January 9, 2020 • 34 mins
Have you ever been on a cruise ship? Have your ship ever sank? This happened not once, not twice, but three times to cabin attendant Violet Jessop. Tune in to learn more about how the resourceful (and lucky) Ms. Jessop lived through three shipwrecks — including the sinking of the Titanic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. We do hope you enjoyed our previous episode
on the mysterious not so mysterious story of the Mary Celeste.
Why do we hope you enjoyed it because this story
is also about the ocean and ships and unfortunate things
occurring related to those two Hi, I'm betting, Hi'm no. Yeah,
(00:49):
we're continuing in a bit of a nautical theme here.
We're doing themed episodes. Yeah, we're getting it together. It's
definitely gonna happen. We're gonna get to the rest of
those states that we never covered. We might do that
Nixon episode, assuming super producer Casey Pegram lets us. It's
(01:10):
a little tough sell. Can I do a little disclaimer
here at the top of the show, not a disclaimer,
disclaim I don't know whatever exclamation Perhaps I don't know
the order of the twelve days of Christmas. This does
this bother you? It bothers me? Then, Because um, my
name is Noel often mispronounced as Noel. It is a
(01:30):
Christmas e name. I should be a Christmas expert Uh.
And on that episode, I'm gonna blame the noog, the
very strong knog. I kind of sounded like a blithering
idiot when it comes to the chronology of the Twelve
Days of Christmas? Am I really bothered by it? Did
I lose sleep over the holidays? Yes? Absolutely? Okay, well
(01:51):
I thought I did. Think it was weird because you
you said, I'm going to quiz myself and this will
be fun, and I didn't know what Casey and I
were supposed to do, but try to help you. It's
just weird because it was like it was like a
little bit of I think you doing your own thing. Well,
it was a little bit of me trying to flex
my Christmas chops, which apparently are non existent. I was impressive.
(02:12):
You just remembered what the gifts were. The order doesn't
really whatever. The thing that I got so fundamentally wrong
is I claimed that they do not go in chronological order. Uh.
And that is just absolutely false. That there's you know,
the first day is one thing, the second day you
get two things, third day you get three things. So
(02:33):
there's not like five on the third day or something
like that. On the fifth day you get five golden rings. Okay, okay,
Well that that would probably bother me if I made that.
I I made this claim that they were not chronological,
that they they were willy nilly, and that's just not
the case. So now I've got it off my chest.
I feel so much better. So thank you guys for
indulging me in that. I like that we're doing things
(02:53):
out of order again because this comes out second, but
we're talking about the episode that came before. Yeah, but
that's okay. That starts edition. It's it's a new tradition.
It is on the case. Well, well, I'm glad you
feel better, and hopefully you'll also make you feel better
to know that I think you're you're the only one
who was upset about that. I think everybody was fine.
(03:14):
It was endearing. Reports of my upsetted nous have been
much exaggerated by myself. Okay, I suspected as much. Uh
have you guys ever been in a in a accident
of any sort, like a vehicular accident, I mean not
like a accidental switchero of of of a name or
(03:35):
something like that, but like a car accident that would
be the most common for people in the US, right
or a bicycle accident. Do you have any stories about that? Yeah?
If I once, uh had a bird scooter accident, I
jacked my wrist up pretty bad for quite a few months.
I've been in a couple of fender benders and cars,
but that's about the bird scooter was the most dramatic
(03:55):
by far. Though. The bird scooters are also leaving the city,
thank god, Yeah they are. What about the lift scooters?
I think all of the scooters of that variety. You're kidding,
that's the rumor coup. Well, we'll see, we'll see how
it how it works out, Uh, probably because of some
of the things you've mentioned, you know, and I know
you're a careful scooterist. Casey, what about you? Do you
(04:16):
have any accidents? Nothing too serious? Um, just a few
times like minor finner binner's kind of getting like tapped
in the bumper at a stoplight or something, but thankfully
nothing too U too drastic. Guys. Now, I feel a
little bit awkward because I have been in tons of
accidents and tons of near misses. I was almost in
a plane crash, by which I mean I was in
(04:36):
a plane that almost crashed. I was in a school
bus that almost went careening off a cliff and did
actually get some air on the front right tire. I
have been in numerous car accidents, uh, numerous bike accidents.
I have not yet been in a boating or maritime accident.
(04:59):
And and I think we're talking about here, neither none
of us have been. Right, Casey had my favorite line. Yeah,
I was asking myself, have I been on a ship?
