Titanic, Helen, Kate and me. 13
What could Titanic survivor Helen Churchill Candee, Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet and I, Jonelle Norman (housewife from Sydney) possibly have in common?..
13 = SOUL
creation, destruction, destination, water, silence, stay calm, roses, cemetery, angels, reset, matrix, challenge, reaction, hurt, no time, Blackrock, humans, safety first, inertia, Oarfish, awakening, separate, JP Morgan, capitalism, look for the patterns, Mercury, will of God, mantra
HELEN CANDEE = 13 - Titanic survivor, author, journalist, interior decorator, feminist and me in my past life [CHURCHILL = 13]
KATE WINSLET = 13 - actress who played Rose in the Titanic movie (was Rose based, at least in part, on HCC?)
JONELLE NORMAN = 13 - me, who couldn’t stop crying after seeing the Titanic movie in 1998, because I felt uncannily connected to it
Helen born 5 OCT 1858 = 1 in BROOKLYN = 13
Kate born 5 OCT 1975 = 1 in READING = 13
Jonelle born 5 OCT 1975 = 1 in AUCKLAND = 13
*Helen and I were born exactly 117 years apart
117 = JAMES CAMERON (writer, producer and director of the Titanic movie)
TITANIC = 13
ICEBERG = 13
1912 = 13
NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN = 13
Helen - married at age 22, had a daughter at 24 - married 17 Nov 1880 daughter Edith = 1 born 21 June 1883
Jonelle - married at age 22. had a daughter at 24 - married 13 Mar 1998, daughter Emily = 1 (= EM/ME) born 21 April 2000
[Kate married shortly after turning 23 and had a daughter a week after turning 25 - married 22 Nov 1998, daughter Mia (= I AM) born 12 Oct 2000]
See TITANIC CODES here
PAST LIFE
I first saw myself as Helen Churchill Candee during a past life regression meditation in 2004. At the time, I didn’t have a name, I just saw myself walking along a ship’s passageway, somehow just knowing it was the Titanic, and then I tripped, my perspective shifting from my own point of view to seeing my face. I noted my eyes and my nose, trying to record her/my face to memory.
I had always been quite fascinated by the sinking of the Titanic - even walking down the aisle to Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ when I got married - on Friday the 13 - so the prospect of having actually been there seemed so exciting! It would also explain my aversion to cold water and fear of going past my knees in the ocean, as well as my obsession with all things Victorian as a pre-teen (while other 12 year olds were decorating their rooms with posters of Bon Jovi and Whitney Houston, I asked to fully redecorate in candy-stripe wallpaper and chantilly lace - and I really, really wanted an antique school desk that we found in a musty antique store one weekend, but alas it had bora). Unfortunately, the internet of 2004 wasn’t like the internet of today, and I couldn’t find any information on the woman I had seen.
Years went by, with the occasional odd thing happening to remind me of it… I was in an antique store one day, admiring some beautiful, glass perfume bottles in a cabinet, and thought to myself '“these are just like the ones from Titanic”. No sooner had I wondered where on earth that thought had come from, when ‘My Heart Will Go On’ started playing in the shop! (Love it when the Universe sends a confirmation!)
Helen Churchill Candee, Kate Winslet, Jonelle Norman
Finally, ten years later in 2014 (Oct 31 to be exact = 131 intuition, I remember because my dentist gave me two options - my birthday, or Halloween), while I was sitting on the couch recovering from dental surgery and watching TV, I heard whispered in my right ear “Candy” and instantly knew exactly what they meant - it was my name from my past life on the Titanic!
I reached for my laptop and almost couldn’t believe it when I saw the name Helen Churchill Candee staring back at me. Then to see her photo, that’s her! But I really got goosebumps when I saw her birthdate… exactly the same as mine! 5 October - 117 years apart (since then, I have found that most if not all past life connections have some sort of a clue or a link like this). After reading all about her, and her many hats - author, interior designer, travel journalist, geographer, suffragette… I realised we were similar in that way. I too have worn many hats - dance teacher, travel sales representative, real estate agent, marketing manager, photographer, holistic store owner (and I have started more small businesses than is normal for any one human being). She also moved house many times, as have I (44 so far).
I was struck by her independence and dogged determination - qualities I see in myself. [And also by our shared invisibility. How could someone of such celebrity - if there was such a thing at that time - be so overlooked in history? It is only very recently that she is found anywhere on the internet. Even in the making of the Titanic movie, while every other well-known person of the time was represented, Helen Candee was not. (Unless of course… Rose). James Cameron has said that he wasn’t even aware of HCC until after the movie was made - but how could that be? She was prominently featured in newspapers, magazines and interviews following the sinking - mentioned by many others including Archibald Gracie. I fail to understand how he was not aware of her, especially given her personal memoirs (according to Charles Pellegrino, given to Walter Lord by her granddaughter, before the release of The Night Lives On in 1986) explaining her trips to the bow of the Titanic, sometimes with Mr Hugh Woolner. But anyway…]
One very obvious difference between us was that she was of significant financial wealth, but without love - and I, (polar opposite) am far from financially wealthy, but have the greatest love. (Also noting that I was 17 when I met Hot Husband, and Rose was 17 when she met Jack).
And I wonder, is that what I came back for? Love.
