Remembering RMS Titanic: April 15, 1912

    When I was a girl, I saw a black and white movie called A Night to Remember. This was probably the first time I’d seen the story of the RMS Titanic in any detail. Two characters stood out in my memory: Second Officer Charles H Lightoller and Assistant Telegraphist Harold Bride. These two men had been at their posts until all the lifeboats but the collapsible boats were away. Lightoller and Bride were on deck when the Titanic plunged under the surface, and they eventually washed up beside the overturned Collapsible B. They spent hours balanced on top of the half-submerged lifeboat with 14 other men. Lightoller was the last Titanic survivor to be picked up by the Carpathia.
    A few years later, I read Walter Lord’s classic account, which had inspired the film. I still have the battered paperback version on the shelf with all of the other Titanic books I’ve collected over the years. I’ve seen interest in the Titanic wax and wane over the years, especially with the find of the wreck in 1985 and the debut of James Cameron’s Titanic. Hundreds of new books have been published in recent years to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking. If anything, the captivating story of the Titanic looms larger than ever. As a librarian I've helped lots of children find books and other materials about the doomed luxury liner, so I know a new generation of Titanic buffs is in the making.

    Between Robert Ballard's discovery of the wreck of Titanic and Cameron's blockbuster, I started to sketch out my own story about life aboard ship based on survivors' memoirs and my own imagination. Second Officer Lightoller and Marconi operator Harold Bride would play a key role, as would the experiences of Jack Thayer Jr., Major Peuchen and Colonel Archibald Gracie. I imagined a trio of American women who would also be sailing on the maiden voyage of Titanic: an authoress and two wealthy young cousins summoned back to New York by their imperious grandmother. As ever, I was haunted by the tantalizing question, What if....
So this is how my story begins....

Autumn Across the Still Sea
Prologue

Fairview Lawn Cemetery

Halifax, Nova Scotia

    The wind off the cold sea whipped strands of hair across Althea's face, stinging her eyes. She held Chloe's hand tightly as they moved down the long, curving rows of gray headstones which all bore the same date: April 15, 1912. 

    A bright cluster of daffodils and blue hyacinths marked each grave. When they reached the memorial they sought, the small girl laid a large bouquet of peach, yellow and ivory roses before the stone. Chloe looked up at her mother, her green eyes soft with sadness. 

    Unable to stop the flood of hot tears, Althea gently traced the engraved letters on the stone. Chloe hugged her mother's legs, burying her face in the thick wool of Althea's black cape. Long-suppressed emotions surged through Althea like a furious storm tide. The rough wind chafing her cheeks, she remembered the false promise of that cruel April five long years ago.

Image courtesy http://www.publicdomaintreasurehunter.com/