May 30, 2008 A Sweet Memory

The words to this old song by the late Jim Reeves could well be describing the feelings all who met Miss Dean experienced.

I love you because you understand dear
Every single thing I try to do
You’re always there to lend a helping hand dear
I love you most of all because you’re you

No matter what the world may say about me
I know your love will always see me through
I love you for the way you never doubt me, But most of all I love you
cause you’re you

I love you because my heart is lighter
Every time I’m walking by your side
I love you because the future’s brighter
The door to happiness you opened wide

No matter what the world may say about me
I know your love will always see me through
I love you for a hundred thousand reasons
But most of all I love you ‘cause you’re you

As news of the death of Millvina Dean has been released by the media this afternoon, Titanic societies around the world have received contacts from the Press wishing more information, and messages of sadness from all those who knew her and many from those who never met her. 

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made public although the wishes of Miss Dean in this regard are known and will be honored.  It may be a comfort for many to know that Miss Dean spent her last day happily with family in the sunshine, and passed away in her sleep sometime last night.  She had returned to the nursing home on Friday after being released from the hospital after a bout with pneumonia. and was said to be in good spirits and making a recovery. ABC and NBC news for Sunday night 6:30 p.m. presented photographs and film footage of an interview with Miss Dean.  Below is the most recent AP release:

Death Comes on 98th Anniversary of Launch of Famous Ship

She died in her sleep early Sunday, her friend Gunter Babler told the Associated Press. It was the 98th anniversary of the launch of the ship that was billed as “practically unsinkable.”

Babler said Dean’s longtime companion, Bruno Nordmanis, called him in Switzerland to say staff at Woodlands Ridge Nursing Home in Southampton discovered Dean in her room Sunday morning. He said she had been hospitalized with pneumonia last week but she had recovered and returned to the home.

A staff nurse at the nursing home said late Sunday that no one would comment until administrators came on duty Monday morning.

Dean just over 2 months old when the Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. The ship sank in less than three hours.Dean was one of 706 people — mostly women and children — who survived. Her father was among the 1,517 who died.

 Babler, who is head of the Switzerland Titanic Society, said Dean was a “very good friend of very many years.”"I met her through the Titanic society but she became a friend and I went to see very every month or so,” he said.

 The pride of the White Star line, the Titanic had a mahogany-paneled smoking room, a swimming pool and a squash court. But it did not have enough lifeboats for all of its 2,200 passengers and crew. Dean’s family were steerage passengers setting out from the English port of Southampton for a new life in the United States. Her father had sold his pub and hoped to open a tobacconists’ shop in Kansas City, Missouri, where his wife had relatives.

 Initially scheduled to travel on another ship, the family was transferred to the Titanic because of a coal strike. Four days out of port and about 600 kilometers (380 miles) southeast of Newfoundland, the ship hit an iceberg. The impact buckled the Titanic’s hull and sent sea water pouring into six of its supposedly watertight compartments.

 Dean said her father’s quick actions saved his family. He felt the ship scrape the iceberg and hustled the family out of its third-class quarters and toward the lifeboat that would take them to safety. “That’s partly what saved us — because he was so quick. Some people thought the ship was unsinkable,” Dean told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1998.

Wrapped in a sack against the Atlantic chill, Dean was lowered into a lifeboat. Her 2-year-old brother Bertram and her mother Georgette also survived. “She said goodbye to my father and he said he’d be along later,” Dean said in 2002. “I was put into lifeboat 13. It was a bitterly cold night and eventually we were picked up by the Carpathia.”

 The family was taken to New York, then returned to England with other survivors aboard the rescue ship Adriatic. Dean did not know she had been aboard the Titanic until she was 8 years old, when her mother, about to remarry, told her about her father’s death. Her mother, always reticent about the tragedy, died in 1975 at age 95.

 Born in London on Feb. 2, 1912, Elizabeth Gladys “Millvina” Dean spent most of her life in the English seaside town of Southampton, Titanic’s home port. She never married, and worked as a secretary, retiring in 1972 from an engineering firm. She moved into a nursing home after breaking her hip about three years ago. She had to sell several Titanic mementoes to raise funds, prompting her friends to set up a fund to subsidize her nursing home fees. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the stars of the film “Titanic,” pledged their support to the fund last month.

 For most of her life Dean had no contact with Titanic enthusiasts and rarely spoke about the disaster. Dean said she had seen the 1958 film “A Night to Remember” with other survivors, but found it so upsetting that she declined to watch any other attempts to put the disaster on celluloid, including the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic.”

 She began to take part in Titanic-related activities in the 1980s, after the discovery of the ship’s wreck in 1985 sparked renewed interest in the disaster. At a memorial service in England, Dean met a group of American Titanic enthusiasts who invited her to a meeting in the U.S. She visited Belfast to see where the ship was built, attended Titanic conventions around the world — where she was mobbed by autograph seekers — and participated in radio and television documentaries about the sinking.

 Charles Haas, president of the New-Jersey based Titanic International Society, said Dean was happy to talk to children about the Titanic. “She had a soft spot for children,” he said. “I remember watching was little tiny children came over clutching pieces of paper for her to sign. She was very good with them, very warm.”

 In 1997, Dean crossed the Atlantic by boat for the first time, on the QEII luxury liner, and finally visited Kansas City, declaring it “so lovely I could stay here five years.” She was active well into her 90s, but missed the commemoration of the 95th anniversary of the disaster in 2007 after breaking her hip.

Dean had no memories of the sinking and said she preferred it that way. “I wouldn’t want to remember, really,” she told The Associated Press in 1997. She opposed attempts to raise the wreck 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) from the sea bed. “I don’t want them to raise it, I think the other survivors would say exactly the same,” she said in 1997. “That would be horrible.”

 The last survivor with memories of the sinking — and the last American survivor — was Lillian Asplund, who was 5 at the time. She died in May 2006 at the age of 99. The second-last survivor, Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, died in October 2007 aged 96.

Members and trustees of Titanic International Society mourn the passing of Miss Millvina Dean, last survivor of the Titanic disaster who passed away Sunday May 31 in her sleep.

Several trustees were able to get clearance early Friday, May 1 to view the UNITED STATES at her pier.  The ship has been turned over to Star Cruises with the possibility of the breakers in her future.  Group efforts are underway to try to save the Big U. Visit this link to see how you may help.

http://www.ssunitedstates.org/

The members and trustees of Titanic International Society join others around the world in remembering the passengers and crew on this anniversary of the sinking.  A wreath has been placed over the final resting place of the great ship today from the members of TIS. 

“Never forgotten”  April 15, 1912

Two Titanic International Society trustees will appear in a new Weather Channel documentary, and a third has provided significant historical assistance to the program’s producers.

TIS President Charlie Haas and Treasurer Bob Bracken are prominently featured in the hour-long production, which will premiere on Sunday, October 19 at 9 p.m. Eastern time, with additional encore presentations afterwards. TIS Historian John P. Eaton provided historical assistance to the production staff, and also was interviewed, although he does not appear in the finished program.

The documentary examines the role weather played in Titanic’s voyage, her loss and her present status on the ocean floor. Others appearing in the program include Sam Halpern, whose articles have appeared in TIS’s journal “Voyage”; Jennifer McCarty, co-author of “What Really Sank the Titanic?” and Dr. Robert Ballard.

Charlie provided much of the program’s historical context, while Bob offered several poignant passenger stories, especially that of William J. Mellors, whose narrative was a recent exclusive in “Voyage.” Bob’s New Jersey home served as a television studio for the filming, which occupied a full day in July. Jack advised the program’s producers, responding to a lengthy series of their questions.

Members will note several “glitches” in the program — the usual practice of substituting film footage of other four-funneled liners for Titanic is notable — and TIS’s address is incorrect in the closing credits. Charlie noted, “Overall, it’s a good production; the relatively minor errors crept in during post-production, and we had no opportunity to review or correct them at that point.

Please visit this link http://www.neighborhoodcircle.com/deerfield/story/4936 to learn about a new one-woman presentation on the fascinating life of survivor Violet Jessop.

For article and photograph, please click on the following link.

www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/bed-news/Audrey-93-the-Lusitania39s-last.4015723.jp

It is with profound sadness that TIS trustees have learned of the passing of Barbara W. McDermott.  Calling hours are Tuesday, April 15th from 11:30-12:30 at the Clancy-Sisk Brothers Funeral Home, 43 Kirkham Avenue, East Haven, CT followed by a memorial service at the Old Stone Church, 251 Main Street, East Haven

In a statement released by TIS today:

Barbara continued to live in England till 1919, when her father sent for her. She arrived on the Lusitania’s sister ship, Mauretania on Christmas 1919. She settled back in Connecticut and was raised by her father and stepmother. Following her graduation, she married and worked for W.T. Grant department store. When it closed her final job was at the cemetery office in East Haven.

She did not speak about the sinking of the Lusitania until later in life. She often said, “No one believed me!”

She has granted numerous television and newspaper interviews in the past ten years and spoke at the Titanic International Society conventions in Newport, RI and Mystic, CT. Titanic International Society trustee Mike Poirier said about Barbara, “She will not be remembered just as a survivor of the Lusitania sinking, but as a dear friend.”