Irony in Titanic memorial

“Libertytown remembers Titanic” (CR, April 5) mentions that the Titanic memorial at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Libertytown was blessed by Redemptorist Father Francis Klauder in April 1912. In one of those ironies of life, just three months later, Father Klauder, pastor of St. Mary’s in Annapolis, died as the result of a tragic drowning accident. During a parish youth picnic on the Severn River on July 26, 1912, Father Klauder heroically tried to rescue two young women who had sunk beneath the water and were drowning. One of the women was rescued but Father Klauder, a non-swimmer, had swallowed a large amount of river water and had to be resuscitated. He died three days later at the Annapolis Emergency Hospital.

Robert L. Worden

Annapolis

Note: Worden is the author of “Saint Mary’s Church, Annapolis Maryland: A Sesquicentennial History, 1853-2003.”