1 4 Mrs Rhoda Abbott Third Class Passenger I was born and raised in England you see I did not move to the United States until I was a young woman I married a man from London and we started our life in Providence Rhode Island but it never felt like home When my life grew difficult I grew homesick and decided to sail home and live with my widowed mother I needed comfort and security I tell you all this so that you will
know I understand homesickness truly I do And that is why I made the most terrible decision of my life My marriage ended in Think about It Determine the main point of the first paragraph and pick out one piece of evidence that supports it 1911 Stanton was a good man in the beginning Oh and what charisma he had He was a champion too He was the United States middleweight boxing champion What strength what energy he had Our boys Rossmore and Eugene were the joys of our life together But we couldn’t make it work In the end we both decided to separate It’s hard for a woman to make it on her own and I had my boys to consider Oh And I was so homesick My father had died and my mother needed company It made the most sense for everyone for me to return home to England At first it seemed as though we would thrive I became a seamstress and Rossmore learned boot 5
making and even considered becoming a jeweler Eugene was still a schoolboy and had not decided on a career quite yet But now my boys were homesick They missed their lives in the United States They missed their family and friends I understood their homesickness and I hated to see them suffer I decided to sail back to the United States On April 10 1912 the three of us boarded the Titanic in Southampton England Money was tight and I had to purchase three tickets so we took third class accommodations Originally we purchased passage on the SS Philadelphia Due to a coal strike the Philadelphia did not sail and we were happy to be offered berths on the Titanic even if they were third class accommodations Third class is also called steerage class Passengers cabins are so low in the ship they are near the cables that move the steering rudders I felt like steerage leaving my home I felt very low But my 6
The RMS Olympic built alongside the Titanic had a similar design using watertight doors and hatches that was meant to make it unsinkable 7
