London native Millvina Dean, the last remaining survivor of the Titanic, has died at the age of 97, according to news reports. Ms. Dean was only two months old when she became a passenger on the maiden voyage of the world’s most famous ship, which set sail 98 years ago yesterday on May 31, 1911.
Ms. Dean and her family boarded the ocean liner on April 10, 1912, only days before the ship’s fateful collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
Because she was so young at the time of the disaster, Ms. Dean never had any memory of the Titanic’s sinking or the subsequent rescue by the Carpathia. But she was told about it at age 8 by her mother Georgetta Dean, who was also present on the ship and experienced severe headaches every day for years after the Titanic’s sinking.
In a 2002 interview, Ms. Dean credited her father Bertram with saving the lives of her and her family members. “I think it was my father who saved us,” Dean said. “So many other people thought the Titanic would never sink, and they didn’t bother. My father didn’t take a chance.”
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