The Last Witness

Lillian Gertrud Asplund,the last survivor of the Titanic who remembered its sinking has passed on at the grand age of 99. At least two other survivors are living, but they were too young to remember what happened. Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, was 10 months old and Elizabeth Gladys Millvina Dean of Southampton, England, was 2 months old.

Lillian was just 5 years old when she and her family boarded the Titanic in Southampton, England. She lost her father and three brothers — including a fraternal twin.

Asplund's mother described the sinking in an interview with a Worcester newspaper shortly after the accident.

I could see the icebergs for a great distance around ... It was cold and the little ones were cuddling close to one another and trying to keep from under the feet of the many excited people ... My little girl, Lillie, accompanied me, and my husband said 'Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats.' He smiled as he said it.

But Lillian Asplund refused to sit for most interviews even when offered money for doing so, saying, Why do I want money from the Titanic? Look what I lost. A father and three brothers.

Coincidentally, there was no winning bid in a recent auction for a worn beech wood recliner taken from the Titanic as a souvenir by Mr. Thomas Barker, a senior photographer on The Cork Examiner newspaper before the ship left. Bonhams & Butterfields says the deck chair is one of only six left in world.

The estimated value was set at between $75,000 and $100,000 - yet the bidding topped out at $62,000.