He was a crew member of the Mackay-Bennett which was sent out to recover the bodies of Titanic victims. On April 21, 1912, while recovering the bodies, a little baby boy, about a year and a half old (#4), came floating past without a lifebelt. Crease pulled the dead child in and was completely moved to tears. In fact all of the Mackay-Bennett deeply touch by the discovery of the boy's body that they wanted to give the child a proper funeral and headstone.
The body of the child couldn't be identified, and so the crew of the CS Mackay-Bennett payed for the burial and headstone with the reward money from John Jacob Astor's son Vincent for finding his father's body (#124).
They held the funeral at St George's Anglican Church with the child in a small white coffin. In addition, the coffin was piled high with flowers, and a marked by a copper plaque, inscribed "Our Babe". The entire crew of 75 (including Clifford Crease) held the service, and most of the population of Halifax, attended the child's funeral on 4th May 1912.
The child was laid to rest in Fairview Lawn Cemetery and very year on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, Crease acted as a pallbearer at the child's funeral and laid a wreath at the monument. He said nothing about his experiences except that he kept a diary of his time on recovering the bodies.
https://archives.novascotia.ca/titanic/archives/?ID=3
When he died in 1961, he was buried only a few meters from the boy whose name he never knew.
Until July 30, 2007, the child was finally identified as Sidney Leslie Goodwin.
He was a crew member of the Mackay-Bennett which was sent out to recover the bodies of Titanic victims. On April 21, 1912, while recovering the bodies, a little baby boy, about a year and a half old (#4), came floating past without a lifebelt. Crease pulled the dead child in and was completely moved to tears. In fact all of the Mackay-Bennett deeply touch by the discovery of the boy's body that they wanted to give the child a proper funeral and headstone.
The body of the child couldn't be identified, and so the crew of the CS Mackay-Bennett payed for the burial and headstone with the reward money from John Jacob Astor's son Vincent for finding his father's body (#124).
They held the funeral at St George's Anglican Church with the child in a small white coffin. In addition, the coffin was piled high with flowers, and a marked by a copper plaque, inscribed "Our Babe". The entire crew of 75 (including Clifford Crease) held the service, and most of the population of Halifax, attended the child's funeral on 4th May 1912.
The child was laid to rest in Fairview Lawn Cemetery and very year on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, Crease acted as a pallbearer at the child's funeral and laid a wreath at the monument. He said nothing about his experiences except that he kept a diary of his time on recovering the bodies.
https://archives.novascotia.ca/titanic/archives/?ID=3
When he died in 1961, he was buried only a few meters from the boy whose name he never knew.
Until July 30, 2007, the child was finally identified as Sidney Leslie Goodwin.
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