Rms Titanic

On April 15th JA Snow Funeral Home (est. 1883) will be dedicating a permanent memorial to the more than 1,500 passengers and crew who perished in the sinking of the White Star Line’s ship Titanic. Shortly after the disaster, the White Star Line’s agents in Halifax took two important actions that led to the recovery of the bodies of several victims. Firstly, they chartered the cable ship Mackay-Bennett to recover as many victims as possible from the ocean, and secondly they contracted JA Snow—the largest such firm in Nova Scotia at the time—to prepare any bodies that were recovered for burial.

John Snow Jr., the company’s chief embalmer and son of its founder, had 125 rough-hewn coffins and all the embalming fluid in the city (sufficient for 70 persons) put on board, along with several pounds of ice to help preserve bodies taken to Halifax. Canvas to wrap bodies in and scrap iron to weigh them down were also included for any that would be buried at sea. As well, Snow’s ordered an additional 500 coffins from Ontario and gathered 40 embalmers from across Nova Scotia and elsewhere in the Maritimes. Two female embalmers came from Saint John to embalm women and children.

Between April 21st and May 10th, the Mackay-Bennett, followed by three other contracted ships, recovered 328 bodies from the area of the disaster, while passing ships found another nine. Of these totals, 128 victims were buried at sea and 209 were brought to Halifax. Fifty-nine of those brought to Halifax were shipped to their home towns for burial at the request of relatives, while the remaining 150 were buried here. Burials took place between May 3rd and June 12th 1912, with 121 buried at Fairview Lawn non-denominational cemetery, 19 at Mount Olivet Roman Catholic Cemetery and 10 in Baron de Hirsch Jewish Cemetery.

The attention of people around the world was focused on newspapers for weeks after the disaster, seeking the latest news about the sinking of the so-called unsinkable mammoth ship. As the effect of the tragedy registered with the general public and the families of victims, Snow's Funeral home worked tirelessly in the days and weeks following the disaster to ensure the remains of the people who perished were given a dignified final good bye.

To celebrate the lives of those who died, and to commemorate the efforts of Nova Scotians in this tragedy, Snow’s Funeral Home will unveil the monument at 339 Lacewood Drive in Halifax on April 15th at 7:00pm. Our celebration will include a dedication service, presentations by guest speakers and a reception where a collection of historic photographs and antique collectables from the period will be displayed (including an antique funeral coach). Local authors and historians John Boileau (Halifax and Titanic) and Blair Beed (Titanic Victims in Halifax Graveyards) will present accounts of that terrible tragedy 100 years ago – when the world awoke to the unbelievable news of the disaster – and of the efforts that followed by Haligonians who contributed so much to ensure that the victims were treated with dignity and respect. Please join us for an evening of remembering and honoring the RMS Titanic passengers and crew and those who were there at a great time of need.

Please contact Tara Tanton at 902-450-5618, [email protected] or Graham Murphy at 902-452-5442, [email protected] for further details.