Knowing what we know about the way
Titanic met her end; imagine what it would be like to be a young woman serving
as a stewardess on the ship. But first we must go even further back into
history.
October 1, 1887, and Irish couple
living in Argentina welcomed their first of six children, a baby girl – Violet Constance
Jessop. Even as a young child Violet was a survivor, winning a fight over
tuberculosis even though doctors said she wouldn’t. Perhaps this was a
foreshadowing of what was to come, but more likely it was the hand of God
because Violet had important work ahead of her.
When Violet’s father died, her mother moved
her family to England and went to work as a ship’s stewardess for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. Later,
Violet herself would begin her eventful career on the same line. Research finds
that this line served many purposes, among them delivering mail to the British
West Indies and carrying passengers – immigrants especially – to places like New
Zealand.
In 1910, Violet left Red Mail to work
for White Line. She did it somewhat
reluctantly, due to rumors of the passengers’ treatment of staff and the fact
that White Line traveled the North Atlantic. She didn’t care for the weather
conditions they would surely encounter. More foreshadowing? Or the hand of God?
On September 20, 1911, White Line’s RMS Olympic left port and Violet was
aboard as one of its stewardesses. Almost right away, the navy cruiser HMS Hawke rammed the Olympic and left a
forty-foot gash in her side. The propellers were damaged, but the ship made it
back to port without sinking.
When the RMS Titanic, the Olympic’s sister ship, was ready for her maiden
voyage, Violet was in place as one of the stewardesses – as she’d been talked
in to switching ships by one of her friends. The night the ship hit the
iceberg, Violet was “drowsy” in her bunk after having read a translated Hebrew
prayer she brought along on her journey. The prayer was for protection against
fire and water.
Violet stood at the bulkhead with the
other stewardesses while women said tearful goodbyes to their husbands before stepping
into the lifeboats with their children. In order to ease the fears of some of
the female passengers, Violet and other stewardesses were asked to get into a
lifeboat. While sitting there, a bundle was, as she described it, dropped in
her lap with orders to take care of it. The bundle turned out to be a baby that
Violet guarded with her life. Later, while on the rescue ship Carpathia, a woman claiming to be the
baby’s mother snatched the baby out of Violet’s arms.
Surviving the ordeal that was the
Titanic would have been enough for most women to walk away from anything to do
with boats and water. But not Violet. She eventually ended up on the HMHS Britannic – which was originally
named the Gigantic because, as hard
as it is to believe, the Titanic’s other sister ship was much larger.
The Britannic wasn’t in service as an
ocean liner for very long before WWI began and it was put in to use as a
hospital ship. By then Violet was a Red Cross nurse, taking care of the war’s injured
and sick men on the Britannic.
But surely Violet’s time aboard the
Britannic would be uneventful? Unfortunately, no.
In 1916, just over four years after her
Titanic sister sank, the Britannic struck a German mine in the Aegean Sea –
with Violet aboard.
Accounts differ on how Violet ended up
in the water. Some state she jumped overboard because there was no time for
lifeboats. Others state she jumped out of the lifeboat to avoid being sucked
into the propellers. However she ended up in the water, Violet hit her head on
the ship’s hull and was knocked unconscious.
Thankfully she was rescued and
amazingly, once again, remained undeterred by tragedy on the water. After the
war, Violet went back to the White Line and the Olympic. Later she joined the Red Star line and spent the rest of her
career cruising the world.
Three sister ships, the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic,
all involved in disaster of different proportions; one woman of faith who survived
all three. Coincidence? Providence? Whichever it was, Violet’s is an incredible
story of survival.
Do you think Violet was placed on the
Titanic for the purpose of saving the baby?
What about the Hebrew prayer? Do you
think Violet was saved by faith?
If you experienced a tragedy like the
Titanic hitting the iceberg, would you go to work on an even larger ship? Or
would you even go on a boat at all?
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