Meet the New Hampshire survivors of the Titanic

It’s been 113 years since the Titanic, that unsinkable ship, hit an iceberg and sank. The date was April 15, 1912.

Of the 2,200 passengers and crew on board, only around 700 survived due to a lifeboat shortage. Researcher Chuck Anesi found that 97.22% of the 144 female first-class passengers were put into lifeboats and survived—while only 32.57% of the first-class men made it. Four of the people onboard had New Hampshire connections. Here’s a quick look at their stories:

 Elizabeth Lindsey Lines and Mary Lines
Elizabeth Lines, 50, of Paris, boarded the Titanic with her 16-year-old daughter, Mary. They had first-class tickets and were en route to see Elizabeth’s son Howard graduation from Dartmouth College in Hanover.

On the night the Titanic sank, Elizabeth and Mary heard a loud explosion from one of the ship’s boilers.  When evacuations began at 12:05 a.m. on April 15, the were told they’d need to leave the ship simply as a precaution.

The Titanic sank around 2:20 a.m. April 15. The survivors were rescued by the Carpathia, a British passenger ship, beginning around 4 a.m. Both Elizabeth and Mary managed to attend the graduation before returning to Paris.

Born in New Jersey, Elizabeth married Ernest Howard Lines, a New Yorker and president of New York Life Insurance Company. After living in Manhattan, they settled in Paris and frequently traveled across the Atlantic. Today, Elizabeth and her daughter are buried at this grave in Massachusetts.

 Emilio Llario Giuseppe Portaluppi, 34
Portaluppi, a 34-year-old stonemason from Italy, had immigrated to Milford, New Hampshire. He’d returned to his home country for a visit, and boarded the Titanic to go back to the US on a second-class ticket.Portaluppi was already in bed when the Titanic hit the iceberg. He woke up to the explosion of one of the ship’s boilers, and initially thought the ship had already reached New York. When he went to the deck to check, things seemed off. He saw a lifeboat being lowered, and he tried to hop in—but fell in the water instead.

In a story akin to a movie, Giuseppe told newspapers he swam for about two hours and held onto an ice floe to keep afloat until he was spotted at dawn by a lifeboat. Portaluppi made it back to Milford on April 20, where his friends threw him a welcome home party.

 Richard James Slemen, 35
Slemen was born in Landrake, a village in Cornwall, England, in 1876. With a second-class ticket in his hand, he boarded the Titanic reportedly to head to Nashua, New Hampshire, where he had relatives. Slemen died in the disaster. He was the son of William Slemen, a shoemaker, and Augusta Louisa Steed, a dressmaker.