Helen Churchill Candee was an authoress who, in 1990, penned the book How Women May Earn a Living. The feminist sentiments of the book were way ahead of their time, and as such can be observed in the following passage:
"The day has surely come when women as well as men may put their shoulders to the wheel of fortune. To meet the demands of this new and large band of wage earners many avenues of labor have been opened in recent years. There are few professions now secure against the invasion of woman. She may be found in the courtroom and in the laboratory, in the shops and in the offices, in the fields as well as in the home. Miss Helen Churchill Candee, in this little volume, offers sound and judicious advice to women suddenly thrown upon their own resources. Some of the facts which she presents are obvious to the average mind, but they are, nevertheless, of a character which may bear much repetition."
The success of this and her other books allowed her to book a single passage in first class on the R.M.S. Titanic.
The successful Mr's Candee became known as "The Woman Who Saw the Last Sunset on the Titanic." Contrary to the ease in which Leo helmed the bow of the ship in Cameron's 1997 movie about the great ocean liner, it was a difficult thing to sneak yourself past the crew to the very front point of the ship.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Candee did exactly that on the final evening of the voyage. While standing at the bow in what was no doubt a "Queen of the World" moment, she recalled later that she felt the ship was stronger than God. Moments later, she felt the sacrilege of the sentiment and suddenly found herself in a very ominous and dark moment. Mrs. Candee boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg. She was travelling to Wachington D.C. and was rescued in lifeboat #6. She had given an antique cameo of her mother to Edward A. Kent for safekeeping as she thought he would have a better chance of surviving the sinking than whe did. Although Mr. Kent died, his body was recovered and the cameo was found in his clothing and returned to Mrs. Candee.
She was a strikingly beautiful woman and Archibald Gracie included her in his "Our Coterie" group.
Mrs. Candee died in York, Maine on August 23, 1949 at the age of 89.