See a TIMELINE of Helen’s fascinating life story below, including an excerpt of Helen’s published ‘Sealed Orders’ about Titanic’s sinking.
Helen Churchill Candee
HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE
A woman of many interests and talents, Helen Churchill Candee led an adventurous life and achieved more than most men of her time. A divorcee turned best-selling author (with eight books published on topics from feminism to Jacobean furniture), one of the first professional interior decorators (even consulting on the remodeling of the West Wing in the Whitehouse), a geographer, suffragette, travel journalist and sought-out authority on all things south-east Asia, she was high-society in New York and Washington DC. She raised two children on her own, not only survived the Titanic sinking but alongside Molly Brown rowed lifeboat 6 to safety, rode her horse at the head of the procession down Pennsylvania Ave in the historical 1913 Votes for Women parade, nursed Ernest Hemingway in Milan during WW1 and lived to an impressive age of 90 years old. Helen Churchill Candee should be remembered as an important part of US history, if not an icon.
5 October 1858
Helen Churchill Hungerford was born in Brooklyn, New York to Henry and Mary Elizabeth Hungerford (nee Churchill). Notable ancestors include Elder William Brewster, the spiritual leader of the original Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower in 1620.
Her childhood was spent mostly in Connecticut.
1870
Aged 12, the 1870 Census shows Helen’s family living in Cheshire, Naugatuck, New Haven, Connecticut.
7 June 1880
Census shows Helen, aged 21, living at home at 61 West Ave, Norwalk, Fairfield, Connecticut with her father Henry, a broker, her mother Mary, older brother Harry - a physician, younger siblings Churchill and May [and one servant Annie Farrell, 17].
17 November 1880
Aged 22, Helen married Edward Willis Candee (10 Nov 1856 at 3.23am - 12 Mar 1907), a prominent New York businessman.
21 June 1883
Edith Churchill Candee is born in New York.
7 May 1886
Harold Churchill Candee is born in New York.
22 May 1891
Helen 32, Edward 35, Edith 7 and Harold 5 arrive in Liverpool, England from New York.
3 Feb 1893
Death of Helen’s brother Henry, aged 34.
14 June 1895 - New York Times
EDWARD CANDEE SURPRISED BY A SUIT FOR DIVORCE. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Candee have gone to the divorce courts with their domestic troubles. Mrs. Candee alleges that her husband was guilty of such conduct in Denver, Col., that she is entitled to an absolute divorce. Mr Candee, who is said to be worth about $500,000, alleges, that on the contrary, his wife has grown tired of him and has simply resorted to the courts to get money from him, though he has in the past given $100,000 to her. “She got out of him every cent she could” declared ex-judge Charles M.Truax, Mr Candee’s counsel, yesterday. “She squeezed him dry and then she dropped him. Her only hope now is that some money still remains on which she can lay hold”. Ex-Judge Truax made this declaration before Justice Andrews of the Supreme Court in opposing a motion for counsel fee and alimony presented by ex-Surrogate Daniel G.Rollins on behalf of Mrs Candee. Mr Rollins states that although Mrs Candee is the owner of a house valued at $65,000 and is possessed of personal property amounting to about $42,000, her income does not amount to more than $500 a year, as there is a mortgage of $30,000 on the house and she has to pay considerable interest and taxes. Mr Candee, Mr Rollins said, owned property at Fifty-Second Street and the East River, said to be worth $300,000 and also the waterfront, the value of which is placed at $60,000. In addition to this he has $30,000 which he uses in speculation, and an interest in his father’s estate which is placed at $40,000. “He is well able to pay his wife a sufficient sum to enable her to live properly” added Mr Rollins “and to provide her with means to prosecute the suit which he has brought on himself by his immoral acts.” The evidence alleged against Mr Candee was procured by a private detective in Denver, and the charges against him are made on information and belief. He denies the charges. Ex-Judge Truax said that when the pair were married Mrs Candee did not have a penny and since then she had received nearly $100,000 from her husband. “Mr Candee found that he was living too expensively last December” continued Mr Truax “and requested his wife to curtail expenses as much as possible. She then put detectives on his track and had him watched both here and in Denver. Upon his return to this city from a business trip he was served with the papers in his wife’s divorce case, this being the first intimation he had that there was any trouble.” Ex-Judge Truax was severe upon Mrs Candee saying that she wanted to be rid of her husband as profitably as possible, now that he could not support her in the style she desired. He said that the income of Mr Candee did not amount to more than $6,000 a year, and he insisted that the wife had as much money as her husband. The motion for alimony and counsel fees should also be denied he added, for the reason that the charges were made on information and belief, and were based upon the evidence of hired detectives. Justice Andrews reserved decision. Mr and Mrs Candee were married fifteen years ago. The husband is a son of Julius Candee, who was senior member of the firm Candee & Smith, the largest dealers in building materials in the country.
July 1895
Helen unsuccessfully attempts to divorce Edward in New York, after hiring private detectives to prove his “immoral acts”. She and the children then moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, where a divorce could more easily be obtained after establishing a ninety-day residency. While staying in Guthrie with F.B Lillie (the first registered territorial pharmacist, who had moved to Guthrie from Kansas and opened the first drugstore, in a tent) and his wife, Helen gathered material for what would be her second book, and her only novel.
