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| Barbara Winifred Anderson McDermott Visit on a Sunday Afternoon July 21, 2002 |
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| Sunday dawned a perfect summer's day without a cloud in the sky. As I pulled into the drive of the house in Connecticut, a sprightly lady bounded across the lawn smiling and waving with great animation. Taking this for Elizabeth, the daughter of Barbara McDermott, I was soon to realize this WAS none other than Barbara herself! Whisking us into her little apartment, she pointed out her daughter's garden and the pool where her great-grandsons like to swim.- "I'm cat-sitting-hope you like kitties," she announced with a laugh. Her sitting room is full of souvenirs of a full life- her piano, china thimble collection, stuffed animals and figurines of white cats everywhere. On the table was an irresistible pile of papers and photos of the family. On the wall, a little girl with a serious little face and coppery hair gazed wistfully down. "Oh- that's me - I was such a serious-looking child- and always a loner," she explained. Soon we were happily looking through family photos of her grand and great -grand children (all boys), her father, mother Emily Pybus and myriad aunts and uncles- her father, Roland, had 6 siblings, Alfred, Percy, Grace, Frank, Annie, and Edith. |
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| "That's my mother Emily," she said, pointing to a sweet-faced lady in a faded newspaper clipping. She died not long after her infant baby, Frank, who lived to be just six months old and born soon after her rescue from Lusitania. "I believe the trauma of that day killed them both in the end," she said. |
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| Noticing the little locket in the portrait on the wall, she exclaimed that she still had the little heart-shaped pendant as well as her mother's cameo and some other mementos of jewelry. "See the little dents on that heart- I TEETHED on that," she said with a big smile. |
| After the war, in 1919, Barbara would come home to her father and cross on the Mauretania. "Aunt Annie wanted to keep me in England but Aunt Edith was all for sending me back to America," she said. Edith went to the passport office when the photo to the right was taken. |
| The receipt for 15 pounds, 2 shillings was her fare back to America. "I can't remember the strange lady who was my travel companion-she wasn't very nice!" A kindly Captain asked a little girl how she would feel about dinner at his special table. His name? Arthur Rostron. "I still remember his face, and that evening- I was seven by then you know. We landed Christmas Day in New York." |
| Recognizing the famous German-made Lusitania medal on the table, I asked how she had acquired it. "Oh- that was my wish come true. An article appeared by Mr. John Thorpe over in England of how I wanted one of these, and a reader saw the article and gave me the medal which had been given to him. I was so excited to receive it. My other wish would be to have the spoon I carried off of the ship back again. I was leaning against the rail of the upper level of the diningroom when the torpedo hit, mother was still at table -and I was watching the people scurrying below, clutching the spoon. Granny Pybus used to keep it in the big diningroom dresser and show it to guests for years after. After she died, whoever cleared out the house must know what happened to it. How I want my spoon!- It had Lusitania written on it" |
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| I asked what she could recall of the sinking. After a pause she continued, "We were up on deck and people were running all over, an officer who I later found out was the Purser, Mr. Harkness, saw me at the rail near the stern. Mother was nearby but he scooped me up and we both fell together into a boat which was lowering. Number 15. I was not injured and have no memories of being in a hospital later. Mother went into the water but was fished out and put into the boat. The next thing I recall is going through a long yellow train tunnel and my Grandparents waiting for us on the platform." |
| Coming home on Mauretania |