Correspondence from White Star Line - Personal Effects Recovered - 21 May 1912

Correspondence from the White Star Line to Mrs. Catherine Harbeck Regarding Recovered Personal Effects Dated 21 May 1912

Correspondence from the White Star Line to Mrs. Catherine Harbeck Regarding Recovered Personal Effects Dated 21 May 1912. GGA Image ID # 104e522812

White Star Line
9 Broadway
New York

May 21, 1912

Mrs. Catherine Harbeck
735 Michigan Street
Toledo, Ohio

Dear Madam:-

N,R,--Passages are only booked subject to all the terms and conditions appearing on the Passage Tickets.

Respecting the recovery of effects taken from bodies of "Titanic" passengers, we have to advise that when the value of the effects amounts to a sum exceeding, say $100, the property has been retained by the Provincial Secretary at Halifax.

To obtain the effects the execurtor or administrator of the estate of the passenger should send to the Provincial Secretary at Halifax a Court certificate showing his appointment, together with a receipt in duplicate for all effects in the hands of the Provincial Secretary recovered from the body.

Yours very truly,

WHITE STAR LINE

per

/s/ Harrold Wingate

A Story About Mr William H. Harbeck, a casualty of the Titanic

According to Titanica, Although Harbeck was married and had two sons, the woman travelling with him on Titanic was not his wife, Catherine, but Henriette Yvois, a 22-year old model Harbeck had met in Paris. During the trip, Lawrence Beesley tells us that Harbeck watched his "wife" Henriette play solitaire throughout most of the voyage.

When Catherine Harbeck came from Toledo to claim the body in Halifax she was almost turned away as an imposter because authorities told her Mrs Harbeck had drowned with her husband. Mrs Harbeck took the body back to Toledo for burial in Toledo's Woodlawn Cemetery.

This letter was in response to her inquiry about personal effects recovered.

Return to Top of Page

RMS Titanic Collection
Ephemera & Reproductions
GG Archives

RMS Titanic Ephemera & Reproductions

RMS Titanic

Disaster in the Making

Publications, Repros, Videos, & Images

Other Related Topics

Ocean Travel Topics A-Z