Musique - "
Nearer My God to Thee"
I have been obsessed with the
Titanic for over 20 years now—ever since I was in junior high and I read some young adult novel set on the
Titanic. After reading that, I read all I could find about the tragic ship and its passengers and crew. I just felt so much affinity for these people and their stories. And today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the
Titanic. I would like to honor this occasion with some of the things that move me most about the
Titanic.
Isidor and Ida Strauss
"Isidor Straus, 67, and his wife Ida, 63, almost always traveled together; in fact, they were rarely apart during their married life and wrote each other daily during periods of separation. . . . On the night of the disaster, as the call to board the lifeboats went out, Isidor escorted Ida to Lifeboat 8 and prepared to say goodbye to her. Ida, however, refused to enter the small boat, saying, “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go.” Several other first-class passengers tried to convince Ida to board but she could not be swayed. Instead, she sent her newly employed maid, Ellen Bird, in her place, after first wrapping her in a fur as protection against the cold. The Strauses were last seen seated side by side on
Titanic’s Boat Deck."
Picture and information from the official RMS Titanic website.
The bow of the Titanic
Every time I see a picture of it or
watch a video of it, I get the chills. Nothing says "ghost ship" more than the
Titanic's bow.
The grand staircase
The above picture is the grand staircase of the
Olympic, one of
Titanic's sister ships and it is thought to be similiar, if not identical to
Titanic's grand staircase. Its splendor is certainly something to behold. If you'd like to see a CGI version of how the grand staircase area most likely looked when the
Titanic was new, please see
this video from Encyclopedia Titanica. The grand staircase
has never been found in the wreck area of the
Titanic, which makes it all the more mysterious.
Random Titanic artifacts found on the ocean floor
I used to be vehemently opposed to taking any artifacts from the wreck site. I thought it tantamount to grave robbing. But curiosity got the better of me and I went to a
Titanic exhibit in Tacoma in the early 1990s. It was beyond cool to see these artifacts up close and read about how certain objects were used in the early part of the twentieth century and to hear stories about the actual owners of some of the artifacts. And now that I know that the conditions in the ocean itself are deteriorating the ship and the multitude of things in and around the wreck site, I'm totally cool with it. The
Titanic the Experience website has an
excellent section about recovering and conserving
Titanic artifacts.
If you're interested in finding about more of the
victims and
survivors of the Titanic, Encylopedia Titanica has a wealth of information. You can even read
descriptions of the bodies they were able to recover and how some were identifiable, like Isidor Strauss (#96), and some were not like, so many third class passengers. Don't worry—nothing too gruesome. But heart wrenching, yes.
And there are several videos and documentaries about the Titanic available online:
I am very excited to see the new History Channel documentary, "
Titanic at 100: Mystery Solved". I don't have TV myself, but my parents do and I'm definitely headed down to their house later today to watch it!
Words can't even begin to express the horrors that the passengers and crew went through on April 14 and 15, 1912 and even thinking about it chills me to the bone and makes me cry. I guess that's what makes the story of the
Titanic so interesting to so many people—you just can't help but be touched by it.
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