by Cathy Dobson for the Sarnia Observer
(2003) In the tragic days immediately after the RMS Titanic was lost, a Sarnia family waited anxiously to discover the fate of one of their own. With the rest of the world, the family of James McCrie scanned the papers for news of survivors. McCrie appears to be the only local man on the maiden voyage of The Titanic when it sunk on April 14, 1912.
The following day, The Observer ran its first of many Titanic stories but had few details as all international news was written in Toronto in those days and brought by train. It arrived late on April 15 and was published on page eight since the first pages of that day’s paper had already been printed. “Titanic in Danger” The Observer announced. “Collided with Iceberg.”
The next day, the story took half of the front page and proclaimed that 1,234 aboard the Titanic were missing. A smaller article written by a local reporter also appeared. Here there was the first mention of McCrie and his wife Maude, who was afraid her husband was dead. She and her daughters hadn’t seen him for about 18 months since he had been hired by a foreign company to drill for oil in Egypt. He had taken several such trips over the years. Like hundreds of foreign drillers from Lambton, he returned home periodically before heading off for other adventures.
But McCrie never arrived from Egypt. He was enjoying the luxury of second class when the great ship struck an iceberg and started to sink in the North Atlantic. On April 19, 1912, five days after the disaster, The Sarnia Weekly Observer reported: “There is just a possibility that a Sarnia man in the person of James M. McCrie , oil operator North Christina Street, may be one of the passengers on the ill-fated steamer Titanic which sunk to doom early Monday morning.” The newspaper reported that McCrie’s contract had expired and he was on his way home to Sarnia.
“A letter recently received from him by Mrs. McCrie announced his arrival in England and also conveyed the information that he intended to remain over in England a week in order to make the passage across the ocean on the new steamer Titanic,” The Observer said in its typically wordy style at the time. “So far Mrs. McCrie had not received any information contrary to the above and grave fears are entertained that Mr. McCrie may have been one of the passengers on the ill-fated steamer.”
No articles were published when the McCrie family finally got word that James was not among the survivors. However, on May 13, 1912, a letter to the editor suggests that the community was rallying to help the widow and her girls. “I was glad to see in yesterday’s issue that a subscription had been opened for the family of the late James McCrie who lost his life in the Titanic disaster,” the letter reads. “I would like to suggest that The Observer office receive subscriptions as well as the banks. Let us all do our duty and consider it a privilege to help. This is our only way of showing our sympathy for the one bereaved family belonging to our town.” The letter was signed only “A Sympathizer.”
In 1997, The Observer spoke with McCrie’s descendants and reported that Maude raised the couple’s three daughters alone and never remarried. Eventually she and the girls moved to Michigan and contact was lost. Several distant cousins, nieces and nephews remain IN Sarnia-Lambton but none have any photos or memorabilia.
As for The Observer’s coverage of the Titanic sinking, stories ran front page for just two days and they were relegated to page eight. By April 19, Titanic stories had disappeared from the front page. Instead, it was filled with local news including a story about which local hotels received liquor licensing and another about a surprise party held for Mrs. Mae McCormack of Charlotte Street.