As a psychotherapist and Titanic historian, I’ve often wondered what the impact would have been had those who survived the sinking of the Titanic had Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.  Anyone who has read the stories of survivors of the sinking knows that many of them were emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives.

Case in point is Juliette Laroche, the wife of Joseph Laroche, the only black man who was on the Titanic who perished in the sinking.  According to everything I have read about her, she was so traumatized by the sinking that she couldn’t talk about it.  The incident apparently made her so afraid of losing another family member, she smothered her two daughters, Marie Louise and Simonne. Neither of them was able to escape their mother’s watchful eye long enough to establish a romantic relationship with anyone.  Had Critical Incident Stress Debriefing been available to her at the time, she may have been able to process the unthinkable ordeal she’d gone through, grieve her loss and perhaps even married again.  Perhaps she would have been able to feel safe enough in the world again to allow her daughters to be courted and possibly even marry.

But Juliette Laroche was not the only one who could have benefited from Critical Incident Stress Debriefing after the sinking of the Titanic.  In searching for information on survivors, this writer found that at least 7 survivors of  the sinking later committed suicide.  Frederick Fleet committed suicide at the age of 70 after his wife died; he hung himself on a clothes line after his late wife’s brother evicted him.  Phyllis May Quick shot herself in the head in 1954 due to marital problems.  Jack Thayer committed suicide in 1945  by sliting his own throat after his mother died.  John Morgan Davis ingested poison during the Christmas holidays in 1951 after his wife left him.  Dr. Henry Frauenthal jumped from an apartment balcony after months of depression complicated by his wife’s mental illlness.  Johan (John) Naskanen set his cabin on fire and shot himself in the head in 1927 after failing to strike gold on his property in California.  Dr. Washington Dodge shot shot himself in the head due to business and investment problems.  A third class passenger (name unknown) living in Detroit shot himself in the ehad after his wife left him.  And there still remains question about whether Madeliene Astor’s overdoes of prescription medication was accidental or intentional.  All of these people and many, many more of the survivors of the sinking could have benefited greatly from Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.

How?  Well the purpose of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is to help survivors of a traumatic event to “destress” and return to a normal level of functioning more quickly.  Survivos are  essentially are given the opportunity to talk about the trauma without judgement or criticism.  Emphasis is placed on keeping them safe so they can get back to their normal, everyday lives.

A critical incident like the sinking of the Titanic would have raised survivors stress levels dramatically in a short period of time, and established a new, lower threshold of stress tolerance for the rest of their lives.  I believe this is why when stressful incidents occurred later in their lives, they were less able to deal with them.  They were left emotionally fragile by that horrific night in 1912.

Had Critical Incident Stress Debriefing been available in 1912, it is possible that the suicides that occurred later in the lives of those 7 Titanic survivors may not have happened.  Survivors like Juliette Laroche who were left emotionally scarred by the tragedy for the rest of her life may have  been better able to cope with it.  Perhaps they would have learned how to feel safe again.  And maybe, just maybe they would have been able to experience joy to the fullest for the remainder of their days.

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Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic has passed away.  Her passing is a huge loss to the Titanic community and to the world.  From now on, information obtained about the great ship will have to come from artifacts and books.   Although Millvina was only 3 months old when she and her mother left the sinking Titanic in a lifeboat, she took it upon herself (albeit rather late in life) to learn as much as she could about the ship she had been carried from in her mother’s arms.  A bubbly, personable woman, she generously shared all she learned from research and from information she was able to glean from her mother.  Quick-witted, yet every bit a lady, Millvina represented the great ship well.  She rarely turned down a request to speak about the Titanic and she especially loved sharing her knowledge with children.  Millvina Dean, the lady with the lilting British accent will always be revered and remembered as the last living link to the the most famous ship to ever sail the Atlantic.

