Violet Jessop - Stewardess.
Violet boarded the RMS Titanic as a stewardess on April 10, 1912.
At 2:20am, bow-down, the ship broke in two and sank almost immediately. Violet described in her memoirs that she was ordered up on deck, because she was to set a good example to the foreign-speaking people, where she watched as the crew loaded the lifeboats.
She was later ordered into lifeboat 16, and as the boat was being lowered, one of the Titanic′s officers gave her a baby to look after.
The next morning, Violet and the rest of the survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia.
According to Violet, while on board the Carpathia, a woman grabbed the baby she was holding and ran off with it without saying a word.
After retiring in the 1950’s Violet claimed to have received a telephone call, on a stormy night, from a woman who asked if she saved a baby on the night that the Titanic sank.
“Yes,” Violet replied. The voice then said “I was that baby,” laughed, and hung up.
Her friend, and biographer John Maxtone-Graham said it was most likely some children in the village playing a joke on her. She replied, “No, John, I had never told that story to anyone before I told you now.” To this day, if another baby was actually saved is unknown.
Records indicate that the only baby on lifeboat 16 was Assad Thomas, who was handed to Edwinda Troutt, and later reunited with his mother on the Carpathia.
The unlikeliness of the same incident happening twice on the same boat, along with the fact that Violet never told anyone, until the 1970s, leads to serious questions about the veracity of Violet’s baby saving story.
Violet Jessop died of congestive heart failure in 1971.
(via everythingrmstitanic)
