Let’s Talk About: Bits & Pieces, This ‘N That

 Who has not seen this fantastic image of the Titanic’s bow as she rests nearly a mile deep in the Atlantic:

Bet you did not know:

  • She was the largest moving man-made object until 1912.
  • Some 4000 workers took 2 years to build her in Belfast, Ireland
  • She cost $10,000,000 in 1912 dollars (about $322,000,000 today)
  • The 4-day, one way, first-class passage cost about $80,000 in 1998 dollars
  • Lifeboat requirements were based on tonnage, not passenger count
  • New York Evening Sun ran a headline: ALL SAVED FROM TITANIC
  • The 1997 movie, Titanic, cost 24 times what the ship itself cost to build in 1911 (you do the math!)
  • One body, still floating in its life vest, was found 2 months la
  • More than 3000 books have been written about the Titanic
  • The last funnel on Titanic was  “dummy” for ventilation and aesthetics and no smoke came out of it
  • The Titanic Historical Society, founded in 1963, has 5000 members; PO Box 5153, Indian Orchard MA  01151

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August, 2023: Miami, Florida:  Archaeologists have found a submerged gravestone in Dry Tortugas National Park near the Florida Keys and they say the discovery could also mean there’s a cemetery and hospital in the area. The site could have been used for quarantined yellow fever patients on a small island that has since eroded into the sea.

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Jeanne Coe, a longtime member of EWGS, does indexing under the SCRIBE project for the Washington State archives. She notes odd and unusual names………. like these:

  • America Jane Chamberlain, b. Oregon
  • Ralph Oregon Dunbar, b. Illinois
  • Mary Nevada Kiner, b. 1877 in Iowa
  • Nevada Melvina Cameron, b. 1901 in Washington
  • Hazel Inez Price, b. 1892 in King County, WA; her father was Lake Erie Price, b. Minnesota and her mother was Capitola Albatross Fuller, b. Kansas.
  • Denver Colorado Sayler, b. 1906 in Kansas

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From Kenneth Roberts’ book, “Trending Into Maine,” published in 1938, I learned that the Salish word for white person was soo-yap-ee, which meant “upside down face.” This happened because most 19th century Euro-American men wore beards.