Adella Liebenow Wotherspoon photographs and papers

Adella Martha (Liebenow) Wotherspoon (1903–2004), sometimes known by the nicknames "Dolly" and "Tiby," was the youngest daughter of Paul and Anna (Wulf) Liebenow, both New York City natives and the children of German immigrants. Paul (1871–1910), the son of Heinrich and Henriette (Pisch) Liebenow, married Anna (1872–1947), the daughter of Heinrich and Helene (Brauer) Wulf, in 1896. Their first daughter, Helen, was born in 1898. She was followed by Anna in 1901, and Adella, who was born November 28, 1903. Adella, at the age of six months, became the youngest survivor of the General Slocum steamboat disaster of June 15, 1904.

The General Slocum, a popular paddle steamer chartered for the 17th annual Sunday school excursion of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, was destined for Locust Grove, a picnic site on the north shore of Long Island. The ship rode up the East River carrying just over 1,300 passengers, many of them young mothers with their children from the vicinity of St. Mark's, the Manhattan neighborhood known then as Kleindeutschland (Little Germany) and today a part of the East Village. For most of those passengers it was to be their first—and last—trip by pleasure boat.

On board that morning was the Liebenow family—Paul, Anna, and daughters Helen, Anna, and Adella. They joined Paul's sisters, Martha Liebenow (1875–1904), Annie (Liebenow) Weber (1873–1905), and Annie's husband, Frank Weber (1869–1936), with their two children, Emma (1893–1904), and Frank Weber Jr. (1898–1904). Also with them was "Aunt" Katie King (circa 1878–1904), the Irish-born fiancée of Anna (Wulf) Liebenow's brother, Henry Wulf (1876–1912). It is unclear if Henry Wulf was part of the group, but he and Katie were due to be married on September 15, 1904, so Katie was practically part of the family.

Through a cause that will never be known, the Slocum caught fire almost immediately after embarking at 9:40 a.m. Smoke billowing from a lower deck was at first attributed to "chowder cooking" by the jolly excursionists. Twenty-six minutes later the ship exploded in flames off Randall's Island. Life vests crumbled to dust in the hands of panicked passengers. Lifeboats were found wired in place. Shoddy canvas fire hoses burst under water pressure. At 10:10 the Slocum beached on North Brother Island, off the Bronx. A staggering 1,021 people died, if not by burning, then by drowning. Until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the General Slocum disaster was the single greatest loss of life in New York City history.

The eleven-member Liebenow-Weber party was reduced by six. Nearly all suffered scorching. Frank and Annie (Liebenow) Weber survived, although Annie's hair caught fire. Paul Liebenow stayed on the ship looking for his children until his clothing began to burn away. His wife, Anna, was severely burned down her side as she clung to the ship with one arm while shielding the infant Adella in the other, dropping into the water only when she could no longer bear the pain. She and the baby were eventually reunited with Paul, Annie, and Frank. Dead were Martha Liebenow and Katie King, Emma and Frank Weber Jr., and Helen and Anna Liebenow. (As Adella later phrased it, she lost two aunts, two cousins, and two sisters to the Slocum.) While little Anna Liebenow's body was recovered (her parents carefully preserving the shoes she wore that day), Helen's was never identified. She is believed to lie in the communal grave of the unknown dead of the General Slocum at Lutheran Cemetery (now called All Faiths Cemetery) in Middle Village, Queens. On the first anniversary of the tragedy 18-month-old Adella pulled a cord to unveil a monument to their memory.

Like other survivors, Paul Liebenow spent his subsequent days in dazed shock, but with one difference: he gathered in scrapbooks every memento and newspaper article he could find about the fire (in German and in English), every piece of ephemera and correspondence, even including the receipt for the new suit and hat he'd purchased specifically for the St. Mark's excursion. Adella said the compilation of his scrapbooks was a form of therapy. Paul never truly recovered, and died in 1910. His sister, Annie Weber, died a week shy of the first anniversary of the disaster, on June 9, 1905, as noted on the back of her photograph, "from effects of [the] Slocum."

Soon after Paul's death Anna (Wulf) Liebenow and Adella moved to Watchung, New Jersey, where Adella, who became a high school teacher, married James Wotherspoon (1903–1982) in 1930. Anna died in 1947, and for many years after Adella avoided the annual commemorations at Lutheran Cemetery and Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan, where another memorial to the Slocum dead had been dedicated in 1906. The rediscovery of her father's scrapbooks, stored in the attic along with photographs and family papers, renewed Adella's interest and involvement in the Organization of the General Slocum Survivors. She began attending events again when she was 85, and made it to most of them until shortly before her death at the age of 100 on January 26, 2004. Usually she brought along her sister Anna's shoes, and the dress she herself had worn to unveil the monument to the unknown dead at Lutheran Cemetery on June 15, 1905.

With the death of Catherine Connelly in 2002, who, at the remarkable age of 109 was the oldest survivor of the General Slocum, Adella, once the youngest survivor of that fateful day, became its oldest and sole survivor. Sadly, she missed the Slocum centennial by just shy of five months. On her death she bequeathed her scrapbooks, photographs, dress, and sister's shoes to the New-York Historical Society, where they were exhibited in The General Slocum and Little Germany, June 15 – August 22, 2004.

The fullest account of the disaster is Edward T. O'Donnell's Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum (New York: Broadway Books, 2003), available at the New-York Historical Society under call number F128 VK1257.G4 O29 2003.