From Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"... un petit déjeuner sur le Titanic!

I was THERE!... with my uncle Sir Cedric Dumby-Phyfe. He wrote a letter back home and described this very menu! Here's some of it:

... and the entire First Class was in an uproar over the "hodge podge"... a sort of mousse/pâté en terrine made out of hedge hogs, garden moles, shrews, and the occasional squirrel that may have wandered under the wheels of a local greengrocer's truck and been tossed into a chopper. Then there was the "potted shrimps" and "soused herrings"; fish that had literally been drowned to death in brandies, whiskies... or whatever booze that a drunken chef had lying around... some diners claimed he may even have used cheap French cologne! I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised given his unintelligible accent! The "consommé jardiniere" was accurately named; literally "consume planter" or soup from a garden... meaning that any leaves, twigs, soil, and even bugs might be in it! Other items on the menu such as "brawn", "sardines", "kidney", "surrey capon", "jacket potatoes", "mutton", "corned ox tongue", and "fillets of plaice" were equally unappetizing... or at the very least confusing. And "lettuce" and "tomatoes" was so generic… completely un-fascinating! And "Manhattan apples"!... what?! Bought from some pushcart down on Rivington Street or in a Little Italy alleyway? That's what we paid all that money for, for a First Class passage on the Titanic?... ridiculous!

To be honest, it was almost a relief to strike an ice berg and be delivered from four more days of such rubbish! We were so lucky to have been rescued by the RMS Carpathia... where the cuisine wasn't nearly as aspirational, but where "cream of tomato soup" and something called a grilled cheese sandwich were perfectly understandable and quite cozy, thank you. I shall speak to Cook when we return to the estate! Love to all and especially to the livestock! Ceddie!...

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Sybil's "History-On-This-Date - Jan. 1st, 1912"... The good ship Longan Hills.

Yes, Folks, on this date in 1912, this photo was taken of the Longan Hills Ferry which crossed from Staten Island to Manhattan and back again on regular service for several years until that fateful first day of 1912. It was at 2PM, and although the sun was shining brightly and there had been a brief warm-up in the Winter weather, the danger of icebergs was still high. This is the last photo of the passengers and the ill-fated ship... within 18 minutes of the shutter clicking on this happy scene the terrible horror unfolded. Captain Ira Hankheimer had pushed the vessel to its maximum speed of 3 mph and rushed headlong into the ice field. Warnings had been issued, by both seal hunters and members of the Polar Bear Nudist Society, but NO! Hankheimer was determined to break the holiday-crossing record, and he (and his passengers!) paid the hideous price.

As you can see from the photo, at this time, there were separate parts of the boats for men and women.... the men could spit, smoke, swear, and recite saucy limericks at will on their side, and the ladies could discuss gardening, fashion patterns, and ...um.. "women's hygiene" on theirs. On impact with the treacherous ice, sixty-eight of the passengers and thirteen of the brave crew perished in the rushing waters. An additional fifty-six died later from the exposure mostly to the cold, but many also to the sight of the Polar Bear Nudist Society. Some actually gouged their own eyes out back on dry-land. Sadly, it was on the ladies' side of the boat that the Polar Bear Nudists attempted to board and save lives during the sinking. It was impossible to decipher whether the hysterical screams of the women were from drowning or from seeing what happens to a man's "private areas".... in icy water.

You may ask why you haven't heard more about this sea-going tragedy; the answer is very simple. The sinking of the Titanic just a few months later on April 15th completely eclipsed the public's memory of that tragic New Year's Day in 1912.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “My Merry Memoirs!”… Just Floating Along... April 15th, 1912...

APRIL 15th, 1912...

So many of you have asked how Mummie survived the Titanic disaster... and I've explained that when the liner struck the iceberg, I was in the casino hosting the "Smarty-Pantz Trivia Challenge" with the famous electrified Chauncey Wheel!! We had just completed several amazing questions from the categories "Give Me Head...Lines", "Artsy-Fartsy", and "Let's Visit Uranus"! We had our three finalists, and the crowd was on the edge of their seats, when suddenly we struck the iceberg!... and they were literally on the edge of their seats!!... and then dumped on the floor as the room began to tip! The entire Chauncey Wheel broke loose from its decorative platform and swept me up in its gear-works! We slid the full length of the grand ballroom, through the Pastry & Fine Custards Pantry, past the silverware and crystal closets, then right out onto the deck...AND OVERBOARD!...

Technically, I was the first person to actually leave the ship according to a nice stewardess who was having a quick smoke and tried to grab one of my epaulets as I slid by! I floated away on the Chauncey Wheel while the whole tragedy unfolded, and I actually conversed with Rose DeWitt Bukater as she paddled by on a bathroom door.... or was it a 2nd class ping pong table....whatever! The tremendous suction of the sinking ship was no match for the bouyancy of the brightly colored Chauncey wheel… or of my own spirits while sprawled on its cheery face! Interestingly, I had been saved by the very same Chauncey Wheel when I dove under it at the Veterans' Convention Hall on the corner of Post and Grant Avenue.... during the San Francisco earthquake six years earlier... almost to the day!! And, of course, my beloved Chauncey Wheel was my heroic companion again later in 1936 on a trans-Atlantic tour I did that ended on the Hindenburg... ah, good times... good times... Oh! Did I mention the Andrea Doria??...

(Sybil photo by Koitz F. Etxeberria)

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