Brown had spent the first months of 1912 traveling in Paris, France while visiting her daughter and as part of the John Jacob Astor IV party, until she received word from Denver that her eldest grandchild Lawrence Palmer Brown Jr. was seriously ill. She immediately booked passage on the first available liner leaving for New York, the RMS "Titanic". Originally her daughter Helen was supposed to accompany her, but she decided to stay in Paris, where she was studying at the Sorbonne. Brown was conveyed to the passenger liner RMS "Titanic" as a first-class passenger on the evening of April 10, aboard the tender SS "Nomadic" at Cherbourg, France.