Since March 24th Titanic historians, aficionados and ordinary Titanic buffs have been abuzz with the latest controversy surrounding the famous ship.  Word has come through the Associated Press that a Maritime judge in Norfolk, Virginia will soon be handing down a momentous ruling on ownership rights to the great vessel.  In particular, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith will rule on the RMS Titanic, Inc’s degree of ownership of the wreck, its artifacts, and the establishment of a monitoring system to safeguard the site.
Controversy is nothing new with the Titanic.  In fact, its very creation was the result of conflict and competition between two shipping companies: Cunard and White Star Lines, both of whom were vying to have the fastest, most luxurious ships to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Since the Titanic sank to the ocean floor on that fateful April night 97 years ago, arguments over ownership of the wreck and it’s artifacts has been waged. And to muddy the waters so to speak, the ship went down in international waters; all of the original owners have long since departed this life, and since they believed that the sunken vessel no longer had any tangible value, they left no succession of ownership.
As early as 1914 schemes had been hatched to raise the Titanic, even though no one really knew the exact spot in the Atlantic of where the ship went down. And  since there was no actual vessel to be had,  the controversy over ownership kind of lacked sea legs.  However, since geologist Dr. Robert Ballard and his French/American crew found the resting place of the ship in 1985, those sea legs have been found. While Dr. Ballard and his company, RMS Titanic, Inc. was awarded ownership and salvaging rights in 1994 by a U.S. District Court, the controversy over who should own the vessels and its artifacts has not gone away.  The U.S., French and English governments have all expressed opinions declaring ownership interests in the vessel.
But does any government or any one country have the right to own the famous ship?  My heart says “no.” The passengers who died in the great tragedy  came from all over the world: Italy, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Greece, France, Armenia, Poland, England, China, Spain, Austria, Scotland, Syria, America, Ireland; and these are just the countries that I have personally been able to identify through research as having citizens on the ship.  Since all of these countries were represented on the ship through their citizens, no one country should have ownership of the Titanic and its artifacts.
But my head says establishing international ownership and security of the site will be a huge task. There are so many things to be considered, like the question of Dr. Ballard and RMS Titanic Inc.‘s legal rights to the site.  And then there are questions  about how the various nations can share ownership of the site, protect it, and procure and preserve its artifacts.
I strongly believe the Titanic belongs to all of us. And I hope Judge Smith’s  ruling will honor it victims who hailed from around the world and  preserve the legacy of the ship for future generations of every nation.

What makes a woman ‘unconventional.’ In my opinion, it boils down to one word: self-determination.  And Titanic passenger, Charlotte Drake Cardeza embodied the word to the max.  She did her own thing, in her own way.  She refused to let society or anyone else dictate what she could and could not do.  Her sense of herself as being capable of doing more than what was expected of her as  a proper Victorian woman is part of the reason I used some of her traits to build the Nicolette Legarde character in Titanic: The Untold Story.  In fact, Nicolette Legarde’s drive to be more than someone’s wife while still maintaining her femininity and love of beauty was culled from my research on Charlotte Drake Cardeza.  When her husband James Warburton Martinez Cardeza had an affair, instead of tolerating it as so often happened during this time period, she divorced him, took her son and began to travel the world.  She went to Africa and hunted wild game, rode in rickshaws in China, and went around the world several times in her own yacht, Eleanor. Although she was born into a wealthy and proper American family of English lineage, Charlotte hailed from Germantown, Pennsylvania.  But Germantown could not hold the likes of this woman.  She had a gusto for living that had to be satisfied.  In contrast to her gun toting persona, Charlotte had another glamorous side.  She loved the opera, was well read, and could hold her own in a conversation with anyone on the subjects of music and art. And imagine this - wherever she went, be it desert, rainforest, mountains or sailing, Charlotte travelled with 14 trunks of  designer fashions and jewelry.  In fact, she had the most expensive set of rooms on the Titanic and received the largest settlment for her losses from the White Star Line.  Of course, Charlotte was wealthy and could easily afford to do the things she did.  But that’s not my point. My point, is that though she could have lived in the lap of luxury every day of her life,  she chose to get out into the world, to see it, touch it, feel it and taste it.  Though she was a woman born during the period history now calls the Gilded Age, Charlotte refused to stay in a gilded cage.  She had to be free.  She had to be who and what she was, an ‘unconventional woman.’

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That’s not exactly true. Everyone did not love Margaret Tobin Brown.  At least not at first.  In fact, when she first came onto the radar of the upper class she aspired to, she was rounded rejected.  Before the sinking of the Titanic, she was derogatively  referred to as ’new money,’ and labeled a brazen, uncouth social climber.  In part, her critics were right.  Margaret Tobin Brown was brazen.  She went after the social position she craved with unabashed zeal. She spared no expense in money and time wooing the members and gatekeepers of the Social Register.  She gave lavish parties, held exquisite tea parties, joined the “right” clubs and organizations.  But it was all to no avail.  She was still looked down on by the social elite, until the sinking of the Titanic. Suddenly, she became the “unsinkable Molly Brown.” It was almost as if she’d died that fateful night on the Atlantic and been reborn.  All at once, her generous spirit and good works started to pay off, when what she did was not much different from what she’d always done.  An energetic, sentimental woman by nature, she became one of the main movers and shakers in the effort to assist the Titanic’s survivors. She used her persuasive abilities to galvanize the charities she belonged to to contribute aid to the survivors, she goaded the organizations she belonged to to donate money to the effort and convinced many an idle rich woman to get off her duff and lend a much needed helping hand to their sisters who had suffered through the tragedy or lost loved ones in it.  Yes, in many ways, Margaret Tobin Brown’s actions were not much different than they have been before the Titanic tragedy.  But she was no one’s fool.  She realized that she was at the right place at the right time and took advantage of it.  By helping to ease the suffering of others, she also helped herself. And at the time, no one with  an ounce of decency could accuse her of opportunism.  The upper classes had lost friends and loved ones in the sinking too. It softened their hearts, caused them if only momentarily to realize that all souls are equal under God.  Because of the Titanic tragedy, they were ready and willing to see Margaret Tobin Brown in a new, more accepting light.  Her contributions to the aid of the Titanic’s survivors was duly noticed by those she most wanted to be noticed by.  Finally, she earned a seat in their ranks and a place in their hearts, and was fittingly canonized “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