1896
Helen is granted a divorce in Judge Frank Dale’s Court, Oklahoma - using the services of lawyer Henry Asp.
“You can never learn what people really are, unless you have the grace to listen, not with polite patience, but with sympathetic interest, to anything they may tell you. You are at times terribly bored, but that is of slight consequence in view of the fact that your companion is enjoying the conversation, and you are laying the foundation of a friendship which will in time prove its value.”
10 Feb 1900 - New York Times page 5
[Helen’s first book How Women May Earn a Living was published and instantly became a best seller.] The day has surely come when women as well as men may put their shoulders to the wheel of fortune. To meet the demands of this new and large band of wage earners many avenues of labor have been opened in recent years. There are few professions now secure against the invasion of woman. She may be found in the courtroom and in the laboratory, in the shops and in the offices, in the fields as well as in the home. Miss Helen Churchill Candee, in this little volume, offers sound and judicious advice to women suddenly thrown upon their own resources. Some of the facts which she presents are obvious to the average mind, but they are, nevertheless, of a character which may bear much repetition. In your choice of occupation select that which best suits you; then bend your talents in the direction you have chosen. Are you a practical housekeeper? Then there is the boarding house, and Miss Candee offers many suggestions as to how to make it the “ideal boarding house.” Are you artistic, musical, gifted with dramatic talent? A long vista of opportunities opens before the woman of talent—opportunities to earn a lucrative livelihood at least, if not to win fame. There are the fields of the trained nurse, the literary profession, and the business career. Women are finding employment as advertising agents, insurance solicitors, lecturers, and in philanthropic fields. Miss Candee offers good advice to the beginners who would take up any of these branches of labor. The volume is interesting, and may be read with profit by men and women alike. After all is said, the fact remains that the successful business woman must possess about the same qualities that are possessed by the successful businessman; in the field of business there is no sex. Practical capacity is the keynote to success. The woman who would command a responsible position must possess that quality if she would be valuable to those whom she serves. She must also be neat, punctual, industrious, and painstaking. The book is not written for the woman who seeks employment only as a stepping-stone to bridge over the time from school days to matrimony, but rather as a guide and assistant to her who enters upon a career of labor, not for to-day or to-morrow, but for a long and indefinite future.
2 June 1900
Census has Helen listed as the head of the house (with an incorrect birth year of 1861) occupation Capitalist, living at 116 West 69th Street, Manhattan, along with her son, daughter, Mother Mary, brother Churchill, a boarder [Eloise Speed 18] and two servants [Josephine Stilwell 43 and Edith Stilwell 19].
18 Sep 1901
Death of Helen’s mother, Mary Elizabeth in Neuilly-Sue-Seine, France.
19 Oct 1901 - New York Times
The author of An Oklahoma Romance, the story of a love affair complicated with a land claim, which the Century Company are publishing, is Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee. She is a New Yorker of a family that has been well known in the metropolis for several generations. Her mother, who recently died in Paris, was Mrs. Mary Churchill Hungerford, a woman of many accomplishments and with social gifts of a most uncommon order. Her grandfather, William Churchill, besides being prominent as a merchant in New York in the earlier half of the nineteenth century, was a noted wit and also famous for the largeness of his hospitality. Mrs. Candee had served an apprenticeship to letters before attempting a novel, and for several years past her name has often been seen attached to essays and short stories in the various magazines. Besides this, she has edited a magazine, and been an editorial writer on one of the great metropolitan dailies. It is therefore not exactly a novice who tells this story of the Southwest, with which she is thoroughly well acquainted, having lived in Oklahoma a year or more. As the story shows, she was a most sympathetic and receptive observer, although the conditions of life were so radically different from anything with which she had previously been acquainted. This, in a measure, accounts for the freshness of the impressions left on her mind by happenings which may seem sordid and commonplace enough where they are usual. It is a bit of painting with contemporaneous history for both form and color and has unusual value and interest.
16 Nov 1901 - New York Times page 15
A Story from a New Territory - In James L. Ford's Literary Shop he tells of a mythical barbed wire fence which used to separate the slums of New York from the sections suitable as scenes for fiction That fence is down now, and the whole city has been thrown open to the novelist. But New York is not the only place where new territory has been thrown open. In Oklahoma, for instance, there were probably fiction writers who "made the run" with the other settlers, or at least followed quickly after them, for Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee has written a novel of Oklahoma life in the year just after the run, when claim contests were numerous and bitter. Mrs. Candee has not put new wine into old bottles, but the reverse; her scene and coloring are new, her plot of a familiar, long-approved vintage. We never tire of the hero who loves and wins his enemy's daughter, and, fortunately, there are new writers enough to keep him always before the public, in new clothes, pressing his suit in new lands, with new adventures, and doing his best to convince us that love is the real thing. In this case the story moves by means of a wealth of happenings. It is not sensational, yet it contains a murder, the chase of an outlaw, his death, the destruction of a town by wind, the shooting of a man in the dark, and a destructive flood, besides many minor episodes. In fact, incidents crowd so that the murder, which one supposes is to have some serious bearing on subsequent events, proves to be of the slightest importance, a mere bit of machinery for the introduction of a new character, and it is dismissed with a passing reference later on. A murder seems a large appliance to be brought in so casually; one feels somewhat as if he had seen a man take down his rifle to shoot a mosquito, but the very carelessness with which it is dismissed is characteristic of a new country. The story, although pleasantly told and so full of the tireless action of the West, is not the best part of the book, however, for Mrs. Candee has the gift of making a scene glow before the eyes in the simplest way, and, with few words. In description her touch is fresh and unerring. In character drawing one often feels that she has only half penetrated the maze of human motives, only half divined what people would say and do at given times. In narrative she sometimes drops into queer affectations of simplicity, such as "the girl came not,” or into high-flown statements such as "Passion possessed his soul and dragged it from the heights near heaven, where it had soared a while before, to the gates of hell, and there left it writhing." But when she talks of horseback riding, or gives glimpses of "Little Africa" or of the town of "Lorraine" or the country around it, she is always felicitous. On the whole her book is not unlike the new territory of which she writes. It is disappointing in some details, but full of romance and of vivid glimpses of life and landscape.
