Episode 3: Miss Unsinkable

This is a podcast episode about a woman named Miss Violet Jessup, who was a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. She also survived the sinking of the Titanic's sister ships, the Olympic and Britannic. Miss Jessup worked as a stewardess on these ships and had a fascinating life at sea. She was born in Argentina, moved to Ireland, and eventually became a stewardess for the White Star Line. Despite the traumatic experiences she went through, she continued to work on ships and even became a nurse during World War I. She is known as "Miss Unsinkable" because she survived multiple shipwrecks. Welcome to Illiquid History, where two girls, women, whatever we are, are going to tell you a story about a person, a time, a place, an invention, something that happened in history, and we are not qualified for this, so we're just going to wing it. Yes, welcome. Also, I think our intro went a lot better that time. I think we're starting to get the hang of it. Twenty-fifth time's the charm. Third episode, twenty-fifth time practice. We do it for you, the audience. Practice makes almost perfect. Yes. Also, forewarning, apology to the audience, it is allergy season in Tennessee, and I personally am struggling, so I apologize if I sound like my head is underwater. Yes. Spring in Tennessee is just where everyone is super snotty, and there's not really a whole lot we can do about it, so sorry, guys. I'm drinking tea to hopefully clear everything up. Yes. To be here and occasional sneeze or cough or whatever, forgive us. I'm so sorry. Anyway, why don't you get us started. I'm going to get us in the scene, and y'all are going to figure out what we're talking about today. All right. It's April 14th, 1912. A stewardess aboard a large, beautiful passenger ship looks over the railing at the night sky in the cold sea right before she is to retire to her quarters for bed. This has become her nightly routine, as the cool night sea air makes her appreciate the warm interior of her cabin. The moment of quiet calm the ocean provides is something she has come to love. The opulent ship has set out for her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, a few days prior, and was scheduled for New York in three days. But as beautiful and comfortable as the ship was, it had been a long day making the high-class passengers happy. Footsteps came from behind her. Evening, Miss Jessup. Hard day? Good evening, Jacques. No harder than any day on sea, I suppose. One is to expect the needs of these types of passengers, after all. But the sea and sky are beautiful tonight. I've never seen it so calm. Ah, yes. Nothing quite like a calm sea at the end of a turbulent day. I'm afraid I must get back to the performance. Good night, Miss Jessup. Good night, Jacques. Later that evening, in her cabin below deck, she is just settling into her bed and finishing reading an old Hebrew prayer of protection to her roommate when she heard an odd scraping noise and people beginning to panic. She quickly got dressed and made her way on deck to see what was happening. She scans the deck of panicking passengers and workers and meets a familiar face. Jacques! What is happening? Seems like we struck an iceberg and we're going down. Quick! Get to a lifeboat! She runs towards the crowd, trying to calm people and demonstrate how to use lifejackets and anything she can do to help until she is told to board lifeboat 16. A baby is thrust into her arms, seemingly out of nowhere, and the lifeboat is being lowered into the water before she knows it. We know this as the sinking of the Titanic, and while the dialogue of this scene is fictional, Miss Jessup was a real survivor of the Titanic that night. More amazingly, she also survived the catastrophes of both of Titanic's sister ships, the Olympic and Britannic. This is the story of Miss Unsinkable. Morgan, have you ever heard of Miss Violet Jessup before this podcast? I have not. I've heard of the Titanic. I've watched the movie. Yeah, a million times. Yes, but I've not heard of this woman. I did not know about her either. And she is a fascinating character. Fascinating. So, are you ready to talk about who she is and her life at sea? I am so ready. Tell me about Miss Unsinkable. Miss Unsinkable. She was born near Bahia Blanca, Argentina, on October 2nd, 1887. She was born to parents William and Catherine Jessup. William was a sheep farmer, and she was the eldest of nine kids, only six survived though. So, I know, but it was 1887, so that's unfortunately normal. Yeah. As a child, she contracted tuberculosis, was only given a few months to live, but she decided to say, fuck you, tuberculosis, and she lived a full life. That's amazing, because I feel like most people who got it died. Most people did. And I'm wondering, now that you mention that, when people would get tuberculosis, they would be sent to the mountains because the clear air would actually help them. I wonder if her life at sea, with the clear air and everything, had anything to do with her long life. They