Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Titanic and Eva Hart


This week marks the 100th year anniversary of the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic. The “unsinkable ship” sank to a watery grave on April 15, 1912. And while a hundred years has passed, her story is very much alive, but why? Houston, it looks like we’ve found another MUSE!

2228 passengers were aboard during the Titanic’s maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. Tragically, the ship never made it to New York, and only 705 people were rescued from the sinking – mostly women and children.

Titanic survivor Eva Heart was seven years old at the time, and her recollection portrays a haunting story of those last hours amidst the North Atlantic.

“My mother had this dreadful premonition. She’d never had one before, and she never had one after, but she said ‘No, we can’t do this (board the Titanic)… something dreadful is going to happen.”

Eva’s mother was quite sure that the “unsinkable ship” was sinkable, so she slept during the day, and stayed awake, fully clothed, at night.

“My mother said that at ten minutes to twelve, she felt a slight bump,” Eva Hart recalled. “She said it felt just like a train pulling into a station… but she knew it was this dreadful something. She wakened my father and wakened me.”

Eva’s father went to the deck to see what had happened, and he quickly came back to get his family. The family learned that the ship had hit an iceberg. Since Eva’s mother had not fallen asleep, she and Eva were one of the first people on deck. This gave them a spot on one of the few lifeboats. Her father told her, “Hold mummy’s hand and be a good girl.” That would be the last time she saw her father.

The officer on lifeboat #14 rowed the boat as far away as possible from the Titanic so that the enormous ship would not pull the lifeboat underwater when it sank. Eva could still hear the commotion on board.

“There wasn’t any panic until the lifeboats left, and then there was panic galore,” Eva Hart recalled. “We were down on the ocean. We could hear them running about the deck. They were screaming. You could imagine people coming up from their cabin and finding no lifeboats, then tearing around to the other side.”

As the Titanic continued to sink, Eva watched. She couldn’t close her eyes. She watched the Titanic snap in half and listened to the helpless people drowning. She said that the most dreadful sound of all is the sound of people drowning – the screams.

“And then the whole world stood still that night,” Eva Hart recalled. “Once the lights had gone and the ship was gone… the silence was dreadful.”

The lifeboats eventually pulled together and evened out the number of passengers in each. At this point Eva was separated from her mother, which she recalled as a terrifying experience. They would not find each other until they had been rescued by the Carpathia later that morning.

The crew of the Carpathia dropped down rope ladders for the adults to climb toward the hatch on the side of the ship. Children were placed in sacks and lifted with cargo nets – quite successfully but still terrifying, Eva Hart recalled.  

But the most pathetic experience Eva Hart remembered was watching the women looking for their husbands on the Carpathia, realizing very quickly that they had gone down with the ill fated ship.

So, why are people still fascinated with the sinking of the Titanic? Probably because it was an accident that should not have claimed a single life. It took over two hours for the ship to sink. If there were enough lifeboats, no one would have died. 

Today, the Titanic rests nearly 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. Eva Hart and all other survivors have now died, but the legacy of the RMS Titanic will live on for quite some time.

With this new knowledge, what kind of story could you write? Maybe these “what if” questions will help you get started.

What if your main character was an alligator who had boarded the Titanic unbeknownst?

What if the Titanic was ghost ship that could be seen crossing its route from England to New York?

What if your main character took a submarine down to the wreckage of the Titanic. What mysterious object would they uncover?

The possibilities are endless! And please leave your own “what if” questions in the comment section below. I’d love to see what you come up with.

Grab a cup of hot cocoa, a piece of paper and a pencil, and let’s begin. With your imagination, we can go anywhere! I look forward to seeing where you take us!

With Imagination,

Professor Watermelon

P.S. The word of the day is “Carpathia.” Here is the definition: the transatlantic passenger steamship who made her maiden voyage in 1903 and became famous for rescuing 705 passengers from the ill fated Titanic.

31 comments:

  1. What if the titanic had berred tresher.

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  2. What if Eva heart was still alive

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    1. Fletcher king
      What if a family of sharks decided to live in the wrek of the titanic.

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    2. What if the titanic sails around at night?

