(Hi)Story Time - Molly Brown Titanic Account

hello my name is Margaret Molly Brown a lot of you probably know me for being a survivor of Titanic and what I'd like to do today is tell you my story in my account and my experience on Titanic I was not on Titanic for pleasure I had actually been traveling in Egypt with John and Madeline Astor and we were actually on a pleasure trip when I was there to gather artifacts to bring back to the Denver Museum which is now the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and I returned to Paris where my daughter Helen was residing and I had received a telegram from my son Lawrence who said mother can you please come home your grandson is sick of course with anticipation I tried to figure out would be the quickest way to get home and John Astor had told me that at some point in time I should take that beautiful voyage and that new ship called Titanic well I left Helen in Paris it was probably best that I did in hindsight and I ended up boarding a train in Paris and went to shareable France and embarked on Titanic Titanic was unbelievable it was the largest object that had ever been built at that time in 1912 it was you could smell the paint that all freshly was their first first voyage everything was brand new they had a gym a Turkish bath and they had even a restaurant called but I can't remember what the name of that restaurant was but it was a Parisian restaurant it's hard to remember all this stuff at my age anyway the first four days were uneventful and basically you know is each day grew I became more and more anxious to know what was going on with my grandson well that evening April 12th excuse me April 14th I decided I would stay inside because it was very very very cold it was a cold night and I thought well I will get per the Parisian cafe that was the name of it and I obtained a snack from that and I caught in bed put on my warm flannel nightgown and settled down to read a good book all of a sudden I felt the bump in the night now imagine something that large I shipped that large that can shake and bump and I thought well that's very odd so I got up and I looked down the corner to see people standing in the hallways and they were saying oh boy this is something serious we must put on warmer clothing well I went back in my room and what had happened as I picked up my book because that bum threw me out of bed I went back into the room and I proceeded to put on some warm clothing a gentleman that I had met from gimbals department store was looking through my portal and telling me to get out of my life jacket I had to get up on deck a I proceeded to do so after gathering some money 500 dollars in a good luck talisman that I had gotten in Egypt I went up on deck a and you can imagine the chaos people were screaming and I could hear in the background women and children first women in children first for those of you who know me even better than Titanic I was very passionate about women having a right to make their own decisions and I thought it was very fair but at the same time why could I not or women that were with their husbands go ahead and stay with them but no they were loading people in life boats and I proceeded to think well what could I do to help you know it was 44 years old at the time and I lived a good good life and I thought I want to reach out and help people well which in turn to men pick me underneath my arms drop me four feet over the side of Titanic into a lifeboat there I landed into the lifeboat and there wasn't a lot of people in the lifeboat the lifeboat to my recollection could house probably 60 to 65 people the last count that I recall as we proceeded to be lowered down into the water it was probably 24 25 people and we almost bumped right up against Titanic and I grabbed a paddle and held on to the panel to the side of the ships we wouldn't be toppled over so that was a long long night as we rode and rode and rode and tried to get away from the sight and of course we all got to see Titanic sink and it was very very sad all I could hear was voices screaming the voices in the background well each of the lifeboats lifeboats had been designated a crew member our crew member was his name was quartermaster Hitchens and quartermaster Hitchens he was somewhat of a man who looks at a glass of water t and he proceeded to tell all of us it was gloom and doom just do we are doomed and doomed and there was a time where I wanted to throw him overboard because he was so so negative and trying to help people and I tried to keep people you know keep their spirits out and the other thing that I knew is that if you sat still out in the Atlantic in April that's pretty cold out there and so I suggested that everybody row and there is not that many men on our rowboat or our lifeboat so lo and behold about 4:30 on the horizon we saw flares of course quarter mat master Hitchens thought it was just a shooting star but it was actually the Carpathia it was the rescue ship it came along the Carpathia was on his way to Naples and he received the alert and turned around they had about 57 miles to travel to get to what they were able to save so as we were actually tethered up and brought up to the deck of Carpathia it was the first time I'd ever seen no distinction between first second and third class we were all survivors and it didn't last long as they took inventory of everyone the first class people were able to go inside the ship second class some of them were sleeping in the hallways and of course that third class was on deck I noticed the sadness of everyone in just the remorse and the unknown and there's where I had an opportunity use the languages Fayed had learned in my life and that was Russian German Italian French Spanish in English and of course I was helped at least to help interpret because a lot of these people could not speak English and all the you know the the signs basically in Titanic itself was all in English so there's a lot of chaos because I saw so many people at that unfortunate that had really just the clothes on their backs I thought I would start a committee called the survivors committee and the survivors committee was to reach out to the people on the ship mainly the first-class passengers to donate money to help the less fortunate well I was elected chairperson with my funding experience I went to work I actually approached one of the first-class passengers and she turned to me and she said oh I'll be taking care of just fine when I get to the Ritz well evidently she misunderstood and maybe perhaps I didn't communicate it correctly and so I thought well I think to remedy this concern about communication I would post in a public area a list who had donated and who had not which would a lot of people received some attention when they saw that we ended up of course arriving in New York and I was one of the last off of the Carpathia I wanted to make sure everyone was accounted for everyone had been identified and they had some place to go so a few days after we reached New York I went and stayed at the Ritz and I was helping the survivors the ones that had no place to stay and I ended up coming back to Denver and guess what now I'm a hero for some reason everyone thought I was a heroine a heroine of what all my life at that point my life I led that everything I did I felt to help others reach out to us my duty why would I be a hero trying to help people well you might have heard the stories about the people in Denver not really accepting me well into their society one of those ladies was mrs. Crawford Hill well all of a sudden when I came back to Denver I was there a new best friend and she proceeded to have a luncheon for me which I thought was very gracious of her and I ended up finding out as I arrived in New York that my grandson had only had an allergic reaction to milk however I returned to New York to present captain Ralston who was the captain of Carpathia with the Loving Cup and medals for all the crew members thanking them for saving our lives when I look back on that experience that experience taught me a lot taught me how to appreciate and I got more involved with all my passions prior that I was in - even before I was in - tannic and I ended up spending the rest of my life supporting the survivors committee and ended up visiting the graves in Nova Scotia and put reefs on their graves at Christmas time well that was my story and my story you can hear more about my story at the Molly Brown House Museum and also there are a lot of activities unfortunately not right now but a lot of activities in the future that evolved around Titanic with marker and also all the other wonderful things of a legend of a woman that she was I plan on providing future stories so stay tuned and I appreciate all of your time and listening to my story thank you

Channel: Historic Denver

Views: 11,018

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Id: UDguKVONLC0

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020