say the salt air is healing, so maybe. Maybe. She was a devout Catholic, and she spoke with an Irish accent because they were immigrants to Ireland. So, I couldn't figure out when exactly she moved, but at some point in her life, they moved around and they lived in Ireland for a while. So, I have a question. So, was she Argentinian by ethnicity, and then her family moved from Argentina to Ireland? Yes. Okay, neat. I think so. I think so. Okay. She's beautiful, by the way. She is gorgeous. I added some pictures on these slides, and they were black and white, but I made sure to find the colored ones. Apparently, according to one of the sources I was reading, she actually had to kind of like dumb down her looks to get the job on the ships. Really? And I don't know why, but apparently in her memoirs, that's what she said she had to do. Well, it said she had auburn hair, so maybe they didn't want a fiery redhead. I guess not. I mean, gray-blue eyes, auburn hair, spoke with an Irish accent, drop-dead gorgeous. I mean, danger. That is the whole package right there. I mean, truly. So, her father passed away when she was 16 in Mendoza due to complications from a surgery and had to move back to Britain where her mother became a stewardess on the Royal Mail Line while she was in convent school. And that's just a school where the teachers are nuns. I had to look that up. But her mother's health started to deteriorate, so she quit her school and became a stewardess for the Royal Mail Line herself. So, her mother really got her into the shipping industry. Okay. So, she worked for the Royal Mail Line and then later the White Star Line, which we all know is the line that the Titanic, Olympic, and Britannic sailed under. She was working 17-hour shifts and only being paid two, I guess that's two pounds, ten, I don't know. Sterling? Yes. Wow. I wonder how much that was in today's money. You should totally look it up. I'll look it up. Okay. So, I have a value of $2. Okay. And that was about $65 today. Wow. So, she was making approximately $65 a month. But I know it's pounds, so that's a little different. Wait, $65. Wait, she was only making $65 a month and working 17-hour shifts? Now, you've got to think about it. Back in 1908, you could buy a lot with $65. But that's in today's money. So, she was being paid the equivalent of $65. True. Which, I mean, to be fair, like, today you cannot buy a lot with $65 a day. No. Today. No. And her memoirs, just so everybody knows, her memoirs came out in 1996, and you can actually buy a copy of them on Amazon if you want to read in depth of her life at sea. Neat. So, let's get into her career, because this is how I figured it would be the easiest way to tell about just her life in each tragedy. So, I don't know why I thought this was funny, but someone told me her address. Like, one of the sources told me that she lived at 71 Shirley Road in Bedford Park, London. I tried to look up the address. I don't think that house exists anymore. I could not find it. So, she started sailing in 1908 for the Royal Mail Line when she was 21 on the Orinoco. And then she sailed in 1911. So, she sailed on that for a couple years. She served on the Majestic, Adriatic, and the Oceanic until she boarded the RMS Olympic, which was the White Star Line, in 1911. And here I have pictured the Olympic and the Titanic next to each other, so you can see how similar those two looked. Yeah. I mean, they look like the same ship, honestly. Really, the only difference between them was just the design of really the inside, like how fancy they were, basically. But at the time, the Titanic had not been completed. So, it was being built, but it was not completed. So, when she boarded the RMS Olympic, it was the largest civilian liner at the time. The Olympic left from Southampton, and right off the bat, first couple years of her being on a ship, left from Southampton and collided with a British warship, the HMS Hawk. Oh, my gosh. Like, coming right out of port. And there were no fatalities on the ship, and the ship was able to make it back to port without sinking. So, this is her first big, bad thing that happened, and she's probably like, whew, well, nothing really happened. We made it back to port without sinking. And they fixed the ship, and she continued to work on the Olympic until April 1912, when she was transferred to the Titanic on its maiden voyage. Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. So, April 10th, 1912, she was 24 years old when she boarded. She had become friends with the Scottish violinist, Jacques Hume, who we saw in our scene earlier. He was really one of the only people that she mentioned by name in her memoir. So, he must have been a very important person to her. I don't know if Jacques made it off the Titanic or not. I didn't find the information. Okay. But he seemed very important to her. In the movie Titanic, there was a woman depicted showing passengers how to use their life jackets, and that person who was depicted in the movie was based off of her. Me. Yeah. Okay. So, in her memoirs, she kind of gives a rundown of what happened that night. So, they had been working, and like in that scene, she had a habit of going out onto the deck and just kind of giving herself a moment to breathe. You know how, you know, I do that. You know, it was a habit of hers to just stand on the deck, feel the cold air, look out at the sea, and it made her really appreciate going back inside, going to bed, and then hitting another long day of work. And as a stewardess, I looked up their job description, and it was basically everything that didn't involve just actually making the ship move. So, I mean, they were serving drinks, serving food, making beds, bringing passengers things that they needed. They were moving luggage. I mean, literally everything that these people needed. I mean, if she was working 17-hour days, like, I'm sure that was such a grueling job. Yeah. I cannot blame her for having a moment to just like breathe in the air. Yeah, just standing on deck and being like, why am I doing this? The sea calls to me. It calls me. Don't sue us, Dizzy. We love you. So, apparently, I thought this was kind of interesting, that in her memoir, she mentions reading a translated Hebrew prayer that an old Irish woman had given her that was supposed to protect her from fire and water. Whoa. Didn't that give you chills? Yeah. Ooh. Like, I just got like a spine chill. She had just gotten done reading this to her roommate, because, you know, they have roommates, and I guess she had just read it for the two of them. I don't know. Again, I don't know if her roommate made it off, but they were loading women and children onto the lifeboats first. So, I would hope so. She mentioned she wasn't quite asleep. She was in that kind of space where she's like almost asleep, but her eyes are closed and she's in bed when the collision happened. She mentioned getting dressed very quickly and going up on deck and just like in the movies. That movie is actually very historically accurate. It's pretty much Jack and Rose, the only things that didn't actually happen on the Titanic. I mean, to a T. There's a documentary that you should watch about it that James Cameron like actually went down and saw the Titanic, and you can see it. Oh, I've heard of that. It's so good. You should watch it. So, she went up there, got dressed, went up there, and it's just wild. She was helping people, showing them how to put on life jackets, because there were a lot of people on this boat that didn't speak English. So, she was trying to physically show them how to wear those cork life vests and just doing everything she could to help these people. So, here is a quote from her memoirs. So, I'll read that. Okay. I was ordered up on deck. Calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling to their husbands before being put onto the boats with their children. Sometime after, the ship's officer ordered us into the boat, 16, first to show some women it was safe. As the boat was being lowered, the officer called, here, Ms. Jessup, look after this baby, and a bundle was dropped onto my lap. Oh, my gosh. Like, I don't know if you could see my goosebumps that I have uncovered in them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So, these poor women, could you imagine just standing on deck trying to help people? There are women who were being ripped away from their husbands. I mean, I can't even think about it, to be put on a lifeboat, and then they never see their husbands again. Oh, man. Oh. Like, I'm just thinking of, like, Kyle. Yeah. Like, being on the boat. I know. And I'm clinging to him. I know. And I'm told, like, oh, my gosh. I'm thinking about Nick, and then, like, I have my two kids who are very young, and us being ripped away from them and how traumatic that would be for all three of us. Oh, my gosh. I can't imagine. So, eight hours of being on this lifeboat, in the dark, in the cold. The water was, I think, 28 degrees, which for salt water is even worse. And the air was in freezing temperature, so it was about 32. And you're in, like, the churning ocean. Yeah. This. Oh, my gosh. Now, what was even weirder is that it was eerily calm that night. I looked up the weather, and it was reported to be one of the calmest nights at sea ever reported. Oh, my gosh. Which is almost worse. That seems worse. Yeah. Like, it's like a, almost like an omen. