Claes-Goran Wetterholm upwraps a layer of white tissue paper to reveal a black leather pocketbook, worn by age. “This is the wallet from a third-class passenger, Mauritz Adahl,” he says. “He was on his way to New York because he had bought land, a plot beside his parents’ farmstead, and he was going to build a house for himself and the family.
“The wallet was found on his body. I met the family in 1987. And one of the granddaughters said: ‘Mother’s greatest wish was to go to Halifax and put flowers on Grandfather’s grave.
’ I just said, ‘well I’m sorry, but there is no grave.’ And this was a shock to them.” Like most of the third-class victims of the Titanic disaster whose bodies were found in the water, Adahl was buried at sea.
First- and second-class passengers were given priority for land burials. “I said to the family, if I ever get the chance I promise I will put flowers on your grandfather’s grave. So in 1994, I brought a wreath from Sweden out to the Titanic [site] and we had a ceremony there on the boat the first night in memory of Mauritz Adahl and in memory of his fellow travellers.
” Wetterholm is a tall, slim, white-haired Swede in his 70s. He has something of the appearance, voice and gravitas of the late actor Max von Sydow. In Brisbane to help with the installation of Titanic: The Human Story , a commercial exhibition at Uptown (formerly the Myer Centre), he is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Titanic; he has written mo.