Sheltering Angel: Based on a True Story of the Titanic by Louella Bryant
Many tales have emerged about passengers aboard RMS Titanic, but to date no one has spoken about first-class passengers Florence and Bradley Cumings and their steward Andrew Cunningham. That is, not until the recent release of my book Sheltering Angel, A Novel Based on a True Story of the Titanic.
Sheltering Angel was inspired by stories my mother-in-law told me of her grandmother Florence Cumings saving her first-class steward by pulling him from the frigid North Atlantic into her lifeboat as her husband John Bradley Cumings stood facing certain death on the doomed ship’s deck. Florence was a private woman and never spoke of the tragedy to anyone but her granddaughter, who stayed with Florence in New York during school vacations.
I spent eight years sifting through dozens of books, websites, and videos about Titanic. Early in my research, I flew to London and took a train to Southampton where I was overwhelmed by a sense of the tragedy’s impact on the town where 549 citizens lost their lives in the disaster. Through Southampton’s SeaCity Museum artifacts and scene recreations, I was able to sense being a passenger on the ship that fateful night of April 14, 1912.
In 1913, a year after the heartrending event, the city unveiled a memorial to the Titanic engineers who stayed aboard the sinking ship. As I stood before the memorial’s towering statue of winged Nike, I felt the reality of the loss. I had stumbled upon the Celtic blessing, “God grant you always, a sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you,” and the book’s title came to me. (https://keepersquotes.livejournal.com/1169338.html). The novel’s cover design shows Nike hovering above the damaged ship.
Research often involves luck, and while I skimmed a book with transcripts of the 1912 U. S. Senate investigation, I discovered the testimony of steward Andrew Cunningham stating that Florence and Bradley Cumings had been first-class passengers under his service and that Florence had helped him into her lifeboat, confirming my mother-in-law’s story. Senator Smith questioned Cunningham, who indicated he was assigned to C deck on the starboard side in charge of nine rooms: “In number 85 were Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Cummings of New York City; in 87 Mr. and Mrs. Clark of New York City; in 89 English journalist W. T. Stead; in number 91 Mrs. Edith Graham and Miss Graham of New York City; in 125 Miss Schutz, a governess to Miss Graham. The other cabins were vacant.” Names of the Clarks, the Grahams, and Miss Schultz are changed in the novel, and references to Mr. Stead come the W. T. Stead Resource Site.
While in Southampton, I popped into the city library and spoke with librarian Vicky Green to ask if she could find more information about Cunningham. She scrolled through the internet and within minutes found the Merchants Seaman’s Register and Cunningham’s application for stewarding, which included his physical stats and tattoos. He was born July 3, 1873, in the town of Shotts, Lanarkshire County, Scotland, the son of David Cunningham, a joiner, and his wife Jeanie Thomson. He had two siblings, Elizabeth and Jessie. Cunningham’s occupation was listed as sea steward on August 21, 1901, when he married Emily Susan Jones at St Luke’s Church, Camden. The couple had two children: Sidney Andrew and Gloria. The 1911 census report does not list Cunningham, who most likely was at sea, but his wife and children are noted as living at 60 Charlton Road, Southampton.
The librarian also found Cunningham’s work history. He had first crewed aboard RMS Campania and later RMS Oceanic, both sailing from Liverpool. When Oceanic transferred its base to Southampton, he moved his family there. In 1912 Cunningham left Oceanic to serve first-class passengers aboard RMS Titanic.
I structured the novel in two voices as Florence and Andrew are each beginning their adult lives on opposite continents, Andrew as a ship’s steward and Florence as the teenage daughter of a Unitarian minister in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some details about Florence’s life came from her family and other information from an ancestry site. Much information about John Bradley Cumings is from the Encyclopedia Titanica website. He was from a prominent Boston family who followed the tradition of attending St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, and Harvard College, both also attended by my husband, continuing the family tradition.
When Bradley’s New York friend Albert Marckwald suggests he and Bradley establish the Wall Street brokerage Cumings and Marckwald, Bradley buys a brownstone on 64th Street in the Lenox District. I’ve visited the brownstone, which is two blocks from 840 Fifth Avenue where the Astor mansion once stood. In 1925 the mansion was sold for $3.5 million and the following year was demolished to erect of the synagogue Temple Emanu-El, according to the website dailymail.com.
When the Wall Street brokerage is successful, Bradley purchases tickets to take Florence on a European vacation. Weeks later as they wait to board a cruise ship bound for New York, they learn because of a strike White Star Line’s newest ship is the only vessel loaded with coal. Tragically, the coal is wet and when wet coal dries, it heats up and eventually combusts. Encyclopedia Britannica reports a coal fire aboard Titanic, and a video by Oceanliner Designs suggests the fire was blazing even before the ship left the Southampton dock. The heat may have damaged the hull, the video says, which would have contributed to the sinking.
To avoid a delay in returning home to their three sons and unaware of the fire, Florence agrees to let Bradley purchase tickets for Titanic.
The morning after the disaster, Florence and Andrew were able to board the rescue ship Carpathia from lifeboat number four. The body of Bradley Cumings was never recovered, and Florence had a cenotaph erected in Boston’s Auburn Cemetery to honor him. Ironically, one day after Titanic sank, the coal strike was settled when the British Parliament passed a minimum wage bill for coalminers (https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/113049730/9751507).
