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International Drillers in Borneo in 1907. James McCrie is seated in the front row, fourth from the left.
Not all International Drillers returned home to Lambton County. For James McCrie it wasn’t the harsh working conditions, deadly diseases, or dangers of war that signalled his end, McCrie was one of the 1,519 people who died aboard the HMS Titanic.
McCrie (age 30) was working as an International Driller in Egypt in 1912. He hadn’t seen his family in more than 18 months and was eager to return to Sarnia to see his wife Maude and three daughters.
It is debated just how McCrie found himself aboard the Titanic - some family members recall McCrie being awarded the ticket as a company bonus for hard work, others say he was given the ticket by a man named Gus Slack so that McCrie could return home to visit his sick wife.
Regardless of the cause we know that second-class ticket number 233478, costing £13, cost McCrie his life.
On April 19, 1914, four days after the sinking of the Titanic, the Sarnia Weekly Observer reported: “There is just a possibility that a Sarnia man in the person of James M. McCrie, oil operator North Christina Street, may be one of the passengers on the ill-fated steamer Titanic which sank to doom early Monday morning.”
The Sarnia community rallied behind the widowed Maude McCrie. A letter to the editor on May 13, 1912 wrote, “Let us all do our duty and consider it a privilege to help. This is our way of showing our sympathy for the one bereaved family belonging to our town.”
Maude raised her three daughters on her own and never remarried. If James McCrie’s body was recovered, it was never identified.
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