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, a scary omen. Yeah. I hate it. So, eight hours, she is sitting in this lifeboat, freezing her ass off, holding a baby who she does not know who this baby belongs to. It's just a little baby boy, less than a year old. I think they mentioned him being, like, eight months old, nine months old, something like that. Oh, my gosh. So, this baby has probably got to be hungry, confused, needs a diaper change. As a mother, eight hours without any of that sounds horrendous, especially if you don't know who this baby even belongs to. So, you're trying to keep this baby calm and warm, for one. So, here's another quote from her out of her memoir. So, after eight hours of being on this lifeboat, they were rescued by the Carpathia of the Cunard Line. I was still clutching the baby against my hard cork life belt I was wearing when a woman leaped at me and grabbed the baby and rushed off with it. It appeared she had put it down on the deck of the Titanic while she went off to fetch something. And when she came back, the baby was gone. I was too frozen and numb to think it strange that this woman had not stopped to say thank you. Could you imagine? You set your baby down to go grab something probably very important for this baby, and you come back on a sinking ship, and the baby's gone. The turmoil in my heart that I had reading that. Of course she didn't say thank you. She was happy to find her son. No, I was going to say it. Like, I did not blame her for not saying thank you, because, yeah, like, I can't imagine. I would have leaped and grabbed the baby and rushed off, too, probably to go inside somewhere and cry. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Oh, man. So, Morgan, big question. If you were on the Titanic, would you go back to sea afterwards, or would you find a job on land? I think the trauma of surviving the Titanic, I would never, and I love the water. I love the water, too. Like, you know me. Like, we grew up on the water. I would never want to see water again in my lifetime. Never saw an ocean again. It would be too soon, I think. I would be scared to go on a rowboat in a lake. Yeah. Like, I would never, ever want to go on another boat again. Where we get in the water, like, in the summer, the water stays about 65 degrees, which to most people is way too cold, which is why we like it because nobody comes up there. Yeah. But 28 degrees? I mean, that would, like, I watch, I don't know, I'm weird, but I like, it's interesting to watch videos of, like, cold water swimming. Yeah, oh, it is. Where people, like, dive into ice. It's fascinating. And the way that they describe it, it's like, you, it's a reflex for your body to, like, expel all of the air in your body. Yeah. Like, I can't imagine just, like, I feel like your chest is being crushed to, like, exhale all of the air in your body. When Nick went to Lake Tahoe for his friend's bachelor party, he said that when they were there, they were having a hard time just swimming in that because the water is so cold, the altitude is so high that people would jump in not expecting it to be cold, and that would happen to them, and they would just drown. They would just have the cold water shock, and they would just drown. Because, like, you can't help what your body does. A strong swimmer would just go under and not come back up. Nick was like, I had to put on a life jacket. And he, he is a very strong swimmer. Very strong swimmer. Wakeboarder, surfer, I mean, and he was like, nope. Yep. So, Miss Violet Jessup is a glutton for punishment, I do believe, because her ass got back on the Olympic in 1912. Wow. I mean, she got off the Titanic, and she was like, bitch bet, I'm coming back. So, she got back on the Olympic, and she served on the Olympic, which, need I remind you, hit another boat the year before. So, she served. I mean, that's, that's a badass bitch, honestly. I want to be her friend. She is, she's a lover. Do you just not have any fear? No, she didn't get too fucked. Not a single fuck. She was like, I'm getting back on that boat. So, between 1912 and 1914, she was serving on the RMS Olympic. And in 1914, she went ashore to train as a VAD nurse for the British Red Cross. So, I couldn't exactly figure out how long she was there, but according to the timeline, it looks like about two years that she stayed and trained as a nurse. So, between 1914 and 1916, she was ashore. Okay. I mean, that's still, like, that was, I think, right around when World War I was started. Exactly. Exactly. Ah, okay. So, in 1916, November 21st, 1916, she was aboard the HMHS Britannic. And it had been converted into a hospital ship for use during World War I. So, during World War I, the Britannic was still being built. And they, the British government was like, hey, yo, stop the fancy shit. We need a hospital ship. So, they converted it because it hadn't been done yet. That was the easiest way to do it is just stop what they were doing, make it a hospital ship at that point. The pictures are really cool. So, it looks a lot like the Titanic in the Olympic. It's a little bigger. And it actually, because it had started out being a, quote, unquote, cruise ship, it was still really fancy. But thank God they took notes from the Titanic because they made it a ton safer. So, they put more lifeboats. They made the hull more sturdy. They put another skin on the hull. So, but she only went through six missions in 11 months before she struck a mine in the Aegean Sea. Oh, my God. And sank in 55 minutes. Oh, my God. So, Miss Jessup was on this ship in November when it hit the mine. It was not as big of a catastrophe as the Titanic due to a couple reasons. One being that they had kind of