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Genealogy is also about delving into the lives of your ancestors. Common stories, unusual stories...
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What a pleasure it is to be able to relive a fragment of past life, thanks to archives. This is the idea behind this Ancestors' Stories series. We have decided to highlight people with original, uncommon backgrounds, who, without a doubt, will make you travel, shiver or smile…
After telling you about the life of tech-savvy Ada Lovelace, the survival of Isabel Godin des Odonais or the journey of the Breton gardener Auguste François Marie Glaziou to Rio de Janeiro, let’s now meet Violet Jessop, also known as the Unsinkable…
Violet Constance Jessop was born on October 2, 1887, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Irish immigrant parents, William and Katherine. As you will see, even at that time, death was not interested in Violet. Indeed, she was the ninth child of nine, three of whom died very young, and she was afflicted with tuberculosis. Needless to say, doctors were pessimistic about her survival, but… Violet Jessop was born under a good star.
Upon her father’s death in 1903, the family decided to move to England. Her mother then became a hostess on the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company’s ships. Later, Violet had no choice but to follow in her mother’s footsteps and give up her studies to earn a living.
We are in 1908, and her life on ever-larger ships was just beginning. She first signed on to the Orinoco, serving the Royal Mail; then on the Majestic, a ship of the White Star Line. In 1911, she was assigned to the Olympic, a ship of the same company, which was damaged following a significant collision with the Hawke in the port of Southampton. Although this collision was not very consequential, this event was the first in a long list of maritime accidents experienced by Violet Jessop.
In 1912, Violet signed on to the well-known Titanic, the sister ship of the Olympic. But four days after the ship’s departure, on April 14, around 11:40 PM, the Titanic struck an iceberg that would sink it. As a hostess, her role was to wake the passengers and have them go to the boat deck, equipped with their life jackets.
While nearly 1500 people lost their lives, embarked in lifeboat 16, Violet survived the Titanic sinking and was part of the small percentage of passengers rescued eight hours later by the Carpathia.
There is no equivalent proverb to “if you fall off a horse, the best thing to do is to get back on” for a maritime disaster, but Violet understood that the best thing to do after a shipwreck is to work on a ship again. This is also why the Unsinkable Violet Jessop found herself on board the Britannic in November 1916, as a nurse.
As the saying goes, “never two without three,” the hospital ship exploded, probably after hitting a mine, and sank in less than an hour. Accustomed to shipwrecks, Violet recounted in her memoirs that she hurried to retrieve her toothbrush before evacuating, as it had particularly been missing in the days following the Titanic’s sinking. She was evacuated in a lifeboat from which she had to escape before it was damaged by the Britannic’s propellers, fracturing her skull against a keel before being rescued and saved in a second lifeboat.
Violet Jessop continued for years to work as part of the crew of the White Star Line, Red Star Line, and Royal Mail Line ships. World War II forced her to work on land; she got married, divorced, and returned to the sea until 1948… Retired after 42 years at sea, she then dedicated herself to writing her memoirs before dying at the age of 84 from bronchopneumonia.
Violet Jessop, the unsinkable hostess, survived three shipwrecks… luck or bad luck? It’s up to you to judge! Note that at the beginning, no company wanted to hire her… too young, too beautiful, and thus too distracting for the crew. She later recounted that she was proposed marriage three times at sea…