9 July 1903
Death of Helen’s father, Henry in New Haven, Connecticut.
1906
Helen’s third book Decorative Styles and Periods is published.
12 March 1907
Edward Candee died of pneumonia in his home at 237 West 51st St, New York. According to the New York Times he was a veteran of the Seventh Regiment, and a member of the Manhattan Club and the Wee Burn Golf Club. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
1907
As an interior decorator, and friend of the Roosevelts, Helen selected a pair of Louise XVI chairs for the First Lady.
1909
Helen consults on the remodeling of the West Wing of the White House.
May 1910
Census has Helen as widowed and a lodger to Robert Shepherd and his wife, in Washington. Occupation none. It also has her age as 44 when in fact she would have been 51.
1911
Census shows Helen living at 1718 Rhode Island Ave, Washington.
11 Jan 1912 - Washington Post
Mrs. Churchill Candee sailed from New York yesterday on the Adriatic to spend the rest of the winter in Spain and on the Riviera.
Tenders SS Nomadic (first and second class) and SS Traffic (third class) were used to transport passengers from Cherbourg port, across the choppy sea, to the Titanic after 6.35pm on April 10th 1912
15 April 1912 - Sinking of the Titanic
Helen had been travelling Europe completing research for The Tapestry Book when she received a telegram from her daughter Edith, relaying that her son Harold (Harry) had been injured in a [plane/car] accident. She booked immediate passage home on the newest luxury liner, White Star’s the Titanic, for her maiden voyage.
Boarding in Cherbourg, France on the evening of April 10th as a first-class passenger (along with 141 other first, 30 second, and 102 third-class) via tender SS Nomadic, as the ship was too large to be fully docked. 75,000 pounds of meat, 15,000 bottles of beer, 10,000 bottles of wine and 12,000 bottles of mineral water were also loaded onto the ship. At 8.10pm it departed for Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland - its final port before setting sail for New York.
The transatlantic crossing began with relatively calm seas on the 12th and 13th of April. There were many prominent people onboard including 47 year old businessman and real estate mogul John Jacob Astor and his 19 year old - five months pregnant - (second) wife Madeleine, industrialist and heir to the Guggenheim fortune Benjamin Guggenheim , owner of Macy’s department store Isador Stauss and his wife Ida, President Taft’s military aide Archibald Butt, Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, architect Edward Austin Kent, stockbroker Hugh Woolner, artist Frank Millet, philanthropist and women’s rights activist Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown, British aristocrat Lady Countess Rothes, socialite and designer Lady Duff Gordon and Titanic’s owner and Managing Director of the White Star Line J.Bruce Ismay.
Helen was invited into Colonel Gracie’s ‘Our Coterie’ - a small group of writers which also included Edward Kent and Hugh Woolner, gentlemen who accompanied her regularly around the ship. Early on the morning of the 14th, as the sun came up, Helen snuck through the third-class open space to make her way to the bow of the ship - as she had already done previously with Hugh Woolner, but this time alone - admiring Titanic’s size and how grand she was.
“It was only at the bow that I could appreciate her pride in her size. How grand she was, how superb, how titanic. I was sure she liked her name. It suited her. Titanic, the biggest ship afloat.”
At the time of the collision Helen was in her cabin awaiting the bath Steward. Upon venturing on deck to investigate she met with Mr Woolner, who soon escorted her into lifeboat 6. He afterwards gave the following account:
”We were sitting, a party of about six, drinking hot whiskey and water. On Sunday night I noticed that everyone was drinking hot drinks. On the previous night, iced drinks had been the favourites, but on Sunday night, everyone seemed to be drinking grog. It had suddenly become deadly cold in the lounge and restaurant and the lady of our party had gone off to her room.
Then we men strolled up just above to the smoking room and had been seated only a few minutes when there came a heavy grinding sort of shock beginning far ahead of us in the bows and rapidly passing along the ship and away under our feet. Everyone sprang up and ran out through the swing doors astern. A man in front of me called out that he had seen an iceberg towering fifty feet above the deck, which was 100ft above the sea, and passing away astern. This was the explanation.