beefed up the boats and they had put more lifeboats on there. So, in the Titanic, where there weren't enough lifeboats, there were a plethora of lifeboats on this one. They actually had too many. So, only 32 of the 1,066 people on board died in that, which is still 32 too many. But it wasn't the 1,200 that the Titanic had. Right. So, in an attempt to save the boat, they actually put the – they kind of grounded the boat to try to save it. They put it in shallow waters. But all that did before it eventually sank into the deep water was it kind of put the ship in a weird predicament and then the propellers were kind of above the water and still running. Oh. And was kind of, you know, how water gets and it kind of sucks you in. It was sucking in the lifeboats. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. She had to jump from her lifeboat, ended up hitting her head on the keel, but was thankfully pulled into another lifeboat. In a quote from her memoirs, I leapt into the water but was sucked under the ship's keel, which struck my head. I escaped, but years later, when I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches, he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull. She broke her head. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And she just went about her life. Just – she said years later. This bitch was just walking around with a cracked skull like nothing happened. Like, by the way, like, hey, doc, I've got these headaches for a while. Ma'am, are you okay? Oh, you broke your head. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe she didn't get torn apart by the propellers. She must have jumped. She must have jumped in just enough time. I mean, thankfully only 32 of the people on board were killed, and I'm assuming probably some of them were from that, at least some of them. Yeah. But, alas, the Britannic is on the bottom of the ocean currently. So it sank anyway. In 1920, so she did take a few years off, thank God, she returned to work for the White Star Line. Again, glutton for punishment, ma'am. Why? The sea calmed her. I don't know. But why the White Star Line? I'm sure there's so many other boats. Why does she keep going back to the one line where all the ships were either wrecked and or sank? I have no idea. She just, oh, my God, I don't know. But what's really cool is thankfully after that there were no more catastrophes. And in 1920, like I said, she returned to the White Star Line. What boat was she on? What boat did they have left? I don't know. But she also kind of intermittently worked for the Red Star Line and the Royal Mail Line. So she was kind of boat hopping, I guess. During her tenure on the Red Star Line, and I'm very jealous about this, she took two around-the-world cruises on the company's largest ship, the Belgian Land. So she's just trekking around the world now. She's had three near-death experiences, and she's just like, fuck it, I'm going to travel. I guess that's why she went back. On Monday, which is a weird day to get married, but on Monday, October 29, 1923, at the age of 36, she married John James Lewis, who is a fellow White Star Line steward. Now, ma'am, White Star Line is red flags everywhere, and she should have known this because she was only married to him for a year, and she referred to the marriage as, quote-unquote, brief and disastrous. They had no children. Yeah. And they met on the Olympic. Probably good if... So... Okay. So, yeah, it's probably good they didn't have children if the marriage was disastrous. Maybe it was the Olympic because they met on the Olympic. Maybe, I mean, like, it did get fixed, so maybe that was like, okay, we've got one left. One left. And in 1950, she retired, her last ship being the Andes, and she was 63. So she just lived her life living on the edge. Get it. Sailing. Did she ever remarry? Nope. She was just like, one and done, fuck it, that was a bad idea. She was married to the sea. She was married to the sea. And she retired to Great Ashfield, Suffolk, where she... I think that's how you say it, too. Where she looked after her hens and gardens. So she's living the best life. Aw. But... Love that. Let me read you this because this is wild. Okay. This is a quote, again, from her memoir. Years after her retirement, Jessup claimed to have received a telephone call on a stormy night from a man who asked Jessup if she had saved a baby on the night the Titanic sank. Yes, Jessup replied. The voice then said, I was that baby, laughed and hung up. Her friend and biographer, John Maxstone Graham, said it was most likely some children in the village playing a joke on her. She replied, no, John, I had never told that story to anyone before I told you now. Records indicate that the only baby on Lifeboat 16 was Asad Thomas, who was handed to Edwina Trout and later reunited with his mother on Carpathia. Oh, my gosh. Oh. Oh, all the chills. I'm getting all the goosebumps. Isn't it wild? Why would you do that? Why would you just say, like, that was me? Click. Like, what? I don't know. Oh, my