Have I been on a boat? Because I really wasn't sure.
I know, I've been on some ferries, and uh, I've
been on some like small boats like you know, Lake
Lanier scale kind of stuff, just like four or five
(05:20):
people kind of thing. But I don't think I've ever
been on like a big ship, like a cruise ship
kind of thing. But I did have to kind of
ask myself that I didn't really know off end, Wait,
have you ever taken like a tour of a battleship
that was moored, like that was docked. Yeah, I've done that.
I have done that, but I feel like that doesn't
count because it's anchored and stationary and you're not out
on the open water. I could absolutely say that is
(05:41):
the only scenario where I've set foot on a large
scale ship. I think I've walked around a submarine even
in that same capacity, you're a real man of mr.
It's because when I was a kid like that, that
was the kind of stuff my dad would always want
to do when we're on vacation. It's like go see
the boat or whatever, and uh, you know, it didn't
interest me that much. But yeah, I feel like vaguely
(06:01):
that I've I've done some of that stuff. A bit
of a history buff Huh. Yeah, please in the navy.
So there you go. That makes sense that that that
makes sense I've had. I've had similar experiences. I've been
on large boats that haven't wrecked while I was on them.
But even if you have been in uh in a
record unfortunate incident on the high seas, you probably haven't
(06:26):
had the experience of today's protagonist, Violet Jessup, who has
as Gabe likes to call her, a research associate. Gabe
likes to call her the unsinkable Stewardess. Consider this, like,
if the if the four of us or five of us,
you know, the three of us recording you listening, if
(06:46):
we were all on a boat together, Let's say, through
some weird series of circumstances, you ended up on a themed,
ridiculous history cruise, which I have a I have a
tough time saying that with a straight face. But what
if we were on this ridiculous history cruise and the
cruise ship crashed and not everybody got out, but you survived.
(07:09):
Wouldn't you consider yourself very lucky? Absolutely? Wouldn't you also
never go on a boat again. I don't think I
would know. And and maybe there's a reason that I
am not a cruise type person, because it seems kind
of like being part of a weird herd that just
goes to like, you know, it's being like in prison,
like on a on the sea, where you have to
(07:30):
go eat at a certain time, go play shuffle board
at a certain time. Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, folks,
if I'm mischaracterizing what is perhaps a very enjoyable experience. Um,
you know, and the Titanic was meant to be a
pleasure cruise. That was the idea. It was very very
high class. Only the best of the best, high society
folks were able to get a ticket and violate. Jessup
(07:54):
was one of the attendants on that voyage, that doomed voyage, right,
Violet called since Jessup enjoyed incredible luck she had. She
had a really stressful existence. She actually survived not one,
but three different shipwrecks. She was born in eighteen seven
(08:15):
in Argentina. Her parents were Irish immigrants, and as a child,
she unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and was officially diagnosed with just
a few months to live. However, obviously she survived. However,
six of her eight siblings died young, and her father
also died when she was relatively young, and the family
(08:39):
returned to Britain. Her mother became a stewardess for the
Royal Male Line while Violet attendant school at a convent,
and then her mother's health declined, so Violet gave up
school to become a stewardess herself. Yeah, she followed in
her mother's footsteps seven, joining the Royal Male Line and
(08:59):
then White Star, the apparent company of the Titanic. But
it wasn't easy. Um. She was twenty one. She didn't
really have much experience experience at all, um, and most
of the folks that were in this industry were seasoned
veterans in their you know, thirties to early forties. Um,
(09:20):
And she was very green and was trying to get
into this industry, following in her mother's footsteps, and she
was rejected quite a bit. Yeah, get a get a
lotat of the sexism here. People who might be her
future employers said that her youth and good looks would
be disadvantageous and they were worried this would cause problems
(09:41):
with the crew and the passengers. And it is true
that over the course of her career, Jessup got at
least three marriage proposals that we know of while she
was working on one ship or another. Uh, and one
was from a very well healed gentleman. So Violet takes
this quote unquote problem into her own hand. She decides
(10:01):
to make herself look frumpy. And in this this description
reminds me of you know, all those rom com movies
where someone is uh supposed to be mousey and they're
a librarian for like the first two thirds of the movie,
but they're clearly a movie star level attractive person. They
(10:21):
just wear different. They wear like a cardigan and classes
or something. Well, we were talking about like the reverse
of that, because the trope is like the very the
secretly attractive person um just doesn't understand her inner beauty
and then you know, when she takes off the glasses
and lets down the nerdy hair bun or all of
a sudden, you know, the hot football guy sees her
(10:43):
for who she truly is beautiful. Exactly what she's doing
here is almost a Mulan style situation where she's trying
to pass for unattractive and old um, which is really
interesting that she would have had to do that, especially
knowing what we know about the other side of the
sexism that would ultimately become like, you know, we're talking
(11:04):
about pan Am and you know the age of the swinging,
you know, sky lounges and attractive stewardesses in many skirts. Stewardesses,
by the way, not an okay term to use. Flight
attendant if you please this or steward the head steward
I believe I think that's probably finding stewardess recalls these
(11:27):
sexist days. I was listening to an interview on NPR
with someone who's the head of that particular union, and
the interviewer asked if that term was okay to use,
and she very much was like no, because it's hearkens
back to these these times and then the future times
where you know that kind of uh attractive dress was encouraged,
if not required, mandatory. It was mandatory, and they also
(11:48):
couldn't be married, and they also had to be below
a certain age. Yeah, I got real nasty, I would say, though,
I'm what I'm arguing here is that the same way
that Romcom troops like resting differently, don't fool the audience.
