Eva was seven years old when she and her parents boarded "Titanic" as second-class passengers on 10 April 1912. They had originally been booked on a ship called the USS "Philadelphia", but a coal strike at Southampton that spring kept it from sailing and many of her passengers were transferred to "Titanic". Almost instantly, Eva's mother felt uneasy about "Titanic" and feared that some catastrophe would happen; the hubris of calling a ship unsinkable was, in her mind, flying in the face of God. With such fear, Eva's mother slept only during the day and stayed awake in their cabin at night fully dressed.