11-22-25
 The Unsinkable Violet Jessop. A Tale of Defying the Depths.
In the annals of maritime history, few stories rival the extraordinary life of Violet Constance Jessop, a woman who seemed to dance with disaster on the high seas yet emerged unscathed time and again. Born on October 2, 1887, near Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to Irish immigrant parents, Violet was the eldest of nine children (though only six survived infancy). Her early years were marked by hardship, she battled tuberculosis as a child, with doctors giving her mere months to live. Yet, against all odds, she recovered fully, foreshadowing a lifetime of cheating death.
Tragedy struck again when her father died young, prompting the family to relocate to England. As her mother fell ill while working as a stewardess at sea, 21-year-old Violet stepped up to support her siblings. Determined to follow in her mother's footsteps, she became an ocean liner stewardess—a grueling job involving 17-hour days for meager pay. To secure positions on the prestigious White Star Line ships, the attractive young woman deliberately downplayed her looks, donning frumpy clothes and no makeup to appear older and less distracting to passengers.
Her career began modestly, but in 1910, Violet transferred to the RMS Olympic, the largest civilian liner afloat and the pride of the White Star fleet. On September 20, 1911, just a year into her service, catastrophe loomed. Off the Isle of Wight, the Olympic collided violently with the British warship HMS Hawke, which rammed into her side like a battering ram designed for sinking enemies. The impact tore massive holes in both vessels, flooding compartments and crumpling steel. Miraculously, the Olympic’s watertight design held; she limped back to port without sinking, and no lives were lost. Violet walked away unharmed, brushing off the ordeal as just another day at sea.
Undeterred—or perhaps drawn by the allure of adventure—Violet accepted a posting on the Olympic’s even grander sister ship, the RMS Titanic, billed as "practically unsinkable." On April 10, 1912, she boarded in Southampton as a first-class stewardess, tending to wealthy passengers amid the opulence of marble staircases and crystal chandeliers. Four nights later, on April 14, the unthinkable happened: grazing an iceberg in the North Atlantic, the Titanic began its fatal descent. Chaos erupted as water poured in, but Violet remained calm, helping non-English-speaking passengers understand the lifeboat drills and reassuring frightened women and children.
Ordered into Lifeboat 16 to demonstrate safety (and calm others), Violet was handed a baby to carry by a frantic officer. As the ship plunged, she witnessed the horrors: the band playing on, rockets bursting overhead, and the final, heart-wrenching cries of over 1,500 souls vanishing into the icy abyss. Adrift in the freezing night for hours, clutching the infant, Violet and her boat were rescued by the RMS Carpathia. In a bizarre twist aboard the rescue ship, a woman snatched the baby from her arms and fled without a word—presumed to be the mother, forever grateful yet silent.
One sinking might deter most, but not Violet. When World War I erupted, she joined the British Red Cross as a nurse and, in 1916, boarded the third sister ship, HMHS Britannic (repurposed as a hospital ship and originally intended to be named 
Gigantic )On November 21, in the Aegean Sea, the Britannic struck a German mine. The explosion rocked the vessel, and it sank in a mere 55 minutes—the fastest of the three sisters' demises.
Panic ensued as lifeboats were launched prematurely, only to be sucked toward the still-spinning propellers, shredding boats and occupants alike. Violet's lifeboat met this fate; she leaped into the water just in time, only to be pulled under the keel. The massive ship struck her head as it passed overhead, but her thick auburn hair cushioned the blow enough to save her life (years later, X-rays revealed a fractured skull she never knew she had). Surfacing amid carnage, she clung to debris until rescued. Of 1,066 aboard, only 30 perished—but Violet, once more, was not among them.
Through three collisions with doom on the Olympic-class liners—collision, iceberg, mine—Violet Jessop emerged not just alive, but thriving. She continued sailing for decades, working for Red Star Line and Royal Mail Line, cruising the world until retirement in her 60s. She settled in a quiet Suffolk cottage, tending gardens and even receiving a mysterious late-night phone call from a woman claiming, "I was that baby" from the Titanic, before laughing and hanging up.
Was Violet Jessop the unluckiest woman alive, forever boarding doomed vessels? Or the luckiest, kissed by fate in the face of oblivion? History remembers her as "Miss Unsinkable"—a testament to resilience, duty, and an almost supernatural fortune that turned tragedy into legend.
And now, this piece itself holds her exact same luck. This is a religious piece and I’m not sure if it’s sterling or not.