I just wanted to inform you that my fourth cousin was U.S. Postal Clerk Oscar S. Woody. He was the cousin of my great-grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Woody. He also perished with the brave Captain. I’m most upset that his name does not appear on the list of crew and passengers at the Titanic Exhibition in St. Petersburg, nor do those of the other 4 postal clerks. I’m presently trying to do something about this. Anyway, I’d be very interested in whatever project you have in mind. Thank you. David A. Hoover-

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Note:Lady Kathleen has let David know that U.S. Postal Clerk Oscar S. Woody is listed and has a story and picture about him at Encyclopedia Titanica. She hopes he has good luck in there entry in the Titanic Exhibition in St. Petersburg.

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I have some updated information on Oscar Woody. The following is an excerpt from The Independent of Fuquay-Varina, N.C.(April 17, 1980): “Each year as the April 14 anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic rolls around, it stirs a special memory for Fuquay-Varina brothers, Bruce(my grandfather) and Walter Howard. They had a cousin, Oscar Woody, among the 1,500 passengers who went down with the famous ship in what is still the worst peacetime deep sea disaster ever. Both Bruce and Walter were very young children when the Titanic went down. Neither knew their mother’s first cousin who had gone to sea aboard the fine ocean liner as a mail clerk. But through their childhood–and into adulthood–they heard about the disaster and the loss of their cousin discussed many times… …Young seaman Oscar Woody, serving as mail clerk aboard the stricken vessel, had gone into the water, still clutching a heavy canvass(sic) mail bag. Perhaps he thought the bag would float and offer him some buoyancy in the waves, perhaps he thought to save some important correspondence, perhaps he did not have time to think at all. No one will ever know the answer. Woody’s strong young limbs grew exhausted as he fought the inexorable sea, until he could no longer maintain his head above the surface. He now knew he was doomed to certain, horrible death by drowning, as were so many of the tragic faces around him, disappearing one by one as their desperate strength expired. What were the young man’s thoughts in those dark hours? For whom did he mourn? How unfair it must all have seemed to lose one’s life before really beginning it…to die on the threshold of manhood, with all his dreams yet unfilled. Not much is known about Oscar Woody. The major events of his life seem to begin and end onboard the fateful Titanic. His history is clouded now with the mists of time, as is the memory of that long-ago tragedy in which he and over 1,000 others perished. An aged cousin in Virginia, ancestral home of the Woody family, came across a photo of Oscar and upon her death requested it be sent to another cousin in Grover, North Carolina, Mrs. B.A. (Bessie) Harry.” Aunt Bessie was my grandfather’s older sister. The photo is shown with the article and is of an Oscar in his twenties, younger than the published one of him at 44. As you can tell, much of what happened is speculation, but it makes a good story, and his body was the only one of the postal clerks recovered. My aunt has painted a portrait of him from the photo and also written a poem about him titled “Unsinkable Spirit,” in which she used a lot of information I provided her. I thought you might be interested in these tidbits. Thank you. Sincerely, David Hoover