot give any account, excepting that a number of men did all they could to keep her afloat until a row boat eventually arrived, and she was pulled into safety by the same man who had given her his lifebelt.
He, himself had been unable to get another belt, but was picked up very soon after the vessel had sunk. From the row boat she was transferred to a trawler and conveyed to Queenstown, where all the hospitals, hotels and private houses were quickly filled. Her first refuge was at an hotel, but she was afterwards entertained by a clergyman and his family.
After she had been in Keswick for a week or two, she eventually travelled to Ormskirk, where her tragedy must have been made complete when she found that the deranged woman in the mental institution was not, in fact, her mother. Thus the death of her mother, Fannie Mounsey, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had also ultimately brought about the deaths of the two other closest members of her family!
In the 13
story of her visit to the mental institution was told in detail, when it was reported: -
Yesterday’s particularly pathetic tragedy in connection with the loss of the Lusitania was revealed at the Ormskirk Poor Law Institution, which was visited by a Mrs. Lund, an American lady, for the purpose of identifying a woman calling herself Kate Fitzpatrick, who was admitted to the Institution some few months since, suffering from loss of memory.
Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker, the master and matron of the Institution had been in communication with Mrs. Lund, whose mother could not be traced and that lady together with her husband Mr. Lund and her father Mr. Mounsey who all hail from Chicago, sailed on the Lusitania in order to see if the woman was her mother.
Sad to relate, Mr. Lund and Mr. Mounsey are among the victims of the disaster, Mrs. Lund thus having lost both husband and father, when arriving at Ormskirk, she found that Kate Fitzpatrick was not her mother after all.
It appears that Mrs. Mounsey sailed on the “Empress of Ireland” which was sunk in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, but it was thought that she was saved and had found her way to England. Mrs. Lund who is staying with friends at Keswick, Cumberland, was in great distress for a sadder tragedy could scarcely be imagined. She was only rescued after being in the water five hours.
On 9th June 1915, Sarah Lund received property recovered from her husband’s body, which had been taken from the sea at the end of May and shipped back to his Chicago home. No trace of her father’s body was ever found. She returned to the United States of America on board the Philadelphia at the end of June 1915.
On the 10th August 1916, Sarah Lund married George F. Hornberger, who was an investigator with the telephone company in Chicago. She filed a claim for compensation for the injuries she suffered in the sinking, and also for the loss of both her own, and Charles Lund’s personal property.
The Mixed Claims Commission later awarded her the sum of $5,000.00 for the loss of her husband and her personal injuries, $288.00 in compensation for the loss of her own personal belongings, and a further $341.75 in compensation for the loss of her husband’s effects. A further claim submitted by Sarah and her eight brothers and sisters in respect of the loss of her father resulted in an award of $7,500.00 to her sister, Bertha. Of the nine children, Bertha was the only one who could prove that she was financially dependant on her father, being his housekeeper.
Sarah Lund Hornberger moved to California, where she resided for a number of years before returning to Chicago. She died in Niles, Cook County, Illinois, on the 2nd April 1978, aged 92 years, and was buried in Ridgewood Cemetery, Des Plaines, Cook County, Illinois, beside her second husband, who had died in 1962.
Cook County Illinois Marriage Index 1871 – 1920, Cook County Illinois Death Index 1908 – 1988, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, 1910 U.S. Federal Census, 1920 U.S. Federal Census, 1930 U.S. Federal Census, 1940 U.S. Federal Census, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Mixed Claims Commission Docket No. 596, 597 & 598, Ormskirk Advertiser, West Cumberland Times, Forgotten Empress, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/398, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.