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Mrs Frederick Charles Douglas
Mary Douglas
(Courtesy: Alan Hustak, Canada)
Mrs Frederick Charles Douglas (Mary Hélène Jane "Suzette"
Baxter), 27, was born in Montreal 4 April 1885, the daughter of a wealthy
diamond merchant and banker. She was raised in the affluent Square Mile district
of the city, where everyone called her by the nickname 'Zette. When she was 24
she married Fred Charles Douglas, a medical doctor. 'Zette's mother financed a
medical clinic on St. Famille St., so Douglas could go into business for
himself, and she paid for his post graduate studies in London in 1910. Her
interference caused problems in the marriage. In the spring of 1911, Zette
decided, against her husband's wishes, to go to Europe with her mother and her
younger brother Quigg.
She boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg as a first class passenger and
shared cabin B-60 (?58) with her mother Hélène. She survived the sinking in
lifeboat 6 but when she returned to Montreal she contracted a mild case of polio
and needed a leg brace to get around. Her husband became an alcoholic and lost
his hospital privileges and eventually moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec. After her
mother died in 1923, Zette Baxter left her husband and went to live with a
Montreal stockbroker, Edgar Cole Richardson.
Suzette Richardson in 1949
Courtesy: Phillip Gowan, USA
In the early 1930's they moved to Redlands, California, to a house at 715
West Clark St. There, according to her nephew, she lived, surrounded by
"mothballs and memories," until her death there on 31 December 1954.
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