Audrey Lawson-Johnston

Audrey Lawson - Johnston ( born February 5, 1915 in New York City as Audrey Warren Pearl, † 11 January, 2011 Melchbourne, Bedfordshire ), the last living survivor of the sinking of the British luxury liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, by a German submarine.

Life

Audrey Lawson - Johnston came in February 1915 in New York, the fourth child of American medical officer Major Frederic Warren " Frank" Pearl ( 1869-1952 ) and his wife Amy Lea Duncan ( 1881-1964 ) was born. Pearl was president of the engineering group Pearson Engineering Corporation Ltd.. on Broadway, where he worked together with Frederick Pearson. He also worked for the U.S. Embassy in London.

In the spring of 1915, Major Pearl was on his way back to London and booked for crossing a passage first class on the Lusitania, which took off on May 1 in New York and on May 8 should arrive in Liverpool. He was accompanied by his wife, the five- year-old son Stuart, daughters Susan and Amy, as well as the three- month-old baby Audrey. In support of Mrs. Pearl the nanny Alice Lines and Greta Lorenson went along for the ride. The group lived in three adjacent luxury cabins on E deck.

When the ship was torpedoed on May 7, Audrey's mother on deck, Major Pearl was with the children and the two employees under deck. He ran upstairs and Amy came to him after a few moments, contrary to the stairs. They sent the children of sisters to the boat deck and followed them after they had sought in the suites after life jackets. Alice Lines and Greta Lorenson were separated in the crowd on deck, both had two children with him. Audrey and Stuart were in the 18 -year-old Alice Lines, as they jumped from the boat deck and was dragged by the hair into a lifeboat. Of the fourteen children of the first class, they were the only two who survived the sinking. Major Pearl and his wife looked on board the rapidly sinking steamer in vain for their children and were purged from the boat deck into the sea as a large wave rolled off the bow forth across the crowded deck. Major Pearl clinging to a plank, his wife clung to the hull of a capsized lifeboat. After hours in the water, both were rescued, the other two children and the second nanny but disappeared without a trace. Their bodies were never found.

1916 brought Amy Pearl her fifth child, a son named Vivian White Right Warren Pearl, to the world. My sixth and last child was a girl who was named in memory of the two lost daughters Amy Susan Pearl.

Audrey Pearl married Hugh Lawson - Johnston and lived until her death in Northamptonshire, England. She held up last close contact with their lifesaver Alice Lines, who died shortly before her 101st birthday in 1997. Audrey Lawson - Johnston inaugurated in 2004, a coastal lifeboat in the Welsh harbor town of New Quay, Cardiganshire, and baptized there on her mother, Amy Lea Pearl 's name. Audrey Lawson - Johnston left three daughters and ten grandchildren.