Messages in the Mist...

One evening, when only a girl of twelve (12), young Beatrice Martin sat in the living room with her mother and father huddled around the family radio. The evening air was unusually alive with electricity and northern lights in the sky. It was early April, 1912, in New Brunswick, Canada and the family was listening to live stories and music on their mahogany radio.

As the night drew on, their evening's entertainment came to a close and went off the air however, no one turned off the radio right away. While Beatrice was looking out the window and dreaming of some far off place, the radio began picking up a staticy voice. At first, her father thought an unexpected broadcast was beginning. Perhaps, they thought, it was a new story but the signal seemed to come and go with the wind.

Beatrice could feel the energy in the air and marveled at the beautiful night sky, but her sense of wonder began to change as she listened more closely to the faint voice fading in and out over the radio. "May-day, May-day" she heard and turned to her father for his reaction.

Mr. Martin motioned to the family to be quiet and they all turned their attention to the radio again... "May-Day, May-Day. This is the RMS Titanic..."

Beatrice and her family listened for the better part of an hour to the urgent cries for help coming from some far off place in the ether. As the electricity and lights in the sky began to fade, so did the the voice of the desperate soul in the staticy mist over the radio.

A few days later, young Beatrice learned of loss of the RMS Titanic and 1,517 souls who sailed with her. She always felt some pain in her heart and often thought God had some purpose for carrying the wireless call for help to their little farm on the banks of the St. Larwence river.

My grandmother spoke of this story several times during my visits and each telling, without variation, left a mysterious impression upon my imagination. The loss of those 1,517 passengers and crew may have changed the course of history in many ways we'll never understand.

-GK3

[Image Credit: Arora Borealis - The Martin Project]
[Image Credit: RMS Titanic Postcard - Courtesy of Norway Heritage - image source]

[History of Radio - Wikipedia]