The Titanic - 1912 -2012

"Many brave things were done that night but none more brave than by those few men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea...the music they played serving alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recorded on the rulls of undying fame."
 Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivor

Entrance to Exhibition

You may wonder about why I would write about the Titanic on a travel blog.  Well, it is travel related, although certainly not very successful travel.  Talk about things going wrong on a trip, this was the ultimate bad luck, for many people.  But this year is the 100th anniversary of the sailing.  Many cities are putting on exhibitions.  San Diego has an exhibit which will continue till September, and I think it is well worth going to.  My husband and I just recently went to it, and we both enjoyed it.  The exhibit is at the Natural History Museum in San Diego's Balboa Park.  If you live somewhere other than San Diego, check your museums, the exhibits are going on in many cities throughout the United States, and for that matter I understand there is an exhibit in Belfast, Ireland where the ship was built.  Since we are heading that way soon, we may just check it out.

My boarding pass

The exhibition we went to was fun, because they give you the name of a person on a boarding card as you enter.  It tells you whether your person was in First Class, Second or Third, or a member of the crew.  My person was in First Class, and her name was Mrs. Isidor Straus (Rosalie Ida Blun).

Mrs Isidor Straus of New York, NY was 63 years old and was married to Isidor Strauss - the owner of Macy's department stores. She boarded the Titanic at Southampton with her husband Isidor Straus, her maid Ms Ellen Bird and his manservant John Farthing. The Straus's occupied cabins C55-57.  Mrs Straus almost entered Lifeboat 8, but at the last minute she turned back and rejoined her husband, she had made up her mind: "We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go."   Friends tried to persuade her, but she refused. She handed her maid Ms. Ellen Bird her fur coat.  She told her she wouldn't be needing it, and had her get into the life boat.  Mr and Mrs Straus went and sat together on a pair of deck chairs, her body was never recovered.  Ms. Bird survived and tried to return the fur coat to the Straus' daughter, but she told her to keep it, her mother had given it to her.

My husband was given the boarding pass of Mr. Edward Beane who was traveling with his bride Ethel.  He was 32 years old and was born 19 November 1879 in England.  Beane moved to New York where he worked as  a bricklayer. He had returned to his home town of Norwich to get married to Ethel Clarke. The ceremony took place some days before the Titanic would leave. The newlyweds had ticket number 2908 and paid £26. They boarded the Titanic at Southampton as second class passengers.  Mr Beane, survived the sinking together with his wife. They were one of a few "honeymooners" that were not parted by the rule "women and children first". Both were rescued in lifeboat 13.

The actual exhibit has stories on the walls of different people and how they ended up on the Titanic.  It has actual artifacts that were recovered from the ship, and it has a full-size re-creation of what a first-class cabin would have looked like.  The exhibit gives you an idea of what life on the ship would have been like. 

At the end of the exhibit there is a list of everyone who was on the ship, and you can check to see if they survived or died on board.  It really is quite a good exhibit, and if you have any interest in the Titanic, it is worth going to see. 1517 people lost their lives that night, and 705 survived.  Amoung those who died were the musicians on board the ship, and they played their instruments until it sank.  The ship sank in the early morning hours of April 15th, 1912 - 100 years ago today.