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Friday, May 30, 2014
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Vol. 6 • Issue 96
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A century ago this week, a Silverton girl lived through Canada’s worst maritime disaster thanks to her heroic neighbour
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ight-year-old Florence Barbour clung ferociously to Robert Crellin’s neck as they fought to stay afloat in the St. Lawrence River. Minutes earlier they’d been passengers aboard the Empress of Ireland, which collided in the night with the SS Storstad. Crellin, 35, helped Florence, her mother Sabena, and younger sister Evelyn hike up from their second-class cabins to the deck. As the ship sank beneath them, Crellin put Florence on his back and entered the bonechilling water. By one account, he swam for over an hour. “I finally came across an upturned lifeboat from our steamer and managed to put Florence on it and then straddled it myself,” Crellin recalled. “Another man climbed aboard and soon we drifted to a collapsible boat, which three of us managed to open and climb into. I dragged two women aboard, and with a man, saved some men.” In all, he helped rescue more than 20 people. The tall, rugged man and the Robert Crellin and Florence Barbour are seen in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Star golden-haired little girl, both from Silof June 7, 1914. Their photo appeared in newspapers across North America verton, were among the lucky survivors of Canada’s deadliest maritime disaster. after he rescued her from the sinking Empress of Ireland.
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Florence’s family was already dealing with tragedy when the ship sank. Her father, Tom Barbour, was transporting a load of ore down from the Silverton mines in 1913 when a slide startled his horses, who threw him from his wagon. He died in hospital after nine agonizing days at age 38. Tom and Sabena were both from Cumberland in the north of England. They came to Canada around 1900, where Tom worked in the Slocan silver mines. Florence Lorraine was born in the now-ghost town of Three Forks and the family later moved to the Van Roi mine near Silverton, where Evelyn Beatrice was born in 1910. They enjoyed a brief but bucolic childhood. After Thomas’ death, the bereaved family was comforted by frequent visits from Florence’s godfather, Robert William Crellin, whom she called Uncle Bob, and William Simpson (Billy) Barrie. Both were Cumberland miners who emigrated to BC about the same time as the Barbours. A year after her husband’s death, Sabena booked passage to the old country with her daughters. Bob and Billy joined them after trying unsuccessfully to convince Sabena to delay her departure by a few weeks. Florence, who was attending school in Silverton, tearfully left her friends behind, “but as we intended to come back I consoled myself. It would not be long until I saw them all again.” On May 28, 1914, they boarded the Canadian Continued on Page 2
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