Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World (55 page)

He told me much about his mother and their letters, his sister-in-law, you, and someone else he loved but I do not [Theodore Roosevelt].

He spoke with deep enthusiasm of leaving his mark and memorial of truth to the world with those letters which should be published after he had gone.

He made an engagement for the next afternoon as I was going to teach him a method of control of the nerves through which I had just been through with a noted Swiss doctor knowing it would be a very wonderful thing for him if he could just get hold of it for he was very nervous & did not know how he was going to stand the rushing life he was returning to, and we were going to work so hard over it the rest of the time on board.

He said I was just like his mother and opened his heart to me & it was as though we had known each other well for years.

It was the strangest sensation and felt as tho’ a veil was blown aside for those few hours eliminating distance between two who had known each other always
well
long, long before and had just found each other again—I believe it.

Otherwise we could not have met just then and talked as we did.

That night about 12:10 I saw him again and for the last time.

As Mr. Thayer, my son and I had come from dressing in our staterooms & were standing in the hall near the door he came towards us with a strange, unseeing look on his face. I caught hold of his coat and said, “Major Butt, Major Butt, where are you going? Come with me” & he replied “I have something to do but will come then” and went in the direction of the staterooms & I said to myself, “He has gone for his letters.”

And what of those letters? He told me he had had duplicates made of all. Did he mean while he was abroad and that he had them all with him or are they safe with someone in Washington? I must hear.

Oh Mr. Taft, is there any chance of seeing either my husband or him here again in this life? My reason tells me no but how can we give up all hope until some days yet go past of this cruel torture.

Oh how he loved you and how frightfully you will miss his care—such a true, devoted, close more-than-friend.

I am sorry for you.

My brief deep knowledge of that lovely personality (I cannot call him acquaintance) is very, very strong & strange to look back upon, and as I say we both at the time remarked and greatly marveled at it.

It was meant to be for some reason & I am compelled to write you.

Believe me, with the deepest sympathy and grief.

Sincerely,

Marian I. M. Thayer

P.S. Today is my husband’s fiftieth birthday. Oh he is young to go and leave us he so loved.

April 21st, 1912

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