At the age of 23 in the year 1896, my late grandmother, Christina Valla, left the small farming village of Azeglio in the foothills of the Italian Alps to visit her older sister living in White Plains, New York. In America, she met my grandfather, fell in love, married and raised three daughters, the eldest was my late mother. Her passage to America was on the ill fated French trans-Atlantic liner, La Bourgogne.
Everyone knows about the sinking of liner RMS Titanic. What is less know is the ocean liner tragedy, the sinking of La Bourgogne on July 4, 1898 with the loss of 546 lives. An event so evil, because the crew of the La Bourgogne prevented the passengers from saving themselves on life boats.
On July 3rd, La Bourgogne depart New York with 725 passengers and crew. The next day at 5 a.m. the La Bourgogne was rammed by the British sailing ship.Cromartyshire loaded with Canadian lumber in a heavy fog off Nova Scotia, Canada. The Cromartyshire even though her bow was destroyed, managed to remain afloat due to the buoyancy of her lumber cargo. Her crew members were the ones that saved many of la Bourgogne passengers.
Off the 506 passengers, only 70 survived while 103 crew members out of 220 crew survived. None of the children survived at all.
More shocking was the way the crew behaved. They fought the passengers and took the life boat for themselves. There were reports of crew members stabbing passenger in the water and beating their heads with oars, often pushing passengers away to their doom.
The following year, a board of inquiry was formed in New York City, since many American citizens were among the dead. The French government refused to take any responsibility for the tragedy
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Cheese, do you intend to build a model of the Bourgogne? It’s a dramatic story, and I’m glad your grandmother survived such a harrowing ordeal, but I wonder how this relates back to modeling or if it would be better placed in the Ready Room.
Oh my gosh, what a sad and tragic story. Thank goodness for the heroic efforts of the crew of the Cromartyshire to rescue the passengers of the La Bourgogne even though their ship was heavily damaged. It’s instances like this that show you what people are really made out of and those French crew members were cowards and should have been held accountable. Like Tim, I also wonder if you’re going to do a Memorial Build in honor of your grandmother.
After listening to the stories my grandmother told me about her travels on the French liner La Bourgogne,in later years I though about making a model. But, I do not know of where to locate plans of the ill fated ship, or the fact that scratch building a model of La Bourgogne would be way beyond my ability. A 1/4 or 1/8 scale model would be a large project to to fit in my small space of my modeling room. The original La Bourgogne was built in 1885 by the Society Nouvelles et Chantgiers de Medditeranee for the French Line. She had four masts for auxiliary sailing.,twin stacks, propelled by a single screw, and hull constructed in iron with wooden structures. Her maiden voyage was from Le Havre, France to New York in 1886.
This the Cromartyshire, the sailing ship that was soon to be obsolete in an age when sailing vessels would soon be replaced by the fast evolving coal fired steam ship. Yet, it was the Cromaertyshire that survived, thanks to her cargo of cut lumber
The impact of the Cromartyshire was a like a fatal spear wound on the side of La Bourgogne leading to such terrible fatalities.
I think the point was to share a story and discuss it as a potential modeling subject. But I don’t want to put words in Cheese’s mouth.
I have given serious thought of building a model of the ill fated French liner, La Bourgogn. But,questions arise about making a project when I have two half built model that are yet to be finished, and the size of the La Bourgogne model would be too big in my already crammed hobby room. We,ll see what the future holds.
Happy Modeling Crackers.