I went with a Swedish friend whose acquaintance I made on board, Biörnström Steffanson of the Swedish Embassy in Washington. We sought out the lady who had been recommended to my care, Mrs Churchill Candee, who was returning from Paris to see her only son who had met with a serious aeroplane accident in America. We found her and I took her up on to the A deck to see how things were going.
We found the engines stopped and the officers and crew making preparations to lower the boats. The officers were assuring everyone that there was no danger to life, but that the ladies were to be put into the boats as a precautionary measure. We continued our walk awhile, and then I saw passengers coming up with life belts on. I got Mrs Candee's tied on to her and then went off to my room and got on mine and brought away an extra one which I soon gave to some scared person who had none. Bjornstrom and I took Mrs Candee up to the upper A deck where the boats were hung and we put her safely with a rug into the first boat [lifeboat 6], which gradually was filled with women and children and a few of the crew were put in, three I think, and a youth with a broken arm.
Not enough men were put into the first boats really. We then bade her a cheery good-bye and told her we should help her onboard again when the ship had steadied herself. She wanted us to come too but we laughed this off.
Source: encyclopedia-titanica.org
16 April 1912 - Washington Times
As the list of passengers sailing from Southampton on the Titanic last Wednesday is made more complete, the list of Washingtonians known to have been on board grows larger. The list now contains the names of five Washingtonians who make this city their home, a former resident of the city, and the son and daughter-in-law of a Washington woman.
Major Archibald Butt, military aide to the President, and Clarence Moore, for both of whom but little hope of safety is entertained; Col. Archibald Gracie, who is said to be among the rescued passengers; Frank D. Millet, who is reported, in an unconfirmed dispatch, to have been rescued; Mrs. Henry B. Harris, formerly Miss Irene Wallach, of this city, whose name appears on the list of the saved; Mrs. Churchill Candee, of 1741 Rhode Island avenue northwest, well known in Washington social circles, and Mr. and Mrs. William Beard Silvey, of Duluth, whose mother, Mrs. W. B. Silvey, lives at the Wilmington apartments, were the passengers in which Washington is interested.
The report that the Titanic had gone down came as the most horrible of shocks to the city. Early in the afternoon what is purported to have been authoritative reports were flashed from New Foundland, to the effect that the Titanic, although badly crippled, was limping into port, while her passengers were safely lodged on rescuing vessels. Last night, when the first message reached Washington that the ocean liner had sunk, it came like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.
19 April 1912 - Washington Herald
New York, April 18--- [Helen Candee] ”The action of the men on the Titanic was noble. They stood back in every instance that I noticed and gave the women and children the first chance to get away safely. Particularly heroic was the conduct of Mr. Isidor Straus, Maj. Archibald Butt, Mr. John Jacob Astor, and Mr. Henry B. Harris. They formed a group. Most of the passengers were on the stern of the Titanic, for the leak was forward and it was known that if she sank it would be bow first. An officer of the Titanic ordered Mrs. Straus into a boat. She said:
"I will not leave my husband. We've been together all these years and I'll not leave him now." It brought tears to our eyes to witness her great devotion for her husband. Mr. Harris insisted that his wife get into a lifeboat. She refused at first but finally was forced into the boat. As we put away I observed Mrs. Straus waving her handkerchief at us. The Titanic was then settling. Her stern was out of the water, and she was going down bow first. There must have been 1,400 persons gathered together on the stern. I saw Col. Astor helping get the women and children into the boats. Then he went below, remaining there several minutes. I believe he was searching for more women and children.
Finally he came back again. He was on deck when the Titanic sank, I believe, for when I last saw him he was still aiding in the work of rescue.
Maj. Butt was one of God's own noblemen. I saw him working desperately to get the women and children into the boats.
What need can there be of recounting the heroic deeds performed by those men who remained on the Titanic? To dwell upon them only sickens the heart with the realization of how they perished.”
20 April 1912 - New York Times page 3
SURVIVORS ADD TO DISASTER TALES …Friends of Frank D. Millet, the artist, who was Major Butt's companion on the trip to Rome, eagerly scanned the stories the survivors told when the Carpathia arrived for some reference to Mr. Millet and were disappointed. Mrs. Churchill Candee of Washington recalled yesterday that Mr. Millet had been with her on deck before she was put in a boat. He had brought her some wraps and did all he could to make her comfortable. He was standing on the deck when her boat was lowered away.
30 April 1912 - Washington Post
Mrs. Churchill Candee, who was among those rescued from the Titanic, is still in New York, where she is visiting Mrs. Matthews [her daughter], at 43 Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Candee, who had an apartment in Paris for the winter, returned home in response to a cablegram informing her of a serious accident to her son, Mr. Harold Churchill Candee. Mr. Candee, it is thought, will be confined to bed for three months. Mrs. Candee suffered a broken ankle in the lifeboat in which she left the sinking Titanic. She will remain in New York with her son.
4 May 1912 - Collier’s Weekly
An excerpt from ‘Sealed Orders’, written by Helen as a short story for Collier’s Weekly.
