This is a miraculous story of Violet Constance Jessop / Violet Jessop, born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina on October 2, 1887.
She was an Irishwoman best known as the survivor of three great shipwrecks of the 20th century, including the sinking of the famous Titanic.
Violet Jessop is the daughter of Irish immigrants William and Katherine Jessop (originally from Argentina). She is the oldest of nine children.
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| Violet Jessop in Voluntary Aid Detachment Uniform (Image credit: Wikipedia) |
As a child, Violet was often ill because she was known to have tuberculosis, even doctors predicted that Violet's tuberculosis would get worse and her life would not be long.
But miraculously, Violet managed to recover from the tuberculosis she suffered from.
When she was 16, her father died of complications from surgery and the family moved to England, where she attended convent school while caring for her younger sister, at the same time as her mother was at sea and worked as a ship’s stewardess.
At 21, her mother fell ill and could no longer work. Violet therefore decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and also become a ship’s stewardess on ocean liners.
In 1910 she began working on the RMS Olympic, owned by the White Star Line company. On September 20, 1911, she was on board when Olympic left Southampton. While attempting to cross a strait, it collided with a British warship, HMS Hawke.
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| RMS Olympic (Image credit: Wikipedia) |
Both ships were damaged in the collision, but luckily there were no casualties. Despite the holes drilled in the hull, the Olympic managed to return to port on its own, and the crash did not deter Violet from continuing to work as a ship’s stewardess.
Violet has been reassigned to the White Star Line's new ship, the Titanic. She was initially reluctant to work on the Titanic, but her friends convinced her that the maiden voyage would be a fantastic experience.
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| RMS Titanic (Image credit: Wikipedia) |
On April 14, 1912, as the Titanic was en route from England to the United States, it struck an iceberg and plunged into the freezing depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 2,224 people on board, more than 1,500 died.
According to History of Yesterday, Violet was initially sleeping when the Titanic hit the iceberg. She remember the accident; “I was ordered to go up to the deck. Quietly, the passengers walked around. I stopped at the bulkhead with the other ship’s stewardesss, watching the women cling to their husbands before I was put on. on the boats with their babies. Some time later a ship's officer ordered us to get on the boat (16) first to show a few women that it was safe. When the lifeboat being put in the water, the officer called: "Here, Miss Jessop. Take care of this baby. And a package was also left in my lap."
Eight hours later, Jessop and the other survivors were rescued by the Carpathia. On board the Carpathia, a woman, possibly the baby's mother, retrieved the baby.
After surviving 2 near-death experiences, Violet still wanted to continue her life as a ship’s stewardess.
During World War I, Violet served as a ship’s stewardess for the British Red Cross.
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| HMHS Britannic (Image credit: Wikipedia) |
On the morning of November 21, 1916, she was aboard HMHS Britannic, one of the White Star Liner which had been converted to a "hospital ship". However, the poor ship did not last more than 55 minutes when it sank in the Aegean Sea due to an unexplained explosion (some reports say this is because HMHS Britannic struck a German mine) which killed 30 of the 1,066 passengers on board.
Violet enter a lifeboat but almost died when the lifeboat was nearly sucked underwater by the propeller blades of the sinking ship. She jumped back into the water and her head hit the ship's keel, resulting in an injury that a doctor diagnosed years later as a fractured skull and caused her frequent headaches.
For the third time in five years, Jessop had survived a shipwreck. Violet Jessop continued to work on large ships for another 34 years, retiring at the age of 63. Violet Jessop, often referred to as "Miss Unsinkable" and "Queen of Sinking Ships", died of congestive heart failure in 1971 at the age of 83.
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