Читать книгу Toronto Sketches 12 - Mike Filey - Страница 7

May 27, 2012

Last month, in recognition of the one hundredth anniversary of the April 15, 1912, sinking of the White Star Line’s RMS Titanic with the loss of more than fifteen hundred lives, television stations, newspapers, magazines, and Internet sites worldwide featured all kinds of stories about the tragic event. For my part I devoted my April 15, 2012, Sunday Sun column (one hundred years to the day!) to the three Canadian survivors, Mary and Ethel Gordon and Major Arthur Peuchen, who now lie at rest in Toronto’s beautiful Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

The world was shaken by an accident that the experts were sure just couldn’t happen, then another enormous marine disaster occurred a little more than two years later when on May 29, 1914, the Canadian Pacific’s Atlantic steamer RMS Empress of Ireland, bound for Liverpool from the Port of Quebec City with 1,477 passengers and crew, was rammed by the Norwegian coal freighter SS Storstad in the St. Lawrence River not far from the town of Rimouski. The Empress sank in less than 14 minutes with a loss of 842 passengers and 172 crew members. Of the 842 passengers, 167 were members of the Salvation Army who were on their way to an international conference scheduled to convene in London, England, early in June. Many of those 167 were from Toronto. Two years after the disaster, in 1916, an awe-inspiring memorial to their memory was erected in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

The caskets of sixteen Salvation Army victims of the RMS Empress of Ireland marine disaster were laid to rest in Mount Pleasant Cemetery on June 6, 1914. The total number of “Sally Ann” victims would increase to 167, many of them members of the band of the Toronto Citadel. (Photo from the Salvation Army Archives.)

As has taken place on the Sunday closest to May 29 every year since the sinking, a special service will again be held at the memorial. This year’s will commence at 3:00 p.m. and, of course, the public is invited.

Toronto businessman A.R. Clarke’s monument in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Note the reference to his being a victim of the RMS Lusitania tragedy.

As if these two marine disasters in such a short span of time weren’t enough, a third sinking of a large passenger ship was to rattle the world’s ocean-crossing public less than a year later when the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off Ireland’s southern coastline. This time 1,198 on board died. Of those, a total of 76 Canadians lost their lives. One of the last to succumb to the act of violence had actually survived the sinking. Alfred Clarke was president of Canada’s top tanning and leather manufacturing business. His large factory was at 633 Eastern Avenue, a site now occupied by Cinespace Film Studios. With war raging in Europe, Clarke was on his way to England to promote his company’s various products. That trip was cut short when without warning the ship exploded. Wrapping himself in a life jacket, he threw himself into the cold Atlantic Ocean. After several hours he was discovered floating face upward. Taken ashore, Clarke soon felt well enough to travel and continued on to London by train. But something was not right. In London he proceeded to the famous Fitzroy Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a broken rib and pleurisy. Pneumonia soon followed, and on June 20, some twenty-two days after the sinking, this prominent Canadian was dead. Clarke’s remains were removed to Toronto, where he was laid to rest in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. The inscription on his monument reveals to all who pass by that he was “A VICTIM OF THE LUSITANIA.”