Walter Dawson Mitchell was born in Newark, New Jersey, in the United States of America, in July 1914, the son of Walter Dawson and Jeanette Mitchell, (née Moore).
His parents had immigrated to Newark from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1912, where Walter junior's father had secured a job as superintendent in a textile mill. Walter junior's uncle, John Moore, had gone to America previously, in 1911 and it is almost certain that his parents followed on because of his example.
When the passage of the Great War began to affect the textile trade, however, the family, including John Moore, decided to return to Northern Ireland where baby Walter's grandparents still lived.
Consequently, they booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania, and set sail from New York at mid-day on 1st May 1915, on what would be the last ever trans-Atlantic crossing that the liner would make. When the ship was sunk, baby Walter and his father were both killed, although his mother survived. Walter junior was only ten months old!
Both bodies were recovered from the sea, however, and both were landed at Queenstown. Mr. Mitchell's remains were then sent by rail to his father's church, at Ballylesson, County Down, (he was the Rector there), for burial in the churchyard.
Although baby Mitchell's body was given the reference number 122 in one of Queenstown's temporary mortuaries, no association with that of his father could have been made at the time, for his body was buried on 10th May 1915 in The Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown, in Mass Grave C, 1st Row, Lower Tier. This was the day that most of the victims of the sinking were buried, after a long funeral procession which began outside the Cunard Office at Lynch's Quay on the waterfront.
All the recovered corpses were photographed at the time, to aid the identification process, and baby Mitchell was identified from a photograph after his burial by his poor mother.
Cunard Records, Irish News, Newark Evening Star, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/221, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.