It was getting cold, biting cold, the cold that makes you glad to be alive, with air and water clear and clean as young blue eyes. The acres of decks were cleared of loungers, even of those whose chairs were placed well behind the plate glass weather screen... And servants brought tea and toast and a general feeling of well-being brought content… and in this soft silence the titan was flying like an arrow on the trackless sea whither the sealed orders were sending her… But she was not the first to arrive at the tryst. Down from the silent north that other sinister craft had slipped into her destined place. No wireless equipment, no port or starboard lights, no lines of cabins showing bright, no compass, no captain. But the power that is greater than man has no need of man’s methods… It was nearly midnight when she shuddered with horror in the embrace of the northern ice. Twice, from bow to stern, she shook with mighty endeavor to crush beneath her the assailant.
And it seemed she had succeeded. A great calm fell at once upon the ship… On the deck below we found the same desertion as everywhere, the deck where all the chairs were spread, where folk displayed themselves and criticized others… scarce a passenger, but the port side filled with a growing crowd of wiry men… Up the sweep of the regal staircase was advancing a solid procession of the ship’s passengers, wordless, orderly... On every man and every woman’s body was tied the sinister emblem of death at sea, and each one walked with his life-clutching pack to await the coming horrors. It was a fancy-dress ball in Dante’s Hell… [On the Boat Deck], the black cloud of firemen still waited in order the command to jump in [and pilot the lifeboats].’The order came on the clear, cold air: “Down below, men.’ Every one of you, down below.″ And without a sound they wittingly turned from life and went to death, no protest, no murmur, no resistance, a band of unknown heroes.
Now for the tragedy; all the horrors of separation had begun. “See, Captain, my arm is broken [said Mrs. Henry B. Harris]. My husband must go with me or I am helpless.”
“No men allowed in the boats, madam.” And the couple turned away…. The little craft lowered, and twenty-five women descended nearly a hundred feet, filled with hope… that all would be reunited… on that other vessel whose far white light showed over the port quarter.
Over the crowds, quiet, inactive, anguished, there flowed a flood of music, such music as never before was heard – a gay march, a two-step, light operatic airs, all freighted with a burden of love, that love which lays down its life for a friend… The lights were beginning to burn low, water – soft, noiseless water – was creeping up the slanting deck so fast that in another minute they [Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom] would have been imprisoned under the deck’s roof. They leaped to the railing and mounted it. At that moment the last boat was floating just before them, three yards away, with vacant room in the bow. Surely they had the right! And over them trembled the last strains of the orchestra’s message: “Autumn,” first and then, “Nearer, My god, to Thee.”
The distant light that some had followed… scudded away into the aurora as fast as the first breath of breeze rippled over the glassy waters. Dawn showed the vast, vast reaches of the sea empty of big craft, but, floating near, a swaying tangle of deck chairs and cushions, and a pale white babe rocked in the cradle of that fashioning.
14 July 1912 - New York Times page 416
In their series of works for collectors [Frederick A Stokes Company] will publish two illustrated volumes, "Chats on Old Jewelry and Trinkets… There will also be a "Tapestry Book," by Helen Churchill Candee, author of "Decorative Styles and Periods," giving an expert account of tapestries, with four full-page color illustrations and about one hundred in black and white.
10 Jan 1913 - New York Times
WASHINGTON, A cavalcade of horsewomen is to lead the woman's suffrage parade, or pageant, as the suffragists prefer to call it, in Washington on March 3, the day before President Wilson's inauguration. Mrs. R. C. Burleson, wife of Lieut. Burleson, U. S. A, is to be Marshal of the troops. Some of the Washington women prominent in society who have agreed to ride behind Mrs. Burleson are Miss Mary Morgan, a cousin of Gifford Pinchot; Mrs. Churchill Candee, and Miss Julia Goldsborough. Mrs. Charlotte Weikert will be Assistant Marshal.
The Senate to-day adopted a joint resolution appropriating $25,000 to enable the authorities of the District of Columbia to maintain order during the Inauguration Week.
16 Jan 1913 - New York Times page 28
CLAIMS FOR MORE THAN $6,000,000 have been filed with Commissioner Gilchrist against the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Limited, as a result of the loss of the Titanic. The time for filing them has been extended to Feb. 11, and there will undoubtedly be a number of additional claims put in…
Here and there through the legal papers with their dry formula appear hints of the stories that thrilled the world when they were first told. Thus Mrs. Helen C. Candee of Washington, in asking for $4,046 for the loss of her baggage, in which were manuscripts of the value of $600, states. That the claimant shortly after said collision was forced by the officers and agents of said company to jump from the deck of said steamship into a lifeboat at a considerable distance beneath the claimant, in which lifeboat were a number of oars and other easily movable articles; that no search or examination of said boat had been made nor any proper arrangement of said oars and other articles therein, so that passengers could safely jump therein; that upon landing in the bottom of said lifeboat said claimant without fault of her own broke one or more bones In her ankie and injured her knee, and was obliged to and did remain in said boat without attention for many hours, and was obliged to and did assist in rowing said lifeboat for a long time during the night aforesaid.
26 Jan 1913 - New York Times
THE TAPESTRY BOOK. By Helen Churchill Candee. Illustrated. Frederick A. Stokes Company. $3.50.
