Missing Titanic Submarine Pilot Is Married to Descendent of Shipwreck’s Victims
22.06.2023 - 17:01
/ usmagazine.com
In another wild turn of events, one of the passengers aboard the missing Titanic submarine has a close connection to the famous shipwreck the vessel set out to visit.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush’s wife, Wendy Rush, is the great-great-granddaughter of first-class passengers Isidor and Ida Straus, according to archival records published by The New York Times on Wednesday, June 21. Born Wendy Hollings Weil, she is a descendant of one of the couple’s seven children named Minnie, who married Wendy’s great-grandfather Dr. Richard Weil in 1905.
According to the UK National Archives website, Isidor and Ida were traveling aboard the Titanic with Ida’s maid, Ellen Bird, and manservant, John Farthing, to return to the U.S. from their native Germany. Though they were directed to lifeboats as the ship was sinking, Isidor refused to board before younger men were given the chance. Ida, for her part, would not get on the lifeboat without her husband.
Ida reportedly gave Ellen her fur coat as she boarded a lifeboat, and the two died as the Titanic sank into the ocean. Isidor’s body was later recovered and buried in New York’s Woodlawn Commentary, while Ida and John’s remains were never discovered. The couple have been honored with a memorial in New York City’s Straus Park, which was also named after them.
Fans of the 1997 Oscar-winning film Titanic may recall seeing a fictionalized version of Isidor and Ida as the older couple shown holding each other in bed as water rushed into their room. The pair were also featured in a deleted scene as Ida tells her husband that she won’t board the lifeboat without him.
Stockton is among five passengers — including Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood and notable Titanic explorer Pau