Лиллиан Асплунд: Последняя свидетельница гибели «Титаника»

Titanic survivor (1906–2006)

Lillian Gertrud Asplund (October 21, 1906 – May 6, 2006) was an American secretarial worker who was one of the last three living survivors of the sinking of on April 15, 1912, and the last living survivor with memories of the disaster.

Lillian Asplund was born on October 21, 1906, in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, to Carl and Selma (née Johansson) Asplund, both immigrants from Sweden. Her parents had lived briefly in Missouri prior to settling in Worcester. Lillian had a twin brother, Carl, two older brothers, Filip (born 1898), Clarence (born 1902) and younger brother Felix (born 1909), who was the only other survivor besides her mother and herself. In 1907, Lillian's family received word that Lillian's paternal grandfather had died back in Sweden. As her father was the executor of his estate, the family made arrangements to return to Sweden to settle the estate of the family farm, located near the village of Alseda in Småland. Lillian, her parents and three brothers sailed from Boston aboard the Cunard Line's Ivernia and arrived in Liverpool on July 4, from where they proceeded to Gothenburg before arriving at Alseda. The family remained at Alseda for over four years while settling matters with the farm and caring for Lillian's grandmother, during which time Selma gave birth to another son, Felix, in March 1909. Lillian's mother would have rather stayed in Sweden, but her father said the children would get a better education back in America and booked passage for his family on the new White Star Line's Titanic. Selma Asplund recalled that when Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 pm on the night of April 14, 1912, the family got to the first class promenade window where Lillian and Felix were loaded into descending lifeboat no. 10 by their father. Despite her mother's wishes to remain with her husband, Lillian was haunted by the memory of seeing her father and brothers standing at the rail and seeing her father lead her brothers away, presumably to find another lifeboat. A later report said that Mrs. Asplund and her "two babies" had been taken to a local hospital, and that Mr. Asplund and Clarence were apparently at another location. A final report confirmed that neither Lillian's father nor Clarence were among the survivors. Mr. Asplund's body was recovered by CS Mackay Bennett. He was later buried in All Faiths Cemetery in Worcester. As the family's savings and possessions were lost in the disaster, a fundraiser and benefit was held by the city of Worcester which brought in $2,000 (2000.0 in 1912 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years).

Lillian's mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and three eldest sons and refused to discuss the disaster with anyone, saying that it was simply wrong to do so. Lillian agreed and, for the rest of her life, hardly ever spoke of the disaster. According to her lawyer, when asked about why she refused interviews even when offered money, Lillian stated: "Why do I want money from the Titanic? Look what I lost. A father and three brothers." Mrs. Asplund died on April 15, 1964, the 52nd anniversary of the sinking, at the age of 90. Her brother Felix, who never married and with whom Lillian lived, died of pneumonia on March 15, 1983, at the age of 73.

Lillian died in her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, on May 6, 2006, at the age of 99. She was buried at the Old Swedish Cemetery in Worcester, alongside her father, mother, and brother. Her death left Barbara West and Millvina Dean as the last two living survivors of the Titanic. However, as both women were less than a year old at the time, neither had any recollection of the sinking. With Lillian being the last survivor who remembered the disaster, first hand accounts of the RMS Titanic passed into history upon her death. After Lillian's death, the steamship ticket she had held for so many years was sold at auction in 2009. It was a part of documents and items that were posthumously found in a safety deposit box that were connected to the disaster, such as her father's pocket watch that stopped at 2:19 am.