This also clearly did not fool the real life passengers
with whom she interacted, hence the marriage proposals, but it
(12:10):
did fool the people she interviewed with because she said,
I'm not gonna wear makeup. I'm gonna try to wear old,
out of style, ill fitting clothing and it works. She
gets hired. She has a brief stint on a Royal
mail line steamer the Orinoco, and in she's hired by
the White Star line. She originally did not want to
(12:34):
work for White Star because she didn't like the idea
of the North Atlantic run. She had a problem with
the weather, and she had heard stories about the passengers
they were notorious for being real pills. But she decided
to do it anyway. She worked seventeen hours a day.
She was paid two dollars and ten shillings per month.
(13:01):
So after UM, you know, some some struggles and finding
a situation that she like, she um ultimately found herself
on the RMS Olympic, which was at the time the
largest civilians called passenger liner. Um. She's twenty three at
the time, and that is also when she would have
(13:22):
her very first shipwreck situation. Right in nineteen eleven, the
Olympic collided with the h MS Hawk, and the Hawk
was not a passenger liner. It was a ship that
was designed to sink other ships by ramming them. Both
of the ships had pretty substantial damage. The Olympic had
(13:43):
its whole breach below the waterline, but through some miracle,
it did not actually sink and was able to make
it back to port. Violet survived the shipwreck. She wasn't
even injured. Both ships were later repaired put back into service.
So no harm, no foul. A frightening event for for sure,
(14:04):
but not a fatal one and as as we know,
UM there weren't deaths involved there. There was no fatality crash,
but still for many people that would be more than
enough to put you off of put you off a boat,
to make you a land lubber. For life. This was
not the case with Violet. A few years later, the
(14:28):
White Star Line was looking for a crew to uh
to serve the very important people aboard their premiership, the
jewel in their crown, a ship that they, along with
all the media by the way, called unsinkable, and that
ship was the Titanic. Violet didn't really want to join
(14:50):
the Titanic, but her friends were talking to her and
they were like, you know, Violet, this is gonna be
a wonderful experience. Is one of the kind ship. It's unsinkable.
Bo bo bo bo boo. Her friends spoke with echoes
and the really dramatic parts. Uh So she said, all right,
I'm gonna I'm gonna join up. It was a big deal.
It was an event. You know. It was sort of
(15:12):
like the Boeing Dreamliner or something of the time. You know,
a lot of fuss being made out of this technological marvel.
Everyone who was anyone was going to be on the
maiden voyage. It was absolutely a cultural event. And her
friends are probably like, you gotta be a part of this.
It's a big deal. You're gonna see so many famous people.
It's going to be part of history. You do not
(15:34):
want to pass this up, So she didn't really care.
I don't think it didn't seem like from her history, uh,
to be super drawn to any of this glitz and glamour.
She just wanted to work right. Yeah, And we have
we have a little bit of firsthand reporting from her
via her memoirs, and we know that she was initially happy.
