LOUISIANA, Mo. — It’s been 80 years since the death of a Louisiana seamstress who got the scoop of the century with firsthand accounts of Titanic survivors.

May Birkhead passed at age 59 on Oct. 27, 1941, and is buried in Louisiana’s Riverview Cemetery.

Almost three decades earlier, Birkhead had been in the right place at a horrible time. On the way to Europe aboard Carpathia in April 1912, she was thrust headlong into history. The ship was among the first to respond to Titanic’s distress call.

Newspapers were desperate for first-hand accounts of the disaster. A reporter from the New York Herald had earlier visited May’s family in Louisiana to do a story on Champ Clark’s 1912 presidential aspirations, and he remembered May saying that she and an aunt would be aboard Carpathia.

The reporter wired the ship and convinced May to send back reports from rescued Titanic passengers. Little did the paper know that its readers would be treated to exclusive, not to mention riveting, accounts of the ship’s fate.

May was awakened at 4:30 on the morning of April 15, 1912 – just hours after Titanic plunged into the icy depths of the North Atlantic.

“I got out and on deck by 5 and was greeted with a most beautiful sight of icebergs on every side – some of much greater dimensions than the ship, and some baby ones – all beautiful white in the calm sea and glittering sun, a most impressive view, but one that turned from gorgeous beauty to sickening pangs when I learned the great disaster one had caused,” she said.

May soon saw lifeboats dotting the sea. Carpathia’s crew brought Titanic survivors on board one at a time. Many were chilled to the bone, but May noticed that the shock had left some in a state of disbelief.

“I have not yet found anyone among those rescued ones who was frightened when they started out to sea in the small boats, or who had a thought of its being anything but a temporary arrangement,” she noted.

Titanic stewards summoned weary passengers on deck. No one seemed alarmed at first.

“There was absolutely no panic in getting into the lifeboats,” May wrote. “The women, of course, were put in first. They kissed their husbands goodbye, thinking they were going out to sea for a short time only by way of precaution, and would return as soon as the ship was sighted.”

Reality soon set in, however.

“There were only 16 lifeboats, not nearly enough to accommodate half the passengers,” May’s account read. “So, at the very best, there must have been some heart-sickening scenes among the men when they learned there was nothing in which they could be put to sea. They simply had to go down with the ship.”

With lifeboats in short supply, desperation set in. A group of 25 women and two men made a raft out of Titanic’s deck chairs. Both of the men died of exposure and only eight of the 25 women survived. Making the tragedy even more horrifying was how quickly it all took place.

“Not one vestige of Titanic could be seen when the Carpathia came into sight of the lifeboats at dawn – not even one mast sticking up, as might have been expected,” May observed. “That unsinkable boat was out of view in just those two-and-one-half-hours.”

May proved to be an astute reporter, providing insights and testimony that the world wanted to hear. “I am told the band was playing as the big ship went down and the last heard of it was playing ‘Nearer, My God to Thee.’”

Some of the people in the lifeboats were singing.

“This was in part to keep their ears and minds closed to the awful cries for help which came from Titanic when it became clear that the ship was going down,” May said.

The stories might have been overwhelming, but May had an innate fortitude that kept her going. While most of Titanic’s passengers realized the magnitude of the disaster, there were others who seemed oblivious.

“One woman whose husband was drowned never mentioned him, but never ceased to bewail the loss of her jewels, which she repeatedly assured all who would listen to her were worth $30,000,” May reported.

Instruction on being vivid was not really necessary. It was painfully obvious.

“These poor souls say after leaving Titanic in the lifeboats that the cries for help of those left to go down were the most harrowing.” May said. “They will never forget them if they live for a thousand years, and some can’t sleep at night for hearing those awful cries.”

May called the crew of Carpathia noble and remarkable, and made note of the unselfishness exhibited by the ship’s passengers.

“Every cabin has been filled and women and children sleeping on floors in the dining saloon, library and smoking rooms,” she wrote. “The passengers of Carpathia have divided their clothes with the shipwrecked ones until they have at least kept warm. Some children were entirely without clothes in the second cabin, but the women joined together and made warm clothes out of the blankets belonging to Carpathia, and with needles and thread they could pick up from passenger to passenger.”

Most of the rescued passengers were unfamiliar, but May did recognize a couple of them.

Hannibal native Molly Brown was aboard one of the first lifeboats that reached Carpathia. And a pregnant 18-year-old Madeleine Astor was in another, still upset that her husband of less than a year – the richest man in the world and almost 30 years older – had been left behind, last seen quietly smoking a cigarette and watching his young bride’s lifeboat push off from the doomed ship.

“In the boat with Mrs. Astor – who wanted to put back toward Titanic to rescue men, who after plunging overboard were struggling to save themselves – were other women who wanted to keep going forward,” May reported. “Mrs. Astor was inclined to return to the men. Her own husband had been left behind, and she was urged to offer the oarsmen any amount of her wealth if they would put back. But the will of those who were opposed prevailed and the oarsmen rowed onward.”

