Elizabeth Darby
From Sawiki
Mrs Elizabeth Ramell Nye, 29, was born on 27 May 1882 in Folkestone, Kent, the daughter of Thomas I. Ramell (born 1855), coach builder, and his wife Elizabeth. They lived in Dover Road, Folkestone. Mr Ramell was a Salvation Army bandsman in that town and Elizabeth herself later worked for the Salvation Army in their uniform department of their New York headquarters.
She was first married in Folkestone on 26 December 1904 to Edward Ernest Nye. The couple probably moved to live in New York, about 1909. The only child of the union, Maisie, died at the age of only nine months in 1906 while Edward Nye himself, died aged of 30 on 22 May 1911.
After a trip to England to visit her parents in 1911-1912 she had been due to return to the United States aboard the Philadelphia but owing to the coal strike in Britain the sailing was cancelled and she was transferred to the Titanic which she boarded at Southampton, travelling in second class (Ticket No.C.A. 29395, £10 10s). During the voyage she shared a cabin (F-33) with Mildred Brown, Selena Rogers Cook, and Amelia Lemore.
Mrs Nye was rescued in lifeboat 11, while waiting for the boat to be lowered. Some reports suggest that she caught baby Frank Aks who was taken from his mother and tossed into the boat, she wrapped baby in a steamer blanket to keep him warm, this woman may in fact have been Argene del Carlo.
While recuperating on board the Carpathia Elizabeth wrote to reassure her parents that she was safe, and to explain the circumstances of her rescue. The letter was later published in the Folkestone Herald. (4 May 1912).
Elizabeth suffered such exposure that she would later required an operation and was awarded $200 by the American Red Cross.
After surviving the sinking, she settled first in New York she later married a Salvation Army Colonel Mr George Darbym and together they were instrumental in the organization and support of the Salvation Army in both England and America. Colonel and Elizabeth Darby were the parents of an only son, George Ray Darby who was born 30 March 1915 in New York.
Elizabeth Rammell Nye Darby died on 22 November 1963 at Asbury Park, New Jersey, and is interred at Kensico Cemetery (Salvation Army Section) in Valhalla, New York.