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    3. What if some dolphins helped save people on the titanic?

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    4. What if the titanic was made of gold?

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    5. What if the titanic came from the moon?

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    6. What if Eva heart was a spy?

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    7. What if the titanic was a car?

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    8. What if the titanic turned into a giant whale?

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    9. What if the Titanic flew to the sun?

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    10. What if the titanic could talk?

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    11. What if George Washington had secretly viseted the wreck of the Titanic?

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    12. What if the Titanic's Wreck covers the ruins of an ancient underwater battle?

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    13. What if the titanic voyaged all the way around the world?

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  3. 1. What if the Titanic never sank?

    2. What if the Titanic emerged from the water and became a space ship?

    3. What if the Titanic was the home of the largest shark on the planet?

    Prof. Watermelon

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  4. 1. What if the titanic never sank?
    2. What if the titanic turned into a lifeboat when it hit the ice berg and every was saved?
    3. What if the titanic had enough life boats and every got saved?
    4. What if the titanic really was unsinkable?
    5. What if less people died on the titanic?
    6. What if everybody died on they titanic?
    7. What if the titanic could still float on water when was ripped to pieces?
    8. What if the titanic had wings could fly a way when hit the ice berg even though the ship was damaged?
    9. What if the titanic could change into anything?
    10. What if the titanic after it sunk emerged out of the sea three days later and every was still on it safe and alive?

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  5. What if the hole is small and can be fixed.

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  6. What if the Titanic had never sunk?
    What if the Titanic had rockets on the edges of itself?
    What if the Titanic had the ability to fly to the sky?



    yael cohen

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  7. What if the titanic could fly?

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  8. What if the Captain had enough floaties?

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  9. What if the titanic had missed the iceberg?

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  10. 1. What if the titanic came back up and became a war ship?

    2. What if the people who died on the titanic became ghost and haunted the survivors?

    3. What if the titanic sunk whole in stead of splitting in two and some how the people on board survived?

    4. What if the the life boats broke and no one survived?

    5. What if Eva's mom was not awake to warn her family that an ice burg hit the titanic?

    6. What if they filled the life boats to fiats many people as there could've been?

    7. What if there were enough life boats for every one on board to survive?

    8. What if the titanic arose and became a ghost ship?

    9. What if the titanic was on a different route and never crashed into the ice burg?

    10. What if they sailed in a season?

    11. What if the titanic had some type of treasure?

    Rachel

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  11. What if Eva Hart's goast still flys around were the titanic sank

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  12. What if the titanic disappeared after it sank

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  13. What is the skeletons in the ocean from when the titanic sank came came alive and walked out of the ocean

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  14. what if some sharks used the sunken parts titanic as a place to store food

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  15. What if the titanic pieced itself back together

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  16. what if Eva Hart was really a witch and was preforming a spell to straighten your hair but things went HORRIBLY wrong. what if all the passengers turned into bananas then a sea creature that looked like a gorilla rose from the sea and ate all of the banana passengers. what if everybody thought to be dead escaped on a flying pizza. what if the ship had meraground. what if a lady ordered a smoothe and it didnt have a little umbrella in it and she was so mad knocked out the captin and steered the boat into an ice berg. what if a wild buffalo was lose on ship and he went to the captin and the buffalo took his aposable thumbs and he steered the ship into the ice berg. what if aliens took over the ship. by Happy Face

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  17. 1. What if there are still people living in the Titanic under the ocean?
    2. What if the Titanic is moving slowly towards New York by a magical spell?
    3. What if the Titanic is going to be risen to the surface again?
    4. What if there is a mysterious treasure hidden in the Titanic?
    5. What if the Titanic broke into three parts?

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  18. 1. What if, one day, I become a scientist and I research about the titanic and I find out how to fix it? EPICNESS!!!!!!!

    2. What if, the titanic actually drowned because the captain wanted to take revenge on one of the passengers and sunk the ship, leaving the ice-berg as the criminal.

    3.What if, you receive a letter from Eva Hart, saying you are her long lost relative. She also mentions a diary she wrote on the ship. It has a lot of untold truths and may change history. What would you do?
    - Shreya (6th)

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