04/15/2026
Tell City and the Titanic
The Titanic set sail on April 10, 1912. Some may not be aware of this, but Tell City actually has ties to the Titanic. Tell City native Dr. Ernest Moraweck was a second-class passenger.
Dr. Ernest Moraweck was born in Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, on February 28, 1858.
He was the son of Bohemian immigrants Anton Moraweck and Claudina Kroboth, who were married on May 13, 1856. He had two siblings: Claudina (1866–1956) and Alvin Herman (born June 22, 1876), both born in Indiana.
Moraweck’s father, a baker, had emigrated to the United States around 1854, settling in Chicago, Illinois, before moving in 1858 to Tell City, Indiana, as a member of the Colonization Company. He then spent time in Kentucky and Iowa, where he worked as a clerk. He returned to Tell City in 1870 and purchased a hotel, first called Steiner House and later The Hotel Moraweck, which he refurbished. The family was of Roman Catholic background but was not especially religious, and they were Republican in their political leanings.
He appears on the 1880 census living in Tell City, Perry County, Indiana, still at home with his parents. The family later settled in Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 1880s.
He was married in Perry County, Indiana, on February 28, 1884, to Emilie Basler (born January 1861), a native of Ohio who was also of Bohemian parentage.
From 1889, he worked as a “collector” for the Frank Fehr Brewing Company. He left on New Year’s Day 1894 to begin studying medicine.
Moraweck became a physician, specializing in ENT (ears, nose, and throat), and became renowned in his field. He also patented several surgical instruments, most notably a new style of ocular forceps. The Republic of Columbus, Indiana, reported on June 5, 1901, that he had been to Philadelphia assisting in the performance of an eye operation.
In 1900, he was listed as a physician living in Philadelphia with his wife, Emily, and three servants.
The couple had no children, and Emilie died at just 33 years old in 1904 of heart failure.
By April 1912, Moraweck was a widower living in Frankfort, Brandenburg, Meade County, Kentucky, where he owned a farm he had purchased a few years earlier. A frequent traveler across the Atlantic on medical business, often to Vienna and Berlin to showcase his expertise, he boarded the Titanic at Southampton (ticket number 29011, which cost £14). The reason for his visit to Europe on this occasion was a peculiar one and not entirely business-related.
In the autumn of 1909, Dr. Moraweck was returning from Europe and, during his Atlantic crossing, met a lady named Magdalena Hasse, a wealthy widow from Freiburg, Germany, who was on her way to visit relatives in Florida. The two became friends, and he attended to her medically. In the spring of the following year, Mrs. Hasse visited Dr. Moraweck’s farm in Kentucky, where she fell ill and died. Moraweck found among her effects her will, with a codicil directing that he should have her body cremated and the ashes sent to her family in Germany to be deposited with the remains of her first husband. As a return for his many kindnesses to her, she left Dr. Moraweck her villa near Freiburg, valued at close to $30,000. Dr. Moraweck carried out her instructions and had the body cremated in Indianapolis, with the remains returned to Mrs. Hasse’s family in Germany. However, it has been alleged that the trip to Germany was also because his status as beneficiary of the villa had been contested by Mrs. Hasse’s family. It is further alleged that he had gained the confidence of several elderly and wealthy widows, having them spend time at his farm, with Moraweck ending up the beneficiary in their wills following their deaths.
During the voyage, Moraweck shared a dining saloon table with Kate Buss, among others. After the collision, Dr. Moraweck met Kate and offered to investigate the reason the engines had stopped.
Dr. Moraweck died in the sinking, and his body, if recovered, was never identified. In his will, dated May 18, 1904, in Louisville, Kentucky, Ernest left his estate, valued between $50,000 and $75,000, to his sister and brother. The outcome of any litigious motives toward Moraweck obviously went no further, and any involvement in wrongdoing will remain a mystery.
His sister Claudina was married to Dietrich Coldewey (1856–1902) and had a daughter, Erna (1890–1965). She died in Tell City, Indiana, in 1956.
His brother Alvin worked as a telephone engineer, was married to Geneva Hamel (1879–1973), and had two children: Anita (born 1910) and Alvin Herman (1913–1998). He lived in Maplewood, New Jersey, and was still a resident there in the 1940s, where he was seemingly well known in social circles. What became of him afterward is not known.
