Her ancestors sailed on the Titanic. The husband died during the expedition to the wreck

The submarine OceanGate Titan went missing on Sunday, June 18. Around the 105th minute from the submersion of the ship, which was heading with five passengers towards the wreck of the Titanic, communication with the vessel was lost. Since then, an intensive search and rescue operation has been underway. On Thursday, June 22, it was reported that Titan had imploded (an implosion is an inward explosion), and its debris was detected near the famous liner. On board was Stockton Rush – director of the company OceanGate, which organizes tourist expeditions to the bottom of the ocean.

Her ancestors sailed on the Titanic. The husband died during the expedition to the wreck

It so happens that the wife of Stocton Rush, who died in the Titan implosion, Wendy Rush is the great-great-granddaughter of Isador and Ida Straus. Straus was one of the co-founders of Macy’s department store and one of the wealthiest people aboard. He and his wife died in a shipwreck in April 1912.

Soon after the sinking of the Titanic, the press reported on the survivors’ reports about the Strauses, who had been married for over 40 years. Ida was offered a place in the lifeboat. According to accounts, she gave up the chance to be rescued and decided to stay on board the sinking ship with her husband. She was to address her husband with the words: “We lived together and we will die together.” Moreover, Isidor was also offered to evacuate in a lifeboat, but he refused because there were still many women and children on the ship. The Strauses had seven children.

After the ship sank, only Isador’s body was found. They were initially interred in the Straus-Kohn Mausoleum at Beth-El Cemetery in Brooklyn. In 1928, it was moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Since Ida’s body was never found, the water collected at the crash site was placed in an urn with her name on it. On the common grave of the Strauses, there is a quote from the Bible from the book of Songs of Songs: “Great waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot drown it.”

years later, he included their touching story in an Oscar-winning film. The actors playing the role of the Strauses appear in one of the most poignant scenes of the production. In the sequence, we see a couple hugging on a bed in a cabin, which is quickly flooded with water. Cameron dived into the shipwreck more than 30 times to prepare for the film. In an interview in 2012, he emphasized: “You are going to one of the most merciless places on earth. It’s not like you call SOS and they come for you.”

He also saw disturbing parallels between the sinking of the Titan and the Titanic. – I am struck by the parallels with the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about the ice ahead of his ship, and yet sailed full steam into the ice field on a moonless night. And as a result, many people died, he noted. He also reminded that many experts had warned Ocean Gate about the danger. Titan’s design was considered too experimental and unreliable to carry passengers. “That a very similar tragedy, where the warning signs were ignored, happened in exactly the same place is simply staggering. It’s actually quite surreal,” Cameron concluded.

Death of the Titan crew

Among the Titan’s passengers and crew were Pakistani billionaire businessman Shahzada Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleman, British businessman Hamish Harding, former commander of the French Navy. On Thursday, June 22, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that the remains of a boat had been discovered near the wreck of the Titanic. Everything indicates that there was a “catastrophic implosion” of the hull. Dale Mole, a former U.S. Navy doctor, said those on board the Titan probably died instantly as a result of the implosion, Sky News reported. The doctor believes that the crew may not have been aware of the problem. He adds that if they were stuck on board the ship for even several dozen hours, the situation would be much worse for them. “One can only imagine what it would be like… It’s cold, oxygen is running out… What happened is the best possible scenario in this situation,” he said.