Lillian Asplund

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Lillian Gertrud Asplund (born  October 21, 1906 in Worcester , Massachusetts , †  May 6, 2006 in Shrewsbury , Massachusetts) was the third last survivor of the sinking of the Titanic and the last person who could remember it.

Life

She was the daughter of Carl Oscar Vilhelm Gustafsson Asplund (May 7, 1871 to April 15, 1912) from Jönköping , Sweden , and his wife Selma Augusta Emilia Asplund, nee. Johansson (October 10, 1873 to April 15, 1964). Lillian had a twin brother: Carl Edgar (* 1906 - April 15, 1912), two older brothers: Filip Oscar (* 1898 - April 15, 1912), Clarence Gustav Hugo (* 1902 - April 15, 1912) and one younger brother: Edvin Rojj Felix (* 1909; † 1983).

14./15. April 1912

Asplund visited her grandparents in Sweden and traveled back to the USA on the Titanic . The Asplund family traveled as passengers in third class with ticket no. 347077. Lillian was five years old at the time. After the Titanic collided with an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912 , the family was awakened and found themselves on the boat deck in a large crowd. Their way finally ended on the starboard side of the sloping boat deck. The deck was brightly lit, but the night and the water were jet black and ice cold. At 1:35 a.m. the lifeboat No. 15 with 67 people was lowered, it was already at the level of the deck edge when Mrs. Asplund jumped in at the last second with the youngest child Felix in her arms and her husband grabbed little Lillian with presence of mind and threw after. It was too late to safely accommodate the other children in the boat, as it was already halfway to the surface of the water. From the boat, Selma Asplund could see Carl and the children disappear into the crowd, and assumed they'd been on another lifeboat. It was only when lifeboat No. 15 was picked up by the British passenger steamer Carpathia from the Cunard Line in the early morning hours of April 15 and the rest of the family members could not be found on board that it turned out that Carl Asplund and the three other sons were in the sinking were killed at 2:20 a.m. The father's body was later found by the salvage ship Mackay-Bennett , the children remained missing. It was a tremendous shock for Selma Asplund and she refused to talk about the disaster for the rest of her life.

Subsequent time

Lillian Asplund lived in Massachusetts after the accident, remained unmarried and childless. She died in 2006 at the age of 99. For a time it was suggested that she was the last survivor. In fact, however, she was by Barbara Joyce West (born May 24, 1911, died on October 16, 2007; later Barbara Dainton) from Truro and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean (born February 2, 1912, died on May 31, 2009) from Southampton survived. Both women were younger than a year at the time of the accident and therefore, unlike Asplund, had no memories of the disaster.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Last witness to the "Titanic" sinking dead . In: Welt Online . May 9, 2006 ( welt.de [accessed August 4, 2016]).
personal data
SURNAME Asplund, Lillian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Asplund, Lillian Gertrud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Worcester, Massachusetts , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2006
Place of death Shrewsbury, Massachusetts