Worldwide support for Titanic survivor (From Daily Echo)

Worldwide support for Titanic survivor

8:38am Friday 17th October 2008

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By Will Carson »

PEOPLE from all over the world have rallied behind the last remaining survivor of the Titanic disaster after it was revealed that she is selling her mementoes to pay her nursing home fees.

Yesterday the Daily Echo told how Millvina Dean hopes to raise more than £3,000 from the auction of her treasured possessions, including a 100-year-old suitcase that was given to her family when they arrived in the US after being rescued.

Since then the Echo has been inundated with worldwide support for the 96-year-old who was a two-month-old baby at the time of the 1912 disaster.

‘Shocking’ Among the offers of help was one from opera singer John Fitz-William, from Chicago, who offered to donate a Stewart crystal champagne glass from the Titanic for Millvina to sell.

The 33-year-old said: “I think it’s shocking the way the elderly are treated and cared for in general. I couldn’t think of a more fitting thing to help Ms Dean to pay for her care if she needed it.”

Guy Schum, from McLean, Virginia, said: “I am very touched by what I have read.

“Our small company has been hit hard by the downturn in the economy but I believe we could spare a modest amount of capital each month to help her with ongoing needs at the home.”

AJ Castilla, from Boston, said: “While I am suffering myself to make ends meet every week, I would love to donate some money to try and help her.”

A spokesman for Woodlands Ridge, in the New Forest, where Millvina lives, said that she was “very happy and touched” about the offers of help.

The Dean family were third class passengers on Titanic and were emigrating to Kansas, where Bertram Dean, 27, was to open a tobacconists.

After the luxury liner struck an iceberg, Millvina, her brother, also called Bertram, and their mother Eva, 32, were put into lifeboat 13.

Millvina was the youngest person to escape the Titanic and was lowered into the lifeboat in a sack.

The family were rescued by the ship Carpathia but Mr Dean drowned in the disaster on April 15, 1912, which claimed more than 1,500 lives.

Mrs Dean was given the wicker suitcase and its contents by the people of New York as they had lost all their possessions and money in the sinking.

The auction, which will also feature rare prints of the Titanic that have been signed by the artists, along with compensation letters sent to her mother from the Titanic Relief Fund, will take place this Saturday.

A Belfast charity which is currently restoring the SS Nomadic, which ferried passengers on board the Titanic ahead of its maiden voyage, said it would bid for the collection to display at a floating museum near the Belfast docks where the Titanic itself was built.