Robert Logan, 2, was a native-born United States citizen of Scottish descent residing in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. He was traveling aboard Lusitania with his mother, Ruth, to his mother’s hometown of Ayr, Scotland. Mother and son traveled in third class. Ruth Logan survived the Lusitania sinking on 7 May 1915 but Robert did not.
Biography
Robert Logan was born to James and Ruth Logan, and early on they moved to Paterson, New Jersey, where they lived for a year before sailing aboard Lusitania. When the First World War broke out, James enlisted early on and was wounded in the Battle of Ypres in November 1914. By May 1915, James was returning to the front, and Ruth and Robert were traveling to Ayr, closer to James, to where they would stay out the remainder of the war.
Ruth’s account of the sinking begins on a staircase where, at the moment of the torpedoing, she was making her way to the open deck with Robert walking ahead of her, so that if he missed a step he would not fall far from her:
I never let him out of my sight, as I was afraid something might happen to him. There were people coming behind me, and when the shock came we were all jolted about. I immediately seized Robert and ran on deck. The vessel had a considerable list to one side, but she righted herself for a few minutes and several men clapped their hands and tried to reassure us that she would keep afloat. The day before the disaster there were sports on board and as Robert was too wee to take part in the general amusement, I took to running after him crying as I did so “I’ll catch you!” And, oh! The tragedy of it all. When the rush for lifebelts came Robert could not understand it all and lisped the words I had used the day before.
Everybody seemed to be running around, and everybody seemed to be getting lifebelts. I appealed to several, but no one in the excitement heeded me until a sailor came along. I took him to be an officer. “Wait a second and I’ll get you one” he said, and he immediately reappeared with a life jacket and he put it around me. I said to him “What about the child?” and he replied “Put him in along with you” and he lifted my child and put him inside the jacket which was around me. He immediately began to struggle, and wanted down on the deck, and another sailor passing me a minute later advised me to put him down till he could get the jacket put on right. I asked him to get a lifebelt for the wee chap, and he hurried forward to get one, and at that moment the ship went over. I held onto his hood and we went down together, and I still had a grip of him when we came to the surface, but the child’s struggles and the struggling of hundreds of others in the water around me caused us to be separated.
Ruth survived and identified her son’s body in Queenstown, before continuing on her way to Scotland. Robert Logan, body #42, was buried in Common Grave C, in Old Church Cemetery, Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland.
Links of interest
Ruth and Robert Logan at Lest We Forget – Encyclopedia Titanica
Contributors
Cliff Barry, UK
Jim Kalafus, USA
Peter Kelly, Ireland
Mike Poirier, USA
References:
Jim Kalafus, Michael Poirier, Cliff Barry and Peter Kelly (2013) “Lest We Forget : The Lusitania.” Gare Maritime. (ref: #10962, accessed 27th April 2015 03:24:39 PM) URL : http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/lest-we-forget-the-lusitania.html
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