Everyone it seems has an own opinion about why the Titanic tragedy continues to have the power to fascinate and capture people’s imagination. Nearly one hundred years after it sank in the frigid waters of the Atlantic, the Titanic remains one of the most widely read about and researched human tragedies in the history of mankind.   As a student of cultural phenomena and human behavior, I too, have some opinions as to why the interest in the Titanic tragedy endures. Here, I will only discuss two of those opinions.  First, human beings have always found it difficult to ignore things that are shocking.  When the Titanic sank in 1912,  snuffing out 1,490 lives, it was a shock to the world on par with the 911 terrorist attacks.  Up until that time, such a massive loss of life would not have been imaginable other than in  war.  I believe the sinking of the  Titanic was so horrific and unfathomable, it became etched in the collective unconscious of humanity. And, just as we find it difficult to turn away when something shocking happens right before our eyes, we are drawn to the Titanic tragedy again and again, simply because it was such a shocking event. The second reason I believe there is such an enduring interest in the Titanic, is because people have always been fascinated by the lives of the rich and famous. We want to know how they got rich and famous, what they do with their time and their money, who they love, what they eat, where they buy their clothes….In short, we want to know everything about them.  Had the Titanic’s rich and famous (i.e., John Jacob Astor, Molly Brown, Dorothy Gibson and Lady Duff Gordon, etc.)  lived today they would undoubtedly be hounded by paprazzi as today’s rich and famous (Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Naomi Campbell, Britney Spears) are.  Even today, we continue to want to know everything we can uncover about the lives of the people, particularly the rich, who were on the Titanic. In this writer’s opinion, as long as human beings are drawn to the shocking and fascinated by the rich and famous, interest in the Titanic tragedy will live on.

The other day I had a friend point out to me that Nathan Legarde, the hero in Titanic: The Untold Story was similar in many ways to presidential candidate, Barach Obama.  I was a little skeptical at first, but the more we talked, the more I realized she was on to something. Funny how as a writer, you can get so close to your characters, that you sometimes can’t see what’s right in front of you.  Before that conversation, I would never have compared Nathan Legarde to Barach Obama. For one thing, Senator Obama is the epitome of tact. He doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve. And he is cool personified.  If he’s upset or angry about something, you’d never know it.  These are all personality traits that Nathan Legarde certainly doesn’t have.  In fact, he just the opposite.  When he gets angry, he can’t hide it, and even when he tries to stifle his emotions, they tend to come out anyway.
BUT, as my friend pointed out, like Barach Obama in 2008, Nathan Legarde  possesses an audacity that few black men dared to display in 1912.  Legarde believed that he was equal to any man on the Titanic or anywhere else, and he made no bones about it.  He wasn’t self-effacing; he didn’t shuck and jive just to get along.  He carried himself with dignity and pride; he demanded respect and was not satisfied with anything less. He was an educated black man and strived for excellence in everything he did.  And, he  had the boldness to marry the woman he loved,  a white woman, at a time when Negro men could be hanged for simply looking at a white woman.
Although I’d never even heard of Barach Obama when I sketched Legarde’s character, I now agree that they are certainly men cut from the same cloth. Obama is an intelligent man who carries himself with dignity and exudes pride and confidence.  He has the courage and guts  to put his life on the line for his country, even when there are still some people in America who think he has no business  running for President because of the color of his skin.  When Barach Obama walks into a room or before a crowd, his demeanor speaks loudly the fact that he knows he is somebody.
Like Barach Obama, Nathan Legarde had that same boldness. He refused to let others define who he was, where he could go, and what he could do.  Just like Obama, he had the AUDACITY to say to the world: “I am somebody. And when I leave this world, someone will know I was here.”