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On May
6th, 2006,
Gertrud Asplund, the last survivor
of the Titanic died of natural causes. She was 99 years old. Lilian
Gertrud
Asplund was born on October 21, 1906 in Worcester, Massachusetts one of
a set of fraternal twins.
Gertrud was five
years
old when she and her parents,
Charles and Selma, and her
siblings, nine year
old
Clarence, 13 year old Filip, fraternal
twin
brother, five year old
Carl Edgar and her three year old brother Felix, were sailing on the
Titanic.
Gertrud, her
mother and
brother Felix were the only three to survive.
Both
her mother and younger
brother died before her.
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Gertrud, Selma and
Felix
Asplund
in 1912.
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.
Lillian Gertrud
Asplund
1912
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Gertrud rarely spoke about
Titanic since her mother
had always told her that it was bad luck to do so. On the rare
occasions
she had spoken about it, she recalled seeing her father standing on the
ship and recalls watching the ship slip down under the water. She was
that
last living person who actually remembered seeing this happen. Gertrud
also spoke of being passed through something she described as a window,
which later was found to be the first class promenade deck. She was
pass
through the windwo and being put into a life boat. She was taken into
lifeboard
15 with her mother and brother.
Memories of the faces of
her
brothers and her father
peering over the side of the ship, haunted her for almost her entire
life.
Remembering her father holding her twin and her two brothers standing
on
each side of him, never left her.
After they were rescued,
they
were taken to St.
Vincent's Hospital in New York City. After returing to Worcester, they
took up residence with Gertrud's Aunt and Uncle. Having lost everything
in the sinking of the Titanic, the city of Worcester held a fund raiser
to benefit her family. With almost $2,000. being raised and invested,
they
were to receive proceeds from the interest as often as they needed it.
In 1951, Gertrud and her family moved to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
Gertruds mother passed
away on
the 52nd anniversary
of the sinking of Titanic. At the age of 73, only 18 days away from his
74th birthday, her brother Felix died. Gertrud never married or had any
children.
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