Today’s Dreamlike Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
After the White Star ocean liner Titanic hit an iceberg and began to fatally take on water on the night of April 14, 1912, crewmen began the process of trying to get passengers into the lifeboats. However, many women were reluctant to leave their husbands and the foundering ship. After all, as survivor Lawrence Beesley explained, the water “looked a tremendous way down in the darkness, the sea and the night both seemed very cold and lonely; and here was the ship, so firm and well-lighted and warm.” On the promenade deck, steward Arthur Lewis saw three ladies strolling arm and arm and pleaded with them to get into a lifeboat. “We’re alright Steward, the ship can’t sink,” they told him, and “we don’t want to go down in one of those little boats.” Passengers believed, said Mr. D. H. Bishop, “that there was no danger, and the general feeling was that those who had put off were making fools of themeslves and would have the trouble of rowing back to the boat again after a few hours.” Stewards, too, oblivious to the graveness of the situation, were readying the dining saloon tables for breakfast. The ship’s band, dressed in a mix of blue coats and white jackets, were playing “Great Big Beautiful Doll,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and other merry, fast-paced tunes. There was a “sense of the whole thing being a dream… that those who walked the decks or tied one another’s lifebelts on were actors in a scene… that the dream would end soon and we should wake up…”
Culled from: Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner
