[BITList] India's Titanic Connection

[John Feltham]

14/15 April 1912 - 14/15 April 2012. One hundred ago:

-- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar

See photos at -
http://www.ehitavada.com/news.detail/paper_type/1/news_id/115174/date/2012-04-14
and
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Chattisgarh-towns-Titanic-connection/articleshow/12656442.cms
and
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2129579/Chhattisgarh-towns-Titanic-connection.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Chattisgarh town's 'Titanic' connection
PTI | Apr 14, 2012

NEW DELHI: Nestled in remote area of Chhatisgarh,
Janjgir-Champa is a town hardly anyone would believe
to have sent a passenger for the luxury liner 'Titanic'.

Janjgir-Champa indeed sent a passenger, a missionary
Annie Clemmer Funk, who had made this town her home.
She was among the 1,500 souls who perished on board
Titanic on April 15, 1912. Annie was on her way to visit
her ailing mother in America.

Annie arrived in India as a Mennonite missionary in 1906
from America and served in Janjgir-Champa on her mission.
In 1908, she opened a one-room school and hostel for
poor girls and taught 17 students initially. She also learnt
Hindi during her India stay. The school was later renamed
as Annie C Funk Memorial School.

Not much is left of Annie's school with only outer walls surviving
the wreckage of time but her story is a legend in Janjgir-Champa.
All that is left of Annie's time here is a small plaque that describes
her brief but extraordinary life and her tragic death on board the liner.

According to Sarojini Singh, the principal of Saint Thomas school
here, the memorial school was running till 1960 but was closed
soon after. The story of Annie is equally heartbreaking as that
of the liner. From Janjgir-Champa, Annie reached Mumbai via
rail and boarded a ship for England. She was to take 'SS Haverford'
from Southampton for America but the ship was laid off because
of a strike by coal labourers.

She was offered to change her ticket for Titanic for 13 pounds.
Annie bought a second class ticket, whose number was 237671.
She also celebrated her 38th birthday on the ship with her co-
passengers, according to Gameo.org, an online encyclopedia
on Global Anabaptist Mennonite.

On the fateful night of April 14, Titanic hit the iceberg and Annie
was alerted in her cabin. She soon reached the deck where
passengers were being put into lifeboats. Annie was offered
a seat in a rescue boat when she saw a woman with a child.
As there was only one seat left, the missionary decided to
offer it to the mother, thus saving two lives.

Annie is being remembered in the US on the 100th anniversary
of the sinking of Titanic. A documentary titled 'Remembering Annie
Funk' is scheduled to be screened in her homestate, Pennsylvania,
according to Mennonite Heritage Centre website.

British family history website Ancestry.co.uk too mentions Annie's
name in the list of 1,500-odd passengers who died when Titanic,
hailed as the unsinkable ship and on its maiden journey, hit the
bottom of Atlantic after running into an iceberg.
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