Library:
The Sinking
Library c. 1910. Courtesy of Denver Public Library.
The Library reflects Margaret’s love of learning as seen by the original Brown family floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Both children, Larry and Helen, first went to school here in Denver, with Larry at Sacred Heart and Helen at Loretto Heights Academy. Margaret continued her own education, attending classes at the Carnegie Institute when they started a women’s college. She spoke French, Italian, German, and later, Russian and Greek.
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Margaret was also a passionate writer. She wrote mostly about her world travels. Her writings included criticism of India’s caste system, as well as a family road trip across the Alps. Margaret's work was seen in Denver newspapers and other publications across the country, which allowed people to share in her adventures and learn about the world.
Iceberg which the RMS Titanic supposedly hit on April 14, 1912. United States Coast Guard.
When the Titanic struck the iceberg, Margaret first recalled that she had been outside on deck. In her first interview while on board the rescue ship Carpathia after it had docked in New York, she stepped away from comforting a steerage passenger to tell the reporter that she had been walking on deck with a Mrs. Brayton. She said, “Mr. Haven of New York had just said to us, ‘What a pleasure to travel like this,’ when the ship gave a terrible lurch, mounted in the air, and settled again.”
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When Margaret arrived in Denver 10 days later, papers reported that the iceberg had struck “directly under Mrs. Brown’s stateroom.” They said, “She did not know the seriousness of the accident, so, in fear that she might unnecessarily excite other women on board, she remained quietly in her room.” Had Margaret changed her story, or had the reporters decided to elaborate on the character of a calm and collected Mrs. Brown?
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By the time Margaret sent her Titanic story to the Newport Herald, she said she was in her stateroom finishing a book: “So completely absorbed in my reading,” she said,” I gave little thought to the crash that struck at my window overhead and threw me to the floor.”
Could it be that in the chaos of helping people on Carpathia she skipped over the detail that she was actually in her room when the ship was hit? Or, after hearing that the iceberg struck directly below her room in the papers, did that story stick in her memory? Maybe falling out of bed made for a more interesting story for her newspaper account.
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In her earliest interviews she described in detail the sinking and her experience in the lifeboat. These quotes by Margaret paint a vivid and emotional picture of her recollections sailing away from the great sinking ship:
“We were lowering to the water as gently as if it were a drill… it all seemed like a play–like a drama that was being enacted for entertainment. It did not seem real."
“For a while after we reached the water we watched the ship. We could hear the band. Every light was shining. It seemed perfectly natural.
“It was getting cold. I took off my lifebelt because I knew how cold the water was and I felt that if I was to be drowned I wanted it over quickly… I did not wish to linger.”
“There in that lifeboat, with a sailor at my side, I rowed for all my might for seven and a half hours. I rowed until my head was sick, until I thought I was dead. I owe my life to my exercise.”
“You that have escaped this will never know what a hell it has been.”
When the ship sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, it took with it the belongings of every passenger on board. Only a few of Margaret’s belongings survived the sinking: the clothes on her back, $500, and a souvenir from Egypt. This small Egyptian talisman on display, called an ushabti, survived in Margaret’s pocket.
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This postal slip on display survived in the pocket of one of the postal clerks on board, Oscar Woody. While celebrating his birthday on Titanic, Woody felt the ship hit the iceberg, and rushed to the mail room to save the mail. He collected this postal slip from one of the mail bags so he could later account for anything missing. The staff aboard Titanic were not a priority for rescue, so Woody did not survive, and this artifact was recovered from his body.