Eloise Hughes Smith

Who was Eloise Hughes Smith?

Mary Eloise Hughes Smith, also referred to as Eloise Smith or Mrs. Lucien P. Smith, was a survivor of the 1912 RMS Titanic disaster. Her first husband, Lucien P. Smith, died in the sinking; she later married a fellow survivor. Mrs. Smith's recollections of the sinking have been quoted in numerous documentaries about the sinking of the ship, and she has been portrayed in at least one fictional depiction of the disaster.

Eloise Smith was a member of the Vinson political family; the daughter of United States Representative James A. Hughes and Belle Vinson. As children, Eloise and her sister had made the acquaintance of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Having recently married Lucien P. Smith and newly pregnant, she was returning from her honeymoon when the Titanic sank. She survived to give birth to her son Lucian Jr. in November 1912. She later married a fellow survivor, Robert Daniel, a bank executive.

Smith was quoted extensively in the 1912 best-selling book The Sinking of the Titanic by Jay Henry Mowbray. Her letters and other recollections were also used by the documentary filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier in the A&E Network documentaries Titanic: Death of a Dream and Titanic: The Legend Lives On to illustrate the hours between the Titanic's encounter with the iceberg and the rescue of the survivors by RMS Carpathia, and in the documentary Titanic: Anatomy of a Disaster. She was portrayed in the documentary television series Seconds from Disaster by Jennifer Lee Trendowski in the episode featuring the Titanic.