Aboard The Titanic
Margaret was conveyed to the passenger liner RMS Titanic as a first class passenger aboard the tender SS Nomadic at Cherbourg, France. The Titanic sank early on April 15, 1912 at around 2:20 am after striking an iceberg at around 11:40. Margaret helped others board the lifeboats, but was finally convinced to leave the ship in Lifeboat No. 6. She would later be regarded as a heroine for her efforts to get Lifeboat 6 to go back to search for survivors. Molly Brown was later called "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" by authors because she helped in the ship's evacuation, taking an oar herself in her lifeboat and protesting for the lifeboat to go back to try to save more people.
Her urgings were met with opposition from Quartermaster Robert Hichens, the crewman in charge of Lifeboat 6, who was fearful that if they did go back, the lifeboat would either be pulled down due to suction, or the people in the water would swamp the boat in an effort to get inside. Sources vary as to whether the boat did go back and if they found anyone alive when they did. The 1997 movie Titanic depicted a claim that one life boat returned and six people were saved from the water, but did not depict that Margaret Brown was the impetus for the return.
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Famous quotes related to aboard the titanic:
“Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become ‘naturally numb’ as they swelled and stretched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into ‘manageable discomfort.’ This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)