"To two certain Byzantine Madonnas and their owners," says Mrs. Candee in the dedication of her handsome volume, with a touch of quaint humor that inspires the hope that in the following pages instruction and fact will be invested with an engaging quality it does not always possess. Nor, indeed, as it proves, is a marked degree of interest for tapestry necessary to make enjoyable the reading of her book. She tells something of the history of tapestry making, its social, artistic, and economic conditions at varied times in its development, how it was regarded, and what influences worked upon it in different countries and ages, and with considerable detail describes the origin, growth, and works of the famous factories. And she does it all with much charm and with a mild, quizzical humor. Is it this sly little sense of fun or downright shrewdness that leads her to appeal so directly in her opening paragraph to that American patriotism which is ever quick to respond to stimulus? "The commercial fact that tapestries have immeasurably increased in value within the last five years," she begins, "would have little interest were it not that this increase is the direct result of America's awakened appreciation of this form of art." The volume is copiously and beautifully Illustrated with over a hundred page plates, some of them in color.
3 March 1913
The day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as President, Helen is one of a handful of prominent women riding in the Votes for Women parade down Pennsylvania Ave, behind leaders Mrs Coke Burleson and Miss Inez Milholland - an American suffragist and labor lawyer who rode her white horse, Grey Dawn, astride (not sidesaddle) and was dressed in a white cloak and a crown. The procession was organised by the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to illustrate women’s exclusion from the democratic process. The Susan B Anthony amendment - which reads “The right of citizens in the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” - was first proposed in 1878 but had only been voted on in Congress once, and failed. Paul and Burns were pushing for passage of the amendment.
The march ended badly after the crowd of some 250,000 people spilled onto the street blocking the parade, it eventually coming to a stop in a sea of men yelling insults and sexual propositions and spitting on them. By all accounts of the women, the Police did nothing to assist them, and they had to wait about an hour until the US Army troops arrived to clear the streets, allowing the procession to continue. The drama of the event kept it in newspaper headlines for quite some time and this contributed to the 19th Amendment eventually being pushed through congress.
Cover of program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession, showing woman, in elaborate attire, with cape, blowing long horn, from which is draped a "votes for women" banner, on decorated horse, with U.S. Capitol in background.
Library of Congress
Crowd converging on marchers and blocking parade route during March 3, 1913, inaugural suffrage procession, Washington, D.C.
Leet Brothers, photographer. National Woman's Party Records, Library of Congress
1914
During WW1 Helen worked as a nurse for the Red Cross in Roma and Milan. One of her patients in Milan was Ernest Hemingway.
19 Jan 1925 - New York Times
The February series of Saturday afternoon lectures will begin Feb. 7 and Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee, traveler and author, will speak on "Angkor, the Wonder City of Cambodia."
8 Feb 1925 - New York Times
A RECITAL by Miss Dusolina Giannini, a young American soprano and pupil of Mme. Marcella Sembrich, will be given on the night of Feb. 28 in Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Club, Inc., which is at 261 Madison Avenue. Service men off duty find practically a home at this club, where meals are served at the lowest price. Officers of the club are: Mrs. Francis Rogers, President; Miss Mabel R. Beardsley, Vice President: Miss Martha R. White, Secretary: Reune Martin, Treasurer, and Lieut. Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, Major Gen. John A. Lejeune, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, Rear Admiral Charles P. Plunkett, Rear Admiral Harry P. Huse and Major Gen. Henry C. Hale, Honorary Presidents. William M. Chadbourne is Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the club, and associated, with him are Francis R. Appleton Jr., Howard Thayer Kingsbury, Langdon P. Marvin and George W. Wickersham. Boxes and orchestra stalls are on sale by Miss Beardsley at 80 West Fortieth Street. Among those interested are Mrs. Cornelius N. Bliss Jr., Mrs. Vernon Carleton Brown, Mrs. William Appleton Burnham, Mrs. Churchill Candee, Mrs. Paul D. Cravath, Mrs. Edward de Coppet, Miss Juliette de Coppet…
9 July 1925
Helen’s son Harold passes from pneumonia in Birmingham, England.
11 July 1925 - New York Times
Harold Churchill Candee, who died Thursday of pneumonia in Birmingham, England, was a son of Mrs. Helen Churchill Hungerford Candee of 1,049 Park Avenue. His father, the late Edward W. Candee, was President of the Birmingham Working Boys' Home. Mr. Candee was a veteran of the World War.
29 Nov 1925 - New York Times
The China Society of America has issued Invitations for a tea at its headquarters, 19 West Forty-fourth Street, next Thursday afternoon. Mrs. Walter C. Hateley will be hostess and Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee will give an illustrated talk on Angkor.
21 March 1926 - New York Times page 16
The Irrose Realty Corporation purchased from Miss Helen Candee the property, 336 East Fifty-fourth Street, a five story tenement on a plot 25 by 100 feet. Joseph Milner Company were the brokers in the transaction.
12 Mar 1927 - New York Times page 2
Not alone in China, by support of the Cantonese, but all through the Far East from Java to Indo-China, Soviet Russia is trying to stir up trouble, according to Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee, who has just returned from an extended tour of the Far East.
"I left Shanghai in February,” she said, “and the impression I gained from talking with foreigners and Chinese of all parties was that the Kuomintang is the hope of China. I lived for a time in Peking, and while my sympathies are naturally with the north in this war. I feel that the Nationalist movement has vitality and purpose based on patriotic ideals. No one can safely prophesy what is going to happen in China. but while the Kuomintang is sure to meet harder opposition the further north the armies proceed, I feel that its ideals will ultimately triumph."
