I have been trying to find out about the people who were on the Titanic. When we think about the disaster, we often imagine the final hours of the ship or the bravery of the crew and passengers. But sometimes the most remarkable stories are those of the people who survived and went on to live amazing lives. I want to tell you about Millvina Dean, the youngest passenger aboard the Titanic and the last survivor of the tragedy.
Millvina Dean was born Eliza Gladys Dean on the 2nd of February 1912 in Branscombe in Devon, England. She was the daughter of Bertram Frank Dean and Georgette Eva Light, who was known as Ettie. Millvina also had an older brother named Bertram. Like many families during the early twentieth century, her parents were planning to leave Britain and start a new life in America.
Millvina was only a few weeks old when she and her parents made the journey to Southampton. Originally they had intended to sail on another ship, but a coal strike had caused many passengers to be transferred onto the new RMS Titanic. The family travelled in third-class. Millvina was only nine weeks old when she boarded, she was the youngest passenger on the ship.
Bertram had relatives in Wichita, Kansas, and planned to get involved in a tobacconist’s business there. Like many emigrants, they were leaving in search of opportunity.
Everything changed on the night of the 14th of April 1912 for Millvina and the thousands of other people aboard Titanic.
Millvina’s father is said to have felt a jolt when the ship hit the iceberg. Realising that something was wrong, he returned to the cabin and told his wife to get the children and go up onto the deck. Ettie carried her tiny baby and held onto her young son as they made their way upward.
Millvina, her mother, and her brother were eventually placed into Lifeboat 10. Her father remained behind and tragically did not survive the sinking. His body, if it was ever recovered, was never identified.
For Ettie, the loss must have been devastating. She had left England in hopes of a new life with her husband, only to find herself widowed and in a foreign country with two young children. After the survivors arrived in New York, she decided that she could not stay in America. Grieving and with very few possessions left, she decided to return home to Britain with her children, she even used the White Star liner Adriatic.
During that voyage home, the tiny baby who had survived the Titanic attracted a great deal of attention. Passengers and crew reportedly took turns holding her. But for her mother, the journey must have been nerve racking. I don’t know if I could have gotten on board another ship so soon. The pull of home must have been strong.
Millvina grew up in Southampton, and thankfully she had no memory of the disaster. In fact, she did not even know she had been on the Titanic until she was around eight years old. For much of her life, she lived an ordinary life and worked ordinary jobs. During the Second World War she worked as a cartographer for the British government, drawing maps that supported the war effort. Later she worked as a secretary for an engineering company until her retirement in 1972.
It was not until she was in her seventies that Millvina began attending Titanic events and speaking with historians and enthusiasts. People were fascinated by the fact that she represented the final living connection to Titanic. But she had complicated feelings about the story. She refused to watch films about the disaster because she found them too upsetting, she explained that they made her think about the father she never had the chance to know.
She became widely respected within the Titanic community. She attended onferences, interviews, and commemorations. Although she had been too young to remember the sinking, the event had shaped the course of her entire life.
Millvina Dean died on the 31st of May 2009 at the age of ninety-seven. By then she had become the final living survivor of Titanic. Later that year, her ashes were scattered from a boat in Southampton, the very port from which the Titanic had set sail nearly a century earlier.
It makes me wonder about something. When we think about big historical tragedies, do we sometimes forget about the lives of the people involved?
Image info:
Date: 1912/1913
Millvina Dean and her brother, Bertram
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