A RARE TITANIC FAMILY : THE CALDWELL STORY OF SURVIVAL
by Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were two young, very idealistic Presbyterian missionaries hailing from Missouri. They had met one another at Park College which was a school to train students to do Christian work. The two of them knew that they wanted to teach and when a job opened up in Bangkok, they went for it. On September 1, 1909 (the day of their wedding), they started off on their trip to Siam (now, Thailand).
For a while, they loved Bangkok and thought it was enchanting. Then, Sylvia became pregnant and her health deteriorated. The heat of the tropics made everything worse. Sylvia went to a doctor who determined that she had neurasthenia of which the diagnosis is unknown today. The symptoms were muscle weakness, fatigue, numbness in extremities, headaches, mental breakdown. She had to stop teaching. When the baby, Alden, arrived, she couldn't even hold him. Sylvia did not get better and they knew that it was best for them to go back to America. The Foreign Missions Board did not believe that Sylvia was really ill and thought that she and Albert were trying to get out of their contract. Eventually, though, they were allowed to leave. They were supposed to go to Italy for a rest cure, but there had been a cholera epidemic the year before so that was nixed. The Caldwells ended up traveling around Europe taking different ocean liners with Sylvia constantly being seasick. When they landed in London, they bought second class tickets for the Titanic to bring them back to America.
There have been so many books written about the Titanic and most of them have not been very good. The authors list tons of statistical information about what was brought over on the big ship, too many names, the amount of money that was spent to build this huge vessel and after a while, the prose becomes deadening. Not so with A Rare Titanic Family. Julie Hedgepeth Williams is the great-niece of Albert Caldwell and she was able to use family artifacts such as scrapbooks, playbills, photos, letters, tapes, and written speeches. She is an excellent writer and she is certainly no slouch with research. The story about the Caldwell family living in Bankok is just as interesting as their Titanic adventure, so it's as if you get two unique stories for the price of one. It's definitely a fascinating read.
Highly recommended.