Mrs. F. C. Brown (Mary “May” Cummings)

Mary Cummings Brown, 55, was the mother of Beatrice Witherbee and grandmother of Alfred Witherbee, Jr.  They traveled together on Lusitania on ticket 14311 and stayed in the same cabin, D-52. When the ship was torpedoed, Beatrice was saved, Mary and Alfred were not. Mary’s body was not recovered.

Mary had been born in Ireland on 10 March 1860, and her mother was also named Mary Cummings.  She had claimed to be 51 in 1915 but was actually 55.  

From the The New York Times, Monday, May 10, 1915, page 6:

William [Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the radio] said yesterday that he lost a friend on the Lusitania, Mrs. M. C. Brown of New York, who had sailed for Liverpool with her daughter, Mrs. A. S. Witherbee and Mrs. Witherbee’s son 5 years old [sic]. Mrs. Witherbee had been reported saved but no word of the fate of her mother or her son has arrived here.

Contributors
Michael Poirier
Judith Tavares

References
New York Times, Monday, 10 May 1915.