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Survivor opens new exhibit to mark 90th anniversary of Titanic sinking By JANE WARDELL, Associated Press Writer LONDON - Millvina Dean was just 9 weeks old when her mother carried her into a lifeboat off the sinking Titanic, shortly before it carried her father to his death 90 years ago. On the eve of the April 14 anniversary of the disaster, Dean opened a newly expanded exhibition at the famous steamship's home port, and spoke of the way the sinking affected her life, right down to her homeland. Dean had boarded the Titanic with her parents Bertram and Georgetta and her 1-year-old brother, also named Bertram, in Southampton, southern England, for its maiden voyage to New York City. The Dean family was bound eventually for Wichita, Kansas, where the elder Bertram planned to open a tobacconist shop. But the White Star Line ship, touted as unsinkable, was four days into its voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, when it scraped against a mammoth iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. The unthinkable happened, and within 2 1/2 hours, the ship had sunk and taken 1,522 of the 2,227 people aboard to their deaths. One of those was the elder Bertram. Dean, her mother and brother were picked up from the lifeboats, taken to New York, then returned to England with other survivors aboard the Adriatic, a rescue ship. Millvina Dean, who is now 90, still lives in her hometown of Ashurst in the New Forest, near Southampton. "It changed my life because I would have been living in the States in Kansas. It was all arranged that my father would take a tobacconist shop and we'd be living there," Dean said. "I would have been American now instead of English." Dean said she saw the 1958 film "A Night to Remember," with other survivors, but found it so upsetting that she declined to watch any other attempts to put the disaster on celluloid, including the 1997 blockbuster "Titanic," starring Leonardo de Caprio and Kate Winslet. Dean is the youngest of only four living survivors. Her exclusive club is rounded out by fellow Briton Barbara West, 91, and Americans Lillian Asplund, 96, and Winnifred Quick, 98. Stories such as Dean's are told at the Southampton Maritime Museum exhibition, "Titanic Voices," through a new audiovisual presentation which allows visitors to see and hear the testimony of survivors and others who remember the tragedy. Other new exhibits have been added to the museum's permanent memorial to the sinking, including images from the interior of the Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic. The Olympic continued the same route across the Atlantic for years, being used for military duty during World War I. Southampton retains a close connection with the disaster, as many people from the area joined the voyage, hoping for a new life in America. In the end, natives of Southampton and surrounding areas accounted for almost one-quarter of the deaths. The opening of the revamped exhibition Thursday was the start of several events in Southampton to mark the tragedy. An auction of memorabilia Friday will feature the watch of a second-class passenger which stopped at 3:21 a.m., around the time of the sinking. The gold-plated Waltham pocket watch was recovered from the body of John Gill, 24, of Britain, and was initially auctioned in February, along with the entire sackful of his possessions found floating in the ocean. The lot collected 30,000 pounds (dlrs 43,000) in that auction, and the British Titanic Society said it expected the same collection to be resold for a total of 100,000 (dlrs 140,000) on Friday. On Sunday, the society will recreate the departure of the Titanic from the dock, and on Monday, Dean will unveil a heritage plaque at the former headquarters of the White Star Line. On the Net: Maritime Museum: Titanic facts and figures: Source: Yahoo! News
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