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Miss Unsinkable — The Lady Who Survived The Titanic and Two Other Shipwrecks
Violet Jessop was either very lucky or very unlucky.
They say cats have nine lives. Perhaps Violet Jessop is one-third cat, as she survived three of the most significant shipwrecks of the 20th century. Her story is truly remarkable and one filled with luck.
Born 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrant parents, Violet Jessop’s fantastic ability of survival started from an early age. Six of her eight siblings died in early childhood, and Jessop suffered from tuberculosis with the doctor’s prognosis being that she had just months to live. In a sign of things to come, she defied the odds to beat the disease.
Jessop’s father died when she was fifteen, and so a grief-stricken Jessop, her two younger sisters and her mother moved to England. Her mother worked at sea as a stewardess, leaving Jessop, still a school student to care for her students.
Shipwreck one — the RMS Olympic
When Jessop was twenty-one, her mother became ill and unable to work. So Jessop decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and also become a stewardess on ocean liners. At the time most stewardesses were middle-aged, and in her first few interviews, employers were worried her youth and good looks…