God. That's not the most wild thing you've ever heard in your life. I can't imagine. I feel like I'd be so upset if that happened to me. Yeah. Like, I'd be, I would be like, wait, like, who are you? I want to know who you are. I held you for eight hours. For eight hours. And I've wondered about you for 40, no, yeah, 40-something years. I've wondered about you. Yeah. And in 1971, she unfortunately died of congested heart failure. But she lived an amazing life. Sounds like it. She was a badass. A total badass. I mean, she really was. She really was. Like, I want to be her friend. She called her husband disastrous. And I was like, that's enough for me. No, thank you. I will be the cool aunt that comes from her world travels and shares gifts. Because you know she had to have been the coolest aunt. Like, could you imagine your aunt being like, oh, yeah, I survived Titanic. And the Britannic. And the Olympic. You know what? She would be amazing at two truths and a lie. Oh, my God, she would. No one would believe her. She could literally say, I survived the Titanic. I survived the Britannic. And I like cheese. And people would be like, what? They're like, obviously, she likes cheese. And they're like, I hate it. She could be like, once when I was sailing around the world, I shook hands with the Dalai Lama. And they'd be like, there's no way. And she'd be like, but I did. Like, could you imagine what she was doing? Did she really? Oh. No. Oh, okay. I was going to say, damn. I was just making it up. But, like, she's just sailing around the world, living her best life. And think about it. I mean, it's not a bad gig if you're, you know, not traumatized by the trauma. Because you get to sail the world, and you're paid for it. Yeah, you have to work. But, like, there's days off, I'm sure. Yeah, and you're on a boat, sailing around the world. Like, I can't imagine. Yes. Meeting people from all over the world. Wow, that's amazing. So you want to know some fun facts? I would love to know some fun facts. I love fun facts. Do you know what RMS stands for? Royal Majesty Ship. No, close. It's actually Royal Mail Ship. Royal Mail Steamer at the time. They were using Royal Mail Steamer. And the ship is contracted to carry mail. So not only did the Titanic go down with a bunch of people, a lot of mail went with it. Oh, man. Someone didn't get their Christmas card. Or, like, a family photo. Or, you know. A Christmas tie. A birthday present. And HMHS stands for His Majesty's Hospital Ship. Oh. Very bougie. There was a king at the time, so that makes sense. Oh, shit, there was? I didn't even think about that. It's just been so long ago. I mean, the Titanic was. 1912, right? 1912, 111 years ago. Wow. This month. It was supposed to dock in New York 111 years ago today. The day we're recording this. It was supposed to dock. Oh, wow. Oh, man. I just realized that. I was like, oh, that's coming up. And I just looked at my computer. Today, the 17th. I was about to say, today's April 17th. It is. I have no idea when we're going to publish it. Also, can we say that it's kind of blowing my mind that it left from Southampton, London, and that the boat was fast enough in 1908 to make it to New York in seven days? That's crazy. That's really crazy. Crazy. Because if you think about not too long before that, before they made the steamers and stuff, it would take them months. Weeks. Weeks. Weeks or months, yeah. And they're just like, no, seven days. We're going. I mean, it was really a marvel of its time. Yeah. Yeah. And did you, have you ever heard of the theory that they have as to why no one saw the icebergs? I think I've seen some. Like, some said that it was, like, foggy or something. There was, and I might not be getting this 100% correct because it literally just popped into my brain. So I'm going to try to explain it as best I can. But it was an optical illusion of sorts that the sea was so calm that it almost, like, I think it either mirrored itself or it gave a fake horizon look to it. Okay. So you couldn't see anything or you thought you could see miles, but it was kind of blinding you. And the person on lookout legitimately just didn't see that iceberg until it was too late. Well, I mean, and that makes sense because, you know, if the ocean is completely flat and still, there's no way you have any kind of depth perception. Oh, no. I mean, you've seen the river. There's nothing to compare it to. Yeah, you've seen the river when it's real calm early in the mornings and you see the reflection of the trees in itself. Especially at night, and icebergs reflect light in a weird way because they're giant pieces of ice. Yeah, I wonder if the person who's on the lookout thought it was, like, the reflection of the moon or something. I don't know. But there's a whole documentary on that, too, that I saw a couple years ago, and I highly suggest that. I don't remember the name. You're just going to have to blindly Google it. But just start frantically looking up Titanic documentaries and watch them all, and you'll catch it eventually. That's what I do. But the Olympic, do you want to know what happened to the Olympic? Tell me. It was retired after 24 years of service and sold for scrap in 1935. Sold for scrap? So the Cunard Line, which is actually kind of ironic because the Cunard Line was the one that came and got the survivors from the Titanic. They acquired the White Star Line, and in that acquisition, they retired the Olympic after 24 years. I guess in 24 years it became obsolete. I mean, think of the technology we had in 1935 compared to 1908. 