Chapter 5 April 11th: The McKinnon family, 3rd class passengers

Top of the morning to ya. "Black Jack" McKinnon here. Don't worry, I'm a blacksmith by trade, my nickname doesn't come from my nature. When I heard about this ship, my wife Clara and I decided that we'd try to save up enough money to buy one-way tickets for each of our children and us. We worked long, and we worked hard, and eventually we bought tickets for the four of us. The hardest part was uprooting ourselves.

This wasn't no vacation you see. For us in third class, this was the start of a new life. I'd be able to send my young 'uns to a good school. From there they could get good jobs, better than working in the hot, backbreaking coalmines. That's what I would have been condeming their lives to if we had stayed behind in Ireland.

Unlike many, we didn't get picked up at Southampton. We got picked up later at Queenstown, the last destination on the Titanic's maiden voyage before America. She is a beauty. There never was a prettier sight, her glistenin' like the mornin' sun as she pulled into dock. One thing we Irish have going for us is we built the Titanic. That's right. Oh, sure, the English may have paid for it, but she was built with strong Irish hands at the Harland & Wolff shipyards in Belfast. Even the ship's designer, Mr. Thomas Andrews, is Irish.

I didn't understand how lucky my family and I were until that day. Here we were, just a few decks beneath (and sometimes, in plain sight of) such folks as John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Isidor and Ida Strauss, the owners of Macy's department store in New York. On our own decks, I see a young Englishman call himself Billium Dickey talking to a beautiful young Nordic woman. Since I'm not sure of her origin, we'll call her what he calls her, Aase (pronounced Osa). I can't help overhearing him telling her to let go of her past, which for her is a lace handkerchief, the last thing she has of her (presumably late) mother's.

We check in to our glistening white cabin. Our cabin consists of two bunks on each wall, plus a sink in the center (the loo must be down the hall). It's not much to look at, but hey, ya get what ya pay for. I still consider myself one of the luckiest men ever.

Even though we brought all of our clothes, we still didn't have many of them to unpack, so we put our suitcases on the bunks of their respective occupants and headed to the third class dining Saloon for dinner. An Italian and a Scot invited me to the smoke room afterwards for a game of Poker.

I tell's 'em "Nah, I've got to help my family unpack. Maybe later."

A few minutes later, after the family got done unpacking, I decided to take the gents up on their offer. Sure as the sun'll rise tomorrow, there they were, but this time they had a young Frenchman no older than 18 with 'em. Enrico Marconi, the Italian (No relation to the wireless inventor), is off to open an Italian restaurant. Apparently many others are also hoping to open up restaurants based on their ethnicity.

"Easy money" he tells me.

The Scot's in exile. He doesn't say why. All he says about himself is he goes by the name of Edward McKean.

Now it's the Frenchman's turn "As for moi, ma name is Jacques Boublil, and I'm a runaway. Papa, 'e wanted me to work in 'is shop, but I told 'im 'But papa, I want to be an artiste!' What do you tink 'e said? 'E said dat dere ees no future een art!' I ran away dat very night. Dat was tree years ago. I 'ave never seen 'im since."

I told him as nicely as I could, "Disagreeing with your da's no reason to run away, son. I bet he misses ya somethin' fierce. Go back to him as soon as you get enough money. You two may disagree, but I'm sure he loves ya, and I know you love him."

The Italian and the Scot agreed. We played a few more rounds, then decided to retire.