That Sinking Feeling

That ship hit that iceberg 100 years ago tonight, spawning one sober & sad movie in 1953 & for me (& seemingly me alone), one nearly intolerable, but award winning film in 1997, plus a Broadway musical from the same year that admonished:“In every age mankind attempts / to fabricate great works at once / magnificent & impossible.”

On every anniversary, the International Ice Patrol, founded in response to the sinking, drops a memorial wreath on the Titanic’s last reported position. The world will just not stop remembering.

There were 12 canines on the doomed ocean liner, 3 survived. One of the survivors was a Lady, a Pomeranian. Lady’s owner was Margaret Hays of NYC,  who wrapped her in a blanket & carried her into a lifeboat.

Also living to enjoy another biscuit were Sun Yat-sen, a Pekingese belonging to Henry & Myra Harper of  Harper & Row publishing & another Pomeranian, this one belonging to a Rothschild.

The 9 dogs confined in the onboard kennel, walked, fed & cared for by the crew, all died. A pair of dogs belonged to American coal magnate William Carter, who reassured his worried children that their pets were safe as they clambered into the lifeboats. His daughter Lucy was later compensated $100 by Lloyds of London for her King Charles spaniel, while his son Billy received $200 for his Airedale.

The other dogs that perished included a pair of Airedales owned by John Jacob Astor IV, a Fox Terrier named Dog, a toy poodle belonging to Helen Bishop, & Gamin de Pycombe- a French Bulldog.

There was a Great Dane owned by Ann Elizabeth Isham, who visited her dog at the ship's kennel daily & when she was evacuating, she asked to take him also. When she was told the dog was too large, she refused to leave without him & got out of the lifeboat. They were found floating days later, Isham still clutching her beloved large dog.

The crew often had at least one cat on board each ship to help keep the rat population down. There was a cat with young kittens aboard the Titanic but when the ship arrived in Southampton from Belfast, she was seen disembarking. Up and down the gangplank she went, retrieving one kitten at a time that she deposited on the dock. She & the kittens quickly disappeared. It is supposed the she had a premonition that the voyage wasn't going to be a smooth sailing.