My second book about the RMS Titanic and her passengers and crew along with some movie talk. Same rules apply, no drama, trolls, and disrespecting the people on this ship
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April 15th, 1893 - April 15th, 1912
He is a Aries.
Jeremiah Burke was born in Ballynoe, Rathcooney, Glanmire, Co Cork, Ireland to a Roman Catholic family. He was the son of William Burke (born 1856), a farmer, and Catherine Gegaethy (born 1852) who had married around 1882. One of 7 surviving children from a total of 9, his surviving siblings were: Mary (January 2nd, 1883; later Mrs. Michael Burns), Hanora (April 4th, 1885; later Mrs. John Casey), Catherine "Kitty" (January 2nd, 1887), Ellen "Nellie" (December 26th, 1888; later Mrs. James Hamilton), William (January 2nd, 1891), and Laurence (May 2nd, 1895).
Jeremiah appears on both the 1901 and 1911 census living with his family in Ballynoe and being described as a farmer's son on the latter record. Two of his elder sisters had earlier emigrated and settled to Charlestown, Boston around around 1905 and had been married in the summer of 1911 to Michael Burns and was pregnant with her first child. Jeremiah decided to join them there and Mary sent the funds to him for travel.
Aboard Titanic/April 14th-15th, 1912: Jeremiah boarded the RMS Titanic at Queenstown on April 11th, 1922 as a 3rd class passenger. Travelling with him was Hanora and whilst aboard they reportedly were acquainted with Eugene Daly and likely others from Cork. Jeremiah and Hanora died in the sinking and their bodies, if recovered, was never identified. His estate, worth a paltry £5, was administered to his father on December 11th, 1912. Mary gave birth to a daughter, Catherine Ignatius, on June 21st, 1912. She went on to have a further 2 daughters: Mary (born 1915) and Helen Frances (born 1917) and remained living in Boston with her family and is believed to have died in the late 1960's.
Nellie also lived in Boston for the rest of her life and had son named James in 1920. She died on March 30th, 1982. 13 months later in the early summer of 1913, postman (coachman?) walking his dog, found a small bottle on a shingle beach near Cork Harbour. Inside was a penciled message. The bottle was brought to the local police station and later passed on to the Burke family. According to Brid O'Flynn, Jeremiah's grand-niece, his mother had filled a little bottle with holy water and gave it to him for good luck as he left the family house to be driven to Queenstown in a pony trap by his father and uncle. Ms O'Flynn said, "This is unmistakably the bottle that had left thirteen months previously and unmistakably her son's handwriting." Could he have thrown it overboard as the Titanic sailed? Brid O'Flynn said, "A bottle of holy water in those days that your mother gave you was a reverent thing. It wasn't something you threw out the side as you left Ireland. To me it senses of panic." A message from a Titanic victim making its way back to the parish of his birth? That framed icon of their family tragedy is preserved today on the wall of John Burke's house in White's Cross, Cork.
It was featured on Irish television in February of 1998. His family in Ireland remained in Ballynoe; his mother outlived him by just shy of two years and succumbed to cancer on December 30th, 1913. His father rallied for close to a further two decades and died on May 1st, 1931 from pneumonia.