Florence’s and Andrew’s miraculous survival speaks to my belief that a divine spirit—whether we call it sheltering angel or something else—unites all beings, regardless of status or wealth. The fact that Bradley Cumings perished in the sinking, along with John Jacob Astor and 1500 other passengers and crew, reflects the truth of fate’s fickle finger.
Sheltering Angel is my ninth book, most of which deal with breaking down class, racial, and economic barriers. This novel is no exception. Unlike other first-class passengers, no lady’s maid or butler is listed on Titanic records for Florence or Bradley. Family members report that her will allocated money for several charities. Andrew walks two worlds between first-class passengers and the stokers shoveling coal into the furnaces of the ship’s belly. In this “upstairs-downstairs” tale, the different worlds collide through disaster.
In 1987 explorer Robert Ballard took his deep-sea submersible 12,500 feet to the bottom of the sea and was the first to discover the rusting hulk of the magnificent ship. Earlier this year, deep-sea mapping company Magellan released 3-D photos of the wreck, and this past June, OceanGate’s submersible imploded with five on board as it sought out the wreckage for the fourteenth time. Discoveries are still being made about the greatest tragedy in maritime history, and interest in the ship and its passengers continues to grow. Sheltering Angel brings one of the untold stories to light.
For more about the book and my other publications and blogs, visit my website at https://louellabryant.com. Reviews of Sheltering Angel can be found on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152724143-sheltering-angel and is available for purchase from online booksellers.
Additional books used:
Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived by Andrew Wilson (Atria Books, 2011).
Ship Steward’s Handbook by J. J. Traynor and E. C. Plumb (Conway, 1955).
Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop, Edited and annotated by John Maxtone-Graham (Sheridan House, 1997).
Dozens of websites and videos provided statistics on Titanic’s size, weight, design, layout, crew, and passengers. Here are a few:
Did Titanic’s Coal Fire Cause the Disaster? The Burning Question. Oceanliner Designs. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-PmtX_wtc&t=343s).
Royal Museums Greenwich (https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/rms-titanic-facts).
Titanic International Society (https://titanicinternationalsociety.org/titanic-facts/).
W. T. Stead Resource Site (https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/about-the-w-t-stead-resource-site/)
Sheltering Angel tells the fictionalized true story of Florence Cumings, an upper-class New Yorker, and working-class steward Andrew Cunningham who lead parallel lives until through a mystical connection they help each other survive the worst tragedy in maritime history. Florence devotes her life to helping the poor. Andrew waits on wealthy first-class passengers on cruise ships. When Florence and her husband Bradley board Titanic after a European trip, they discover an ancient Scottish alliance with Andrew. From a lifeboat, Florence watches the ship founder, taking her beloved husband with it. At the last minute, Andrew leaps into the frigid water and swims to Florence’s lifeboat, ultimately the one soul who understands the depth of her grief.
Buy link from the publisher:https://www.blackrosewriting.com/historicaladventure/shelteringangel?rq=sheltering%20angel
Buy link for print, ebook and audiobook::https://www.amazon.com/Sheltering-Angel-Novel-Based-Titanic/dp/1685132405
Other buy links:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sheltering-angel-louella-bryant/1143475529
https://www.target.com/p/sheltering-angel-by-louella-bryant-paperback/-/A-89625742
Louella Bryant is author of nine books, including five historical novels, a story collection, memoir, biography set during the Vietnam era, and a picture book for young readers. Her stories, essays, and poems have won awards and are included in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Far From Home, Southern Sin, Lessons From Our Parents, Hunger Mountain, Atrium, Sacred Fire, Vermont Quarterly, Hunger Mountain Review, The Adirondack Review, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, and others. Her 1996 debut novel The Black Bonnet was awarded the Vermont NEA Human and Civil Rights Award. After twenty-five years teaching high school English, Bryant spent a dozen years on the MFA in Writing faculty of Spalding University in Louisville. She holds the B.A. and Master’s in Education and Human Development from George Washington University and Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College. Currently she runs a writing workshop and works as an independent editor helping emerging writers get their ideas into the world. Visit her website at https://louellabryant.com.
Early Reviews:
“Bryant’s passionate storytelling will captivate readers and bring a fresh perspective on a maritime tragedy that still reverberates in the twenty-first century.” –Jacquelyn Lenox Tuxill, author of Whispers from the Valley of the Yak: A Memoir of Coming Full Circle
“Sheltering Angel tells the true story of several lesser-known individuals whose lives were impacted by the Titanic disaster. The stories of Cumings, Cunningham, Siebert and the others are engrossing, and Bryant’s passion for the source material shines through on every page.” –Tad Fitch, author of Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History
“This tale of an unlikely friendship between two people from worlds a galaxy apart is not just a good read. It’s a beautifully told and poignant backstory to a piece of history we all know. Bryant is a master at finding such great true stories and bringing them to life.” –Sylvester Monroe, co-author with Peter Goldman, of Brothers: Black and Poor—A True Story of Courage and Survival