'Titanic' Survivor Reflects, 90 Years Later

April 14, 2002 — -- When it set sail from Southampton, England, 90 years ago, the supposedly unsinkable Titanic was the very symbol of the future.

"We were not supposed to go on that ship; we were supposed to go on another one," says Millvena Dean, 90, of Ashurst, England, one of only four survivors still alive today. "But as there was a lack of coal and they wanted all the coal for the Titanic … so we were asked if we'd like to go on the Titanic. So my father was delighted."

But on April 14, 1912, on its maiden voyage, the Titanic hit an iceberg. It sank to the bottom of the frozen North Atlantic, more than 2 miles beneath the waves.

Dean was just an infant.

"My brother and I in were bed, and [family members] heard a crash and went to see what it was," she says. "Of course, they heard that the ship had struck an iceberg. And then my father acted so quickly, I'm pretty certain he saved us.

"He … got us up on deck to a lifeboat, where, as I said, the other people said, 'Oh no, it's unsinkable, it won't sink,'" Dean said. "But he was quicker on the uptake, and I think that's what saved us."

Dean's father, Bertram, saved his family but not himself. He was among the more than 1,500 of about 2,200 people on board the Titanic who died at sea. His daughter is the youngest of the four remaining survivors, who also include fellow Briton Barbara West, 91, and Americans Lillian Asplund, 96, and Winnifred Quick, 98.

The Titanic was originally scheduled to arrive in New York City, bringing with it many eager to start a new life in America. Instead, so many lives were lost, and entire families changed forever.

Contemporary newspapers reported an iceberg had brought down the jewel of the White Star Line in less than three hours. But we know now there was much more to the story.

"There was an arrogance about it all in some regards, too, disregarding the ice warnings, where other ships stopped and the Titanic steamed on — into fate," says oceanographer Robert Ballard, president of the Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn.