Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Doomed

Titanic (the newer version) was on television the other evening and I sat through it again ... and thought about all those who perished - and those who didn't including Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking. Lillian died recently, aged 99. The Yahoo report I read didn't mention if there are other survivors alive in other countries. It did mention the other American survivors - who were both babies at the time and do not remember the events of that night in April 1912 when a variety of circumstances came together to sink the liner many believed to be "unsinkable". Lillian's mother, Selma Asplund said at the time the family went to the Titanic's upper deck after the ship struck the iceberg. "I could see the icebergs for a great distance around ... It was cold and the little ones were cuddling close to one another and trying to keep from under the feet of the many excited people ... My little girl, Lillie, accompanied me, and my husband said 'Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats.' He smiled as he said it." He and three of his children were among those to lose their lives that night. Selma Asplund died on the 52nd anniversary of the sinking in 1964.

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