May didn’t pull any punches.

“Such loss of life has never before been known on the sea, and who is to be blamed can scarcely be told,” she said. “All seem to have done what could have been on board Titanic after she started to sink. The explicit confidence of her passengers seems to have been their undoing. From all that I gather, the truth of the Titanic seems to be that it was not completed. It seems that the workmen were pushed very hard to start her on the day she was booked and, consequently, left numerous little things undone.”

A wireless operator on Carpathia sent the stories to New York. It took the ship, which rescued 710 Titanic passengers, four days to reach the port.

“One can realize what horror might have been added to the already too great disaster had our ship not received the message, it being the only ship that did receive the message,” May wrote. “Those people would have been left to drift the seas.”

The Herald was so impressed with May’s reporting that it gave her a full-time job. During World War I, she reported from Europe and later worked for the Chicago Tribune. May never married and never had children.

Carpathia wasn’t as fortunate. It was sunk off the coast of Ireland during the last months of World War I by three torpedoes from a German U-boat.

Like Titanic survivors, May never forgot what she witnessed, and her Pike County neighbors always remembered her.

Birkhead “is considered a heroine by the folks back home and all her country people, including Champ Clark,” the Washington Post wrote.

May Birkhead captured the essence of the Titanic disaster while largely remaining detached from its horror.

Her remarkable insights showcased a sharp mind, adept ability and strong self-reliance. The Louisiana clothier provided people the world over with details found nowhere else.

It would be a profound turning point, one that would lead her far beyond Pike County and open chauvinistic eyes.

“The professionalism and resilience of women like Birkhead helped to erode the belief that women were not suited to public life,” wrote author Adrian Bingham.

Masking the cries

May and an aunt were going to Europe aboard Carpathia for a six-month vacation.

Early on the morning of April 15, 1912, they learned that Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. A New York Herald reporter who had met May earlier in the year wired Carpathia and convinced her to chronicle survivors’ experiences.

It was a bold move. May had no experience writing for publication. And yet, the paper could not have asked for a more proficient scribe to convey the shock, panic and terror of the moment.

May reported that some of the people in lifeboats were singing as they paddled away from the doomed vessel.

“This was in part to keep their ears and minds closed to the awful cries for help which came from Titanic when it became clear that the ship was going down,” she wrote.

Titanic had 20 lifeboats – which could accommodate a little over half of the 2,229 people aboard – but many were not filled. Women and children were loaded first.

“So, at the very best, there must have been some heart-sickening scenes among the men when they learned there was nothing in which they could be put to sea,” May wrote. “They simply had to go down with the ship.”

The Herald did not need to offer instruction on being vivid.

“These poor souls say after leaving Titanic in the lifeboats that the cries for help of those left to go down were the most harrowing.” May said. “They will never forget them if they live for a thousand years, and some can’t sleep at night for hearing those awful cries.”

The stories might have been overwhelming, but May had an innate fortitude that kept her going.

“There is a woman in the second-class cabin who lost seven children out of 10, and there are many other losses quite as horrible,” she reported.

While most of Titanic’s passengers realized the magnitude of the disaster, others seemed oblivious.

“One woman whose husband was drowned never mentioned him, but never ceased to bewail the loss of her jewels, which she repeatedly assured all who would listen to her were worth $30,000.”

Perhaps even more troubling, five women saved their dogs and another carried a pet pig she called her “mascot.”

“I did not mind the dogs so much, but it seemed to me to be too much when a pig was saved and human beings went to death,” May wrote.

Lending a hand

May did not disregard empathy, using her sewing skills to make clothing for survivors.

She called the crew of Carpathia noble and described the unselfishness of the ship’s passengers.

“Every cabin has been filled and women and children sleeping on floors in the dining saloon, library and smoking rooms,” she wrote. “Some children were entirely without clothes in the second cabin, but the women joined together and made warm clothes out of the blankets belonging to Carpathia, and with needles and thread they could pick up from passenger to passenger.”

Most of the rescued were unfamiliar, but May did recognize a couple of them. Hannibal native Margaret “Molly” Brown was aboard one of the first lifeboats that reached Carpathia.

And a pregnant 18-year-old Madeleine Astor was in another, still upset that her husband of less than a year – the richest man in the world and almost 30 years older – had been left behind, last seen quietly smoking a cigarette and watching his young bride’s lifeboat push away.

“In the boat with Mrs. Astor – who wanted to put back toward Titanic to rescue men, who after plunging overboard were struggling to save themselves – were other women who wanted to keep going forward,” May reported. “Mrs. Astor was inclined to return to the men. Her own husband had been left behind, and she was urged to offer the oarsmen any amount of her wealth if they would put back. But the will of those who were opposed prevailed and the oarsmen rowed onward.”

The Titanic catastrophe dramatically changed all involved, and Louisiana’s May Birkhead was no exception.