1911, they were like, this bitch is old. Let's get rid of it. They're probably like, we can do a lot better. Yeah. No more sinking ships. And the Olympic, just as a little recap, the Olympic was the oldest of the three, and it was the biggest and fanciest at its time of being launched. And it was so fancy at the time that the second class areas rivaled the first class of other ships. So the third class was like bougie. And the Titanic, they took what they didn't like about the Olympic and made the Titanic even better. So if you're just looking at the ships, they look identical, but it was all pretty much cosmetic changes for the Titanic after that. They made different areas for the third class. They even put cigar holders in the bathrooms on the Titanic for the first class passengers. I'm sorry. They were just like, I can't pee and hold my cigar at the same time, so little holder, little holder. Super fancy. Fancy. I think that's one of the fanciest things I've ever heard. I know. Also gross. Gross, but I should put one on the back porch. Just because. You're fancy, too. Yeah. And the Britannic wasn't completed when the Titanic sank, so not only did they change it into a hospital ship, they were able to really get down in there and make safety changes. So it sounded like, to me, after reading the differences in the ships, that after the Titanic sank, they were like, oh, shit, we've got to fix some stuff. Yeah. And at the time, the Olympic actually spent five months in dry dock being retrofitted with higher bulkheads, additional lifeboats, and a double hull skin encapsulating the lower hull to make it safer. So basically the entire two-thirds of the boat was rebuilt after the Titanic sank. So at least they were trying to make up, you know, trying to prevent that from happening again. Yeah, and, you know, that's all you can really hope for when something tragic happens, that the people responsible go back and try to fix their mistakes. Yeah. What I could read was, from her memoirs, was that the designer of the cabins for the sewers and the person who had a lot of say, I forgot his name and I forgot to put it in here, but he would actually walk around, he was on the Titanic that night, and he would make frequent laps around the, you know, workers' quarters and make sure everyone's comfortable, ask their opinions about the boat, wonder if they're okay, if they need anything, is everything good to go here. So he really seemed to care, and she spoke very highly of him as well. So that was really nice. And that's all I have on Miss Unsinkable, as stubborn as she is. Wow. Wow. That was so good. I loved it. I've been obsessing about her since I started Googling her, which was, like, last week. I'm just telling everyone, I'm like, oh, my God, in 1911 she did this, in 1912 she did this, in 1916. No, this was so good. Like, what a very interesting lady. What a bad bitch. I want to be her friend. She could probably kick some ass. Oh, yeah, 100%. She fought in World War I. Yeah, she was a nurse. Like, she was a nurse in World War I. She smacked her head. She broke her head on the bottom of a cruise ship and just went about her life like nothing happened. She was like, why does my head hurt, bitch? You broke it. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Keep it, like, Violet Jessup up there, y'all. Yeah, she woke up every day and chose violence. She had to. She lived on a ship working for bougie-ass people. She probably had an attitude. I love her. Yeah. What a fantastic person. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. You're welcome. I feel better in the world. Knowing that she existed. Yes. I do, too. I do, too. We need more people like Violet Jessup. And her middle name is Constance, by the way. She's a Constance. She is. On ship. Yes. Yes. I love her. And, yeah. I'm excited about next week's episode. Oh, I've got it for you. I've been researching. There's a lot, so I can't wait to share that with everyone. All right, well. I have so many notes. So many notes. Well, we, I guess, are going to see all of our lovely listeners next week. Again, we have a Instagram, AileyQuippedHistory. You'll see our lovely faces. And we have a e-mail address. Gmail. Yes. AileyQuippedHistory at Gmail.com. No spaces. No, you know, tallies or anything. Dashes. That's the word. Yes, that's the word. Word charades. So, if you have a topic you want us to cover, e-mail us or check us out on our Instagram. And we will see you next week. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.