05/04/2023
[84K] Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born to an affluent family in Cap Haitien, Haiti, in 1886.
At the age of 15 he left Haiti and traveled to Beauvais, France, to study engineering in high school. He started his career as an engineer working for Chemins de fers électriques souterrains (the Paris underground). While visiting nearby Villejuif, Joseph met his future wife, Juliette. After Joseph received his degree, they were married.
Their daughter Simonne was born in 1909, and a second daughter, Louise was born prematurely in 1910, and suffered medical problems.
Joseph found work, but his employers made excuses that he was young and inexperienced and paid him poorly. The family needed more money to pay for medical bills, so planned to return to Haiti in 1913 to seek a better-paying engineering job.
In March of 1912 Juliette discovered she was pregnant, so the family decided to leave for Haiti earlier, before her pregnancy became too far advanced.
For a welcome present Joseph’s mother in Haiti bought them steamship tickets on the La France, but the company’s policy at that time required children to stay in the nursery; children were not allowed in the ship’s restaurant even with their parents. “The couple did not want separation at mealtime to upset their daughters,” notes archival documents, so Laroche exchanged their booking to a second class cabin on Titanic.
It was April 10, 1912, when the Laroche family boarded the R.M.S Titanic at Cherbourg, France.
While some articles describe racial prejudice in that passengers made derogatory comments to Laroche (who spoke fluent French and English), a letter that Juliette wrote to her father while the Titanic was at Queenstown, Ireland, made no mention of any racially motivated incidents directed at her or her family. She wrote that they had become acquainted with another French family, whom they had traveled from Paris with on the train and dined with onboard the ship.
After the Titanic struck an iceberg historians record that Laroche was calm and heroic. As the ship sank, Joseph stuffed his coat pockets with money and jewelry and took his pregnant wife and children up to the boat deck where they entered a lifeboat. He wrapped the coat around his wife, his last words: “Here, take this, you are going to need it. I’ll get another boat. God be with you. I’ll see you in New York.”
Joseph Laroche perished in the sinking at age 26, his body never recovered. His family were rescued by the Carpathia from lifeboat No.14.
(Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe in command of Lifeboat No. 14 had fired his pistol to deter men from jumping into the boat as it was lowered. Later, after gathering several other lifeboats together he returned to save survivors, the only officer to do so).
The children's recollections of April 15th, 1912 were of the Carpathia, when they were hauled up in bags. Simonne remembered how frightening it had been, and the image stayed with her. On board their mother already surmised that Joseph had drowned as no other ship picked up any lifeboats where he might have been found.
In New York Juliette and the girls were directed to a hospital where her frozen feet were treated. The loss of her husband, personal belongings, combined with pain and fright made her cancel continuing to Haiti, instead deciding to return to the familiarity of France. Upon returning to Paris with her daughters she gave birth to a son, Joseph Lemercier Laroche.
After suing the White Star Line for damages, Juliette was awarded 150,000 francs in 1918. She used the money to open a fabric-dyeing business to support her family, which had lived in poverty throughout the First World War. Neither Juliette nor her daughters devoted much effort to speaking publicly about the event. Juliette only discussed it with a handful of close friends, and her daughters followed suit for the better part of a century.
Louise Laroche became a member of the Titanic Historical Society at its founding in 1963 until her death on January 28, 1998, at the age of 87. It left only seven remaining survivors of the Titanic.
Here, Joseph Laroche and his family in Paris with Juliette, older daughter, Simonne (left) and younger daughter, Louise.
