Millvina Dean

When she attended her first Titanic Historical Society convention, in 1988, Millvina Dean, who died May 31 at 97, had never flown in a plane or stayed in a hotel. But her quiet life turned into one of celebrity, as she was soon traveling the world to speak about surviving the Titanic disaster as an infant. Fans and reporters flocked to her bungalow in Britain’s New Forest for tea and homemade sloe gin. They quickly discovered she was full of humor, charm and vitality–qualities that made her an interviewer’s dream.

Her sudden fame was a lifetime away from the dark hours she and her mother had spent in a crowded lifeboat in the North Atlantic after the Titanic sank in 1912. Dean’s 2-year-old brother was discovered aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, and the family–minus Dean’s father, who drowned–returned safely to England. They were fortunate. Most of the children traveling in third class died.

At 9 weeks, Millvina was the Titanic’s youngest survivor. She once lamented that the title prevented her from lying about her age. But she became the public face, and eventually the last survivor, of history’s worst maritime tragedy.

Lynch is a co-author of Titanic: An Illustrated History