Autograph of Bertha Moran Cooper, TITANIC survivor

commemorative cover

Bertha Moran, born in Ireland, immigrated to the United States around 1905. She lived in Troy, NY and worked in a shirt factory. She went back to Ireland after her father's death in 1909. In April 1912, she and her brother booked Third Class passage on the TITANIC to return to New York. They had received a significant inheritance from their father of $4000 each (equivalent to over $100,000 today) and Dan was carrying it in banknotes on his person. Bertha escaped in a lifeboat with her friend Margaret Madigan, but her brother and their friend Patrick Ryan both died. The inheritance was also lost, and although she submitted a claim to be compensated for her lost property and her injuries, she ultimately received only $500 four years later. The autograph is on a first-day cover for a stamp issued May 28, 1948 honoring the "Four Heroic Chaplains," four WWII chaplains on the DORCHESTER who died when a U-Boat torpedo sank their ship. The four chaplains were from four different traditions (Protestant, Catholic, Methodist and Jewish) but they knew each other from prior service. They were handing out life vests when they realized there were not enough, and they gave away their own. They were last seen praying together as the Dorchester went down.