Pomeroy businessman and pioneer John Bertram "Bert" Brady lost on RMS Titanic 112 years ago
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John Bertram "Bert" Brady was a victim of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912.
POMEROY––The infamous sinking of the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic 112 years ago on April 15, 1912, was personal for Pomeroy. Included in the over 1,500 lost at sea was John Bertram "Bert" Brady, a Pomeroy businessman and pioneer, age 41.
His body was never recovered. Monuments to Brady are in the Pomeroy City Cemetery and at Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose, Calif. The local monument was placed by the Shepherd Foundation, the one is San Jose by family members living there.
Following the sinking of the steamer after it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean some 400 miles from Newfoundland, Brady's family and friends held hope that he was among those rescued by the Carpathia, one of the ships that responded to the Titanic's distress signal, until his brother-in-law, R.L. Rush, received a telegram from M.H. Houser, who was in New York City when the Carpathia docked. The telegram stated "Bert is lost. Latest reports say very few men saved, account few life boats."
Brady was born in Satsop, Grays Harbor County, and came to Garfield County with his parents in 1879, at nine years old. He went to the public school in Pomeroy and to Bishop Scott's Academy of Portland, before inheriting a store from his father as a young man, which he sold to F.J. Elsensohn in 1903. Brady was elected vice president of Pomeroy Savings Bank, owned one-third interest in the Weller Live Stock Company, was a member of Pomeroy's Masonic lodge, Elkatiff Temple in Spokane, and played third base on the town baseball team.
According to family lore, his journey to Europe was to ask for the hand of Bertha Houser, great aunt of Gary Houser of Pomeroy, at the time of the sinking. Historical anecdotes are unclear on the outcome of the proposal, Houser says.
Brady had traveled to Europe and sent letters back to friends in Pomeroy from Rome, London, Belfast, and Edinburgh. He remarked on the people and lands he visited, stating "I am sure stuck on Ireland-I guess because they are my kind." In a letter to W.B. Morris of Pomeroy, he wrote of his plans to sail on the Titanic, calling it "a fine boat." His ticket number was 113054 at a cost of £30, 10s, and he was berthed in first-class cabin A-21.
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The White Star Line's RMS Titanic
He also wrote of a coal strike that threatened to delay the passage and told of his intention to book on "the German boats" if he could not sail on the Titanic's maiden voyage. Fate intervened when the coal strike was apparently resolved and the ship embarked on its doomed maiden voyage, sailing out of Southhampton, England. It initially stopped at Cherbourg, France, where American tycoon J. J. Astor and wife Madeleine boarded, as well as "unsinkable" Molly Brown. It stopped briefly at Queenstown, Ireland, on April 11, then was off for New York.
In 1912, Pomeroy businesses closed between 11 and 12 o'clock as a mark of respect to Brady's memory and the Pomeroy Commercial Club, of which Brady had been a member, held a public memorial service.
The Denny Ashby Library has archived a number of Brady's letters and some photos on the Washington Rural Heritage website, washingtonruralheritage.org.
