Family Lore: in May 1915, Martin Hett waits in Liverpool for a British ship that isn't sunk by U-boats

My sister Molly sent me a packet of family letters and documents a few months ago and asked me to make sense of them, see if they came together in a story we could print for family consumption.

I finally read through them all and placed them neatly in a box. They sat in the box with me pondering the contents. I wasn't sure what to do next.

I decided to liberate one batch of papers from the box every day and post about it on my blog. That's the best I could do. 

This is a page about the early history of Martin James Hett, my maternal grandfather.  

Born July 14, 1899 in County Roscommon, Ireland. His mom (maiden name Nora McWalters) died at the birth of her fifth baby in 1900. Martin was 15 months old; Nora was buried in Galway. Widower Thomas Hett remarried to Delia Byrne; they had 11 children. Thomas, whose nickname was Bob, was born in village of Kiltobar, County of Roscommon. He died in 1932 and is buried in County Mayo. He farmed 15 acres and raised cows, chickens, ducks, sheep, and had one mule. Grew potatoes and tended a vegetable garden.

It rained a lot.

The family lived in a thatched-roof house (we have photos). Four rooms, flagstone floor. Cooked and heated with peat (turf) in large cast-iron pots hung from a hook. When Martin was eight years old, he worked for neighbors at six pence a day. He walked barefoot one mile to a school that had segregated classrooms for girls and boys. He allegedly left home voluntarily at 14. In family lore, Martin was 12 when kicked out by his evil stepmother and told to fend for himself. 

He went to Manchester, England, and found work in a coal mine. He worked two miles underground and was paid six shillings a day which was worth approximately $1.50 USD. 

He saved enough money to buy a steerage ticket to America out of Liverpool for $59. He first booked on the Lusitania which didn't arrive at port due to being sunk by a German submarine. He then booked on the Transylvania that was sunk by another U-boat. He finally got on the Cameronia and sailed to New York City in nine days, without incident. Went through Ellis Island and was released into the wild in America. What happened next will have to wait until we dig out the follow-up paperwork.

Editor's Notes

The Cameronia was a feisty little vessel. While sailing into the Mersey River on its return voyage in June 1915, it was attacked by a U-boat. The ship's captain tried to ram the German vessel which dove beneath the waves and broke off the attack. Two years later, the Cameronia was a British troopship headed to Alexandria, Egypt, when it was torpedoed. The ship sank in 40 minutes with 210 souls lost. More than 2,000 soldiers made it to the lifeboats and were saved.