Joseph Laroche and family in
Paris. He was of the only black
passengers on… (Family photo)
April 09, 2012|Dawn
Turner Trice
In
preparing his 1997 movie "Titanic" for 3-D,
James Cameron reportedly reshot a scene because
an astronomer told him that the position of the
stars was wrong in the original movie.
Christine
LeBrun, 35, of Palatine, said there's another
historical inaccuracy in Cameron's original
blockbuster that she wishes he'd corrected for
the new "Titanic 3D": He didn't include any
mention of Joseph Laroche, a Haitian-born,
French-educated engineer traveling with his
family who is believed to be the only black man
among the passengers on the Titanic.
LeBrun recently found out
that Laroche is a distant relative.
The 100th anniversary of
the Titanic's sinking is April 15, and LeBrun says that despite
the many accounts about the ill-fated cruise liner, very few
have featured Laroche.
How she came to know about
her ancestor is a story that begins in a hair salon in 2000.
"About 12 years ago, my
uncle Robert's wife was in a beauty salon looking through (an
Ebony) magazine," said LeBrun, an alumni relations director for
a Catholic high school. "She came across a photo and said, 'Oh,
my gosh, that man looks just like my husband.'"
The photograph accompanied
an article about an exhibit on the Titanic that had opened at
Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and featured Laroche,
26, his pregnant wife, Juliette, 22, and their two daughters.
The family was leaving France and moving to Haiti because
Laroche couldn't find work in his profession.
Laroche's mother had sent
the family first-class tickets to travel on the French liner
France. But just before departure, the Laroches
learned that the ship wouldn't allow them to dine
with their children. Out of concern about the younger daughter,
who was sickly, they traded their tickets for second-class
tickets on the Titanic.
LeBrun's aunt took the
magazine home and showed Laroche's photograph to her husband,
Robert Richard. He wasn't certain whether the picture looked
like him, but he
did recognize the last name.
"He said, 'My real last
name was supposed to be Laroche, but because my father never
married my mother, we never took his name,'" LeBrun said. "He
called (his daughter) and told her he might be related to Joseph
and she started to do research."
LeBrun said her cousin
Marjorie Alberts, who lives in California, learned that Laroche
grew up in a well-to-do Haitian family. When he was 14, his
parents sent him to France to study engineering. There he met
Juliette, who was white and whose father owned a winery.
"It's puzzling,
considering the times, that her father did not take issue with
his daughter dating a black man," LeBrun said. "They eventually
married and gave birth to Simonne in 1909. She was fine, and it
was a normal birth. But when they gave birth to Louise in 1910,
she was premature and had lots of problems.
"Joseph (Laroche) at that
point had been trying to find work in France, but nobody would
give him work because he was black. Coming from a position of
privilege in Haiti, he wasn't used to this and he decided to
move his family to Haiti, where his uncle was the president and
his job prospects would be much better."
The family boarded the
Titanic on the evening of April 10, 1912, at Cherbourg, France.
According to the museum exhibit, the family spent most of their
time enjoying the British luxury liner. But some crew members
did make disparaging comments to Laroche and his daughters,
believing they were Italian or Japanese because of their darker
skin.
On the night of April 14,
Laroche was in the smoking parlor with other men traveling
second class when he felt the ship hit the iceberg. He ran back
to his room to check on his wife and daughters.
When the ship began to
sink, Laroche placed the family's money and valuables in a coat
and draped it around his wife's shoulders. (The coat was later
stolen.) He then placed his family in a lifeboat and stayed on
the ship helping get other women and children to
safety.
He told his wife he would
meet her in
New
York. But he didn't survive and his body was never
found.
LeBrun said Juliette
Laroche, their two daughters and unborn son survived, and when
they eventually returned to France, her father had lost his
winery during World War I. The family lived in poverty for a few
years until she won a settlement from the Titanic disaster.
"They led a seminormal
life," LeBrun said. "Juliette never remarried, and the girls
never married. Some people believe she was overprotective of
them. But their son did lead a normal life and he married a
woman named Claudine and they had two sons and a daughter."
Alberts said it took her
several years to figure out how they were related to Laroche.
His grandfather Henri Cadet Laroche was married 11 times. Joseph
Laroche was born from the union between the grandfather and his
11th wife. Alberts and LeBrun's
family
members are the descendants of the union from Henri
Cadet Laroche and his first wife.
LeBrun said she just
happened to find all of this out last month after she read a
Facebook post by Alberts, an actress and writer who's working on
a screenplay about Laroche. The cousins hadn't been in contact
for nearly two decades.
LeBrun said that while she
enjoyed Cameron's tale of two young people from different social
classes falling in love aboard a doomed ship, it's not a
complete story.
"For me, the real love
story is between Joseph and Juliette," LeBrun said.
Alberts said it's
important to correct the historical record.
"I want everybody to know
that the Titanic was going to Haiti, and there was a black man
onboard who wasn't a slave or waiter or servant," Alberts said.
"I remember seeing the movie with my father in 1997 and I had
goose bumps. It means even more now."
dtrice@tribune.com
Reprinted From The
Chicago Tribune of Monday, April 9, 2012.
