Me and Dr. Hardgrove - Part II

It's been over five years since I talked about my late friend, Dr. Maurice Hardgrove.

A new story has emerged that needs to be told, out of excitement, and for posterity.

Just a refresher, my original post about him for the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in April 2012.

My heroes were different. My view of "celebrities" was different. Case in point, Dr. Maurice Hardgrove. All my youth, there was this really cool model of the Titanic on top of the large card catalogue in the Fond du Lac Public Library. I always glanced up at it in the adult section (it wasn't in the kids'). One day I looked more closely at the sign inside the glass case it was in and it said that it was built by Dr. Maurice Hardgrove. I looked closer and it said that not only did he make it, but he was on the Carpathia (the ship that picked up the survivors of the Titanic) when he was a boy. This was so cool to me. The odds of me meeting one of the remaining survivors of the Titanic at age 15? 0% chance. This was the next best thing. He was equally important from a different aspect of the tragedy we all know. He was my celebrity. I wanted to meet him. I wanted his autograph.

I told my mom. I was 15. "If you want to get me something for my birthday, I'll take Dr. Hardgrove's autograph." I didn't think my mom took it seriously.

She did.

It was the summer of 1990, I was 15 and we came to Milwaukee and I met Dr. Hardgrove and his wife. They were two of the nicest people you could possibly meet. We spent a few hours at their home. After a bit, Dr. Hardgrove stood up and went to a door and said to come with him. I went down to his basement and he pointed at a box, "Jack, can you please bring up that box?" I gladly obliged and brought it upstairs. It turned out to be his box of Titanic items (newsletters from the Titanic Historical Society and his postcards that he kept since he was a boy from the Carpathia and this great photo of him, with his parents, aunt & uncle, and grandparents -- grandfather was a Civil War vet). They were from Fond du Lac and I knew the names. His uncle, Dr. Frank McGauley pronounced my great-grandfather dead on April 3, 1916. His grandfather, the Civil War vet, was Maurice McKenna, a well respected attorney in Fond du Lac, who wrote the 1912 History of Fond du Lac County. They were also were friends with Fond du Lac's most prominent doctor, William Minahan, who would go down on the Titanic just two nights after this photo was taken.

Young, 8 year old Dr. Hardgrove is standing right over his grandfather's shoulder. I asked him what he remembered and he told me that he couldn't sleep that night and he snuck out of the cabin and went into the hallway. He saw two crewmembers who were talking about how the ship was turning around. Then they saw him and told him he better get back to his cabin. He also remembered that everyone tried to bring warm blankets and clothes up to the deck after the survivors were on board.

Didn't read that in a book. I heard it first hand.

HERE IS THE TWIST!

So now there IS a book about the passengers' recollections from the Carpathia, and Dr. Hardgrove's parents, uncle and grandparents are among the stories! There's even a reference to Dr. Hardgrove himself!

According to his mother, the ship was 60 miles away from the Titanic when the distress call was received. It took a day to find their friend, Mrs. Minahan on board. The family, including his grandparents, the McKennas, took in a newly widowed woman and her two little girls in their room. Her name was Ada Mary West, age 33. She was second class passenger, traveling with her husband Edwy Arthur West, age 36, and her daughters Constance Miriam West (age 5) and Barbara Joyce West (age 11 months).

The date of the photo of the West family is unknown, but is guessed to have been taken in 1911. The family was traveling to Gainesville, Florida. A recollection of the fateful night in 1912 from Mrs. West has been located:

'We were all asleep when the collision took place, but were only jolted in our berths - my husband and children not even being awakened, and it was only the hurrying of passengers outside the cabin that caused alarm. The steward bade us all get up and dress thoroughly with plenty of warm things. Arthur placed lifebelts upon the children and then carried them to the boat deck. I followed carrying my handbag. After seeing us safely into the lifeboat Arthur returned to the cabin for a thermos of hot milk, and, finding the lifeboat let down he reached it by means of a rope, gave the flask to me, and, with a farewell, returned to the deck of the ship.'

They had boarded lifeboat # 10. Edwy's body would never be recovered. The other kicker? Mrs. West was also pregnant!

The families, as both Dr. Tim Hardgrove (Dr. Hardgrove's father) and Maurice McKenna stated in their own words, were poorly dressed for the cool air. The word McKenna used several times about the survivors was "pathetic".

Dr. Hardgrove's mother stated: "We did what we could. One little girl has Maurice's blouse on for a dress, one lady my shoes, etc."

Dr. Hardgrove gave his shirt for the little girl pictured above who just lost her father and was going through what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder. He was 8 1/2. Seeing the faces of the people that he encountered hit me as a very real, very human moment. I felt reconnected instantly to him and his family again.

This is a photo of Mrs. West and her girls a few years later.

Maurice McKenna, Dr. Hardgrove's namesake, stated that while Mrs. West rested, he took the young Constance up to the deck for some fresh air. She asked him for a pencil and some paper, which he obliged. She then addressed a letter to "Daddy" asking him what was keeping him and that they arrived on the ship (Carpathia) before him. When she finished her letter, she gave it to McKenna and asked him to deliver it to her father when he found him on the ship. He knew Mr. West's fate and said "we all knew that her father was deep in the Atlantic Ocean, but no one dared to tell the child the truth."

Let that sink in for a minute. These recollections that he could not illustrate for me when we met have been revealed in full detail to me now. It is incredible.

To me, this is what makes history real. The Titanic is a very personal story for me.

Dr. Hardgrove and his parents.

I said it before, and I'll say it again, God bless Dr. Hardgrove and his family. God bless the Carpathian. God bless the souls and families affected by the Titanic tragedy. 



The black and white photo postcard is another gift from Dr. Hardgrove. It was a postcard he actually kept from the Carpathia, April 1912.