Henry Nordstrom
Henry Nordstrom was a second-class passenger for Seattle travelling with his wife and their 8 year old daughter Marguerite, though she does not appear on the Valencia’s passenger list. Connor from Turret raft confirmed “Mrs. Nostrum and child drowned” 26 Jan daily Colonist p8. The Call newspaper on January 26th wrote, “F.M. Campbell, one of the survivors of the Valencia wreck left here last Saturday with his wife and 16-year-old stepdaughter, Ruby Gordon, bound for Seattle. In company with the Campbell’s were Mr. and Mrs. J.P. Nordstrom and probably the latter couple’s 8-year-old daughter Marguerite, although the child’s name has not appeared in the published lists of passengers. With the exception of Campbell, all of the other members of the party who were known to be on the Valencia are thought to have gone down to ocean graves.
Campbell is an Australian by birth, and he served in the British army during the Boer War, undergoing great hardships. At the conclusion of the Boer War he engaged in the tobacco business in South Africa and later came to this country. He had worked hereabouts as a machine agent and also as an insurance solicitor for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. With his wife and daughter, Campbell occupied rooms at the Alameda Hotel, 1715 Park Street. They left that place suddenly Saturday morning, leaving no word with the landlady as to their destination.
Nordstrom was, until the first of January, manager of the local agency of the Singer Sewing Machine Company at 1221 Park Street with his wife and little daughter at the home T.M. Edmunds, 2930 Central Avenue. His wife assisted him in his work at the machine agency and the daughter attended Wilson Grammar School. Nordstrom, after retiring from the management of the local office of the Singer Machine Company at the first of the year, aided his successor for a week in obtaining an insight into the business. Nordstrom and Campbell had arranged to settle in Seattle and take charge of an agency for the Domestic Sewing Machine Company. When the Nordstrom’s left the Edmunds home Saturday morning at 8am, they gave Mrs. Edmunds to understand that they might go north and also that they might return to Alameda. They did not tell Mrs. Edmunds whether they intended to take their daughter with them, but Mrs. Edmunds believes that the little girl was a passenger on the Valencia.”