Mrs. Candee, who has written a book on Indo-China, said that the Nationalist movement and the anti-foreign movement are separate and distinct factors. The hate of the foreigner she attributes largely to Russian influence, declaring Russia is seeking to use the Chinese as a pawn in her ancient Asiatic struggle against Britain. Before going to China she visited Batavia in Java and traveled a thousand miles in Indo-China. Wherever she went she found the people stirred up against the Europeans and the people she talked with attributed the feeling among the natives to Russian propagandists.
15 June 1928 - Gazette and Bulletin
Helen Churchill Candee and Lucille Douglas, teamed as author and illustrator, are back from a year’s tour of the byways of French-Indo-China, Burma, Java, Siam, Cambodia and other Asiatic places. They are in New York, where an account of their wanderings, "New Journeys in Old Asia," is being published.
17 Feb 1929 - New York Times page 52
Real estate transactions of considerable importance in widely scattered sections of Manhattan were announced during the week just closed… On the upper east side the Wag Realty Company assembled a parcel on East Ninety-sixth Street. The company bought from Helen C. Candee 229 East Ninety-sixth Street and from Edith C. Mathews the parcel at 231 and 233 East Ninety-sixth Street. The property adjoins the northwest corner of Second Avenue and consists of three five-story flats, housing sixty families. The plot is 83 by 100 feet. A resale of the plot is pending, according to Andresen & Bremer, brokers in the deal.
26 Oct 1930 - New York Times
WEAVES AND DRAPERIES. Classic and Modern. By Helen Churchill Candee. Illustrated. 300 pp. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. $5.
IN a charmingly written book Mrs. Candee gives comprehensive treatment to that important section of home decoration, the draperies and other textiles used in various ways. She has made it at once more informing and more fascinating by tracing her theme down through the centuries against a moving panorama of history and showing the constant connection of fabric. design and method with contemporary events and personages. "Wherever hangs a drapery," she says, "there hangs a tale," and adds that in order to understand its story one must inquire into its past and find out why it has its own particular weave, color and design. It is necessary, she insists, in order to assemble such textiles in our rooms with intelligence and taste to know their stories, and her book is planned with the purpose of supplying just such knowledge. She first glances at the general story of looms, weaves, weavers and design, imbuing it all with human interest, and then deals with it in more detail, with especial interest in fabric and design, as the art was practiced among the Copts, the Moslems, in Europe through the centuries, down to our own time and country. The final chapter considers modernistic textiles thoughtfully and with artistic caution, and counsels wisely concerning their use.
23 Aug 1949
Helen passes at the age of 90, after 6 days at York Hospital. Her address at the time recorded as 2310 Connecticut Ave, Washington.
Cremation date according to her death certificate 26 Aug, at Harmony Grove, Salem.
Grave Plot O, 376E, F2 - First Parish Cemetery, York Village, Maine. ID 70704522
24 Aug 1949 - New York Times
YORK HARBOR, ME., Aug 23 Mrs. Helen Churchill Candee, author and lecturer, of this place and Washington, D.C., died here today after a brief illness. She was 90 years old. Mrs. Candee, an authority on tapestries and Asia, wrote several books on each subject, including "The Tapestry Book," "Decorative Styles and Periods" and "Angkor, The Magnificent." For "Angkor, The Magnificent," Mrs. Candee was decorated by the French Government and by the king of Cambodia, now Indo-China. In 1928 she wrote "New Journeys in Old Asia." She also wrote one novel, "The Oklahoma Romance."
Mrs. Candee was a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. She stood in a crowded lifeboat and later took her turn rowing for five hours until rescued by the S.S. Carpathia.
Born in New York on Oct. 5, 1858, Mrs. Candee was educated in private schools in New Haven and Norwalk, Conn.
Surviving are a daughter, Mrs. Harold Chauncey Mathews of York Harbor and of New York, four grandchildren and three great-grandsons.
HELEN CODES
HELEN = 44 (karma)
CHURCHILL = 13 (soul)
HUNGERFORD = 116 (life lesson)
HELEN CHURCHILL HUNGERFORD = (254) 11
*2 can also represent 11, so this could also read as 119 (divine light)
HELEN CANDEE = 13
BROOKLYN = 13
NEW YORK = 111 (transformation, humanity, strength, stillness, Our Coterie)
CONNECTICUT = 1 (portal, gateway, mirror, spirit)
NORWALK = 13
NEW HAVEN = 11 (light, boat, ocean, luck, will, trauma, monumental)
OKLAHOMA = 13
WASHINGTON = 13
HUGH WOOLNER = 11
EDWARD KENT = 55,5 (55 - exhale, atone, deep sea, exile, Judas / 5 - end, addicted, detox, disaster, anchor, help, life, dying, Neptune)
EDWARD CANDEE = 55,5
EDWARD WILLIS CANDEE = 171
CHERBOURG FRANCE = 144
EDITH CHURCHILL CANDEE = 1
HAROLD CHURCHILL CANDEE = 13
HOW WOMEN MAY EARN A LIVING = 1113
ANGKOR = 66
VOTES FOR WOMEN = 1
SUFFRAGETTE = 11
AUTHOR = 11
GEOGRAPHER = 1