She and an aunt were aboard Carpathia heading to Europe for a leisurely vacation when the “unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg and plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Carpathia picked up 705 survivors, and May was asked by the New York Herald to gather as many stories as she could.

“She scooped all the other journalists in the country,” recalled the late Louisiana historian and author Betty Allen.

A successful women’s clothier known for making elegant blouses, May did not pull any punches, as when she described the dreadful behavior by one of two men in a lifeboat full of women.

“This beast not only refused to work, but took for himself all blankets in the boat, the women having to go without and shiver and also row,” May revealed. “One of the women in the boat finally told this man that she would shoot him if he did not give up the blankets and work. The display of a pistol had the desired effect.”

Though sounding bold, May initially was modest about her writing.

“I was so much interrupted that I thought I should never get anything done and that, when I had done it, it would be such a jumble that it wouldn’t be of any use to anybody,” she remembered. “I never even had a chance to read it over.”

Return to New York

Rain was pouring down when Carpathia docked in New York three days after the sinking.

There to greet the ship were May’s Pike County friends Genevieve Clark and her mother, also named Genevieve, along with thousands of others.

The younger woman – whose father, Champ, was running for president that year – had pleaded in vain with customs officials to be taken out to meet Carpathia before it arrived.

The reunion with May was bittersweet and didn’t last long. The Clarks were due back in Washington and May had work to do for the Herald. After submitting survivors’ stories, she was interviewed about the task.

“While I had been lying in my berth during the nights after we picked up the passengers, I had been writing the story in my mind, but I never thought the call to produce it would come when it did,” May said. “I had, however, made some notes of things I did not want to forget so I should be able to tell them…when I got back.”

May managed to wire some information to New York, but Carpathia Capt. Arthur Rostron ordered that private messages to survivors’ families took precedence over those to media.

“So, I just had to write the things down as they came to me and trust that it would come out all right in the end,” she said.

May received universal praise for the accounts, which were vivid, straightforward and illuminating.

She was “considered a heroine by the folks back home and all her country people, including Champ Clark, are proud of her,” wrote the Washington Post.

“Miss Birkhead is receiving many compliments for her splendid work,” the Mexico Ledger offered.

The Herald paid May $350 – the equivalent today of almost $9,000. The investment would prove its worth.

Aftermath

Carpathia’s crew was honored on both sides of the Atlantic, but the ship’s story didn’t end well.

It was torpedoed by a German submarine during World War I on July 15, 1918. Other vessels in the convoy got away because Carpathia signaled them to the danger. All but five of the 223 crew and passengers survived. The wreckage was found in 1999 – 14 years after that of Titanic – about 185 miles off the southwestern tip of Ireland.

Champ Clark lost the 1912 Democratic presidential nomination to New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson, who went on to defeat incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and third-party candidate Theodore Roosevelt in the general election.

Genevieve Clark continued fighting for women’s suffrage and did some reporting of her own. In 1924 – four years after the 19th Amendment gave women nationwide the right to vote – she ran unsuccessfully for Congress. Clark died at 86 in 1981.

May Birkhead put down her sewing needles for good when Herald publisher James Gordon Bennet offered her a full-time reporting job.

Journalism was dominated by men at the time, but for almost 30 years May battled chauvinistic stereotypes while chronicling the news from Paris. In addition to the Herald, May worked for the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times.

Though much of her writing was for the “women’s pages,” May’s connections allowed her to grab news headlines and scoop other reporters. One example was her professional relationship with World War I commander and Missouri native Gen. John Pershing.

At the end of the war, she reported on the Versailles peace conference. May was able to escape France shortly after the Nazis invaded during World War II, and said she was intent on “going back after the Germans are thrown out.”

Alas, it didn’t happen. May, who never married or had children, died in New York City at 59 on Oct. 28, 1941. Burial was in Louisiana’s Riverview Cemetery.

“She probably knew and was known by more cosmopolites and social personages of the two continents than any other reporter in Europe or America,” The Times said.

“No society writer is more widely known on both sides of the Atlantic than May Birkhead,” according to Ishbel Ross in “Ladies of the Press” from 1936. “She started for Europe in 1912 with no thought of a journalistic career and ran head on into one of the major stories of the decade.”

“May Birkhead went from an accomplished seamstress to an overnight journalist, which actually was a wonderful Cinderella story,” said Allen, the Louisiana historian. “I think it would make a great movie.”

One last thing

British and American investigators separately said speed was a factor in the tragedy.

Had Titanic heeded iceberg warnings and proceeded more cautiously, the vessel might have been OK. Lax safety and construction regulations and a delay by the ship California – which was closer to Titanic than Carpathia – also were cited. May reserved judgment.

“Such a loss of life has never before been known on the sea and who is to blame can scarcely be told,” she wrote. “All seems to have been done that could have been on board the Titanic after she started to sink. The explicit confidence of her passengers seems to have been their undoing.”