(15:59):
I see, in no small part she was surprised by
the nature of her life on the ship. She loved
that the designer, Thomas Andrews, appeared to have paid attention
to the cruise request for better quarters. She said. Often
during our rounds we came upon our beloved designer going
about unobtrusively with a tired face but satisfied air. He
(16:22):
never failed to stop for a cheerful word, his only
regret being that we were getting further from home. We
all knew the love that he had for that Irish
home of his, and suspected that he loaned to get
back to the piece of its atmosphere for a much
needed rest and to forget ship designing for a while.
And she also, you know, we learned about her day
to day on the on the Titanic Um she claims
(16:45):
to be friends with notable characters who were on the
boat at the same time. We even know some stuff
about her roommate. We know that she found solace in
walking around on deck at night, taking a little I
guess nightcap walk to get some of that fresh air.
(17:05):
And then we know something a little bit I would
say ominous. Her roommate brought along a copy of a
translated Hebrew prayer that she said an elderly Irish woman
had given her, and it was strangely worded as nearest
she in. Her roommate, Elizabeth Leather could tell it was
(17:27):
supposed to protect her against fire and water. We should
mention at this point Violet was a devout Catholic. She
carried rosary in her apron she you know, she was
a person given to praying as as she deemed it necessary.
Which brings us to the night of that fateful collision
April of nineteen twelve, when Violet was kind of dozing
(17:52):
off in her bunk. She claims to have not been
fully asleep, but kind of just in a drowsy state.
Um when that collision and with an iceberg took place. Yeah, yeah,
she is ordered up on deck. She says. Passengers are
strolling out calmly. She and her co workers watch watch
(18:14):
the women and children being put into life boats, and
then a ship's officer orders them into a boat, um first,
just to show some funeral passengers it's safe. And then
as the boat is being lowered, she recalls this officer
in question says, here, miss jessup, look after this baby
and just hands him a baby. I don't want to
(18:35):
be that's a that's a very intense situation to be in. Yeah,
And the quote from her actually describes it even more intense.
It says, and a bundle was dropped onto my lap.
That implies I guess the boat was being lowered down
and somebody just dropped a baby off the edge of
the ship into the lifeboat, which would have been a
little way as beneath. I mean, good thing. He caught it, Violet.
Good catch. So they survive. They're only in the boat
(18:59):
for about eight horrifying hours before they and other survivors
are picked up by the Carpathia into Her life was
saved entirely because that officer asked her to get in
a lifeboat. Because there were other passengers who didn't speak
English and couldn't communicate very well, and seeing her get
in the lifeboat would persuade the other people to to
(19:24):
follow her example. So when they were rescued by the Carpathia,
the person that Jessup thought might be the baby's mother
found Violet Jessup and took the baby away, literally grabbed
it out of her arms and ran off. She says,
I was still clutching the baby against my hard cork
(19:45):
life belt I was wearing when a woman leaped at
me and grabbed the baby rushed off with it. It
appeared that she put it down on the deck of
the Titanic while she went off to fetch something. When
she came back, the baby had gone. I was too
frozen and numb to think. It's strange that this woman
had not stopped to say thank you. And we also
don't know if that was really the baby's mother or
if it was just, uh, somebody who had put a
(20:09):
child down earlier and just grabbed a baby because they
thought it was there. Totally, I mean, this would have
been like absolutely, you know mayhem um, so right, she
definitely survived her second pretty catastrophic um ship collision. Yeah,
So again, you would think most other people. I don't
(20:30):
want to pay with the broad brush, but I feel
comfortable saying this. Most other people after Big shipwreck number
two would probably say, I don't know, maybe I'll maybe
I'll get into uh, you know, like gardening, or maybe
I will become an interior designer. One would think, Um,
there's a Gizmoto article about Jessup that has a pretty
(20:51):
interesting almost when you read it makes it seem a
little flippant where she says it was only after a
little while passed after the wreck that she real she
had left her toothbrush on board, and then she was
she was a little upset about that. That's a that's
an odd thing to worry about. I mean, that's how
shock happens. Though, if you if you have ever been
in catastrophic situations or seeing people in shock, it's it's
(21:15):
easy to find one specific thing and worry about just that.
