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Monday, June 1, 2009

My Commonplace Book... Timeline: Millvina Dean - Titanic - Baby Survivor


"Millvina Dean, who as a baby was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic, died Sunday, having been the last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic.  Dean was 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 the 706 people -- mostly women and children - who survived.  Her father was among the 1,517 people who died."

 "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"

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.