And it doesn't have to even be a traumatic, physically
dangerous situation. You can see people freak out at social
events like weddings, you know, or or or funerals. Um,
it's it's a it's a fascinating thing about psychology. And
(21:36):
although many people lost their lives and Violet Jessup tragically
lost her toothbrush. She found another, and she said, you
know what, maybe the sea got me last time, but
I didn't sink, and I'm not gonna let my career
sink either. So as we're in the lead up to
World War One, she says, I'm going to serve as
a nurse on board the Britannic, which was a sister
(22:00):
of the Titanic, operating the G and C. And the
Britannic was a white star liner that had been converted
to a hospital ship during World War One. It's so
interesting that she would not only continue working on ships,
(22:22):
but work with the same company. Uh. Maybe it was
like not fully realized right away what an absolute catastrophic
failing the sinking of the Titanic was, you know that
it was. I don't know what what was the post
mortem for the Titanic. Wasn't there a flaw in the
design because they had this whole like these compartments that
(22:45):
kept filling up with water. Wasn't there something more to
it than? I mean, like it was. It's also a
lot of human error, human error, that's right. I think
it was more human error than it was the design
was a pretty decent one, but it just failed miserably
because of the extent to which the ship was just
like breached, right, the whole was breached by that very
pointy iceberg. Um. So yeah, she not only did she
(23:06):
stay working for the same company, she goes aboard the
sister ship of the ship that just sank in an
absurdly traumatic fashion. Um. But she seems like a really
good person because she's very much just wants to help.
Like she decides she's going to become a nurse and
put any of these, uh, these fears aside so that
she can, you know, get back to work and help people. Uh.
(23:28):
And that's when in nineteen sixteen, the Britannic hit a
mine that had been planted by one of those infamous
German U boats um that were so tricky with their
kind of covert operations out there in the oceans. Um.
And it was damaged pretty significantly and started to sink
(23:50):
and violate. Uh. This time wasn't quite as lucky as
she was when she was on the Titanic. She didn't
get a spot on one of those lifeboats, did she? No, no,
not at all. We shallso did did we? Did we
mention how long the boat was in action the britic No,
it was less than an hour. It was it was
a hospital ship to World War one for about fifty
(24:12):
five minutes. Uh at least in this in this iteration,
and you're right, Noll. Violet did not get on a lifeboat.
She jumped overboard. She almost got sucked into the propellers,
which would spell certain death. They were sticking up out
of the water, they were still running. She hit her
head on the ship's keel, and she probably would have died.
(24:35):
This was one of her most extreme shipwrecks. However, as
luck would have a passengers of a nearby lifeboat saw
her body and were able to pull her in. We
have her own words about this experience. She says, I
leapt into the water, but was sucked under the ship's keel,
which struck my head. I escaped, but years later when
(24:57):
I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches,
he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull.
And and she even kind of joked that the only
reason she survived was because she had a very thick
head of hair, which she characterized as having um kind
of helped soften the blow a bit, but she wouldn't
(25:19):
know for years that she actually fractured her skull hitting
her head there. And there's a Mental Floss article about
the Unsinkable Violet jessup Um that mentions something that she
has said in an interview um where when she um
abandoned the Titanic and she was so concerned about missing
her toothbrush. With this one, she really was a big
(25:40):
stickler for oral hygiene. It would seem because she grabbed
her toothbrush on the rapidly sinking Britannic. Um, I'm assuming
clutching it in her fist. Do you think do you
think she made it? Do you think she do you
think it like I like to think of her pirate
style with it in between her teeth like a like
a knife. But she probably grabbed it or put it
(26:00):
in a pocket or something. But yeah, you know, you
if he can say anything about Violet jessif it's that
she got her priorities straight. And also imagine if you're
a fervently religious person, a devoutly religious person, then this
feels like proof of a higher power. Right, It's the
third shipwreck that you've survived. The odds are against you, right,
(26:24):
And you know, we talked about the top of the show,
this idea of her being really really lucky. You could
say that you could also say that she wasn't particularly lucky.
She was in three shipwrecks. She did survive, but almost
like you know, bad luck kind of followed her and
she luckily was able to kind of dodge the blow.
Um it's it's a glass half full is but this
(26:48):
was finally, um reason enough for her to seek alternate employment,
but still in the ship business. She left the White
Star line. She went to the Red Star Line. She
did she worked as an attendant on cruises. Still seems
to be tempting star right. Well, I guess after your
(27:09):
three shipwreck you decide you're going to change at least
the color. Luckily, she was never involved in a shipwreck
of catastrophic sort again. After World War Two, she worked
as a clerk for a while, but then she went
back to working on Royal male ships for a while,
and then when she retired at the age of sixty one,
she spent her time gardening and raising chickens. Uh. We
(27:33):
do know that she got married once in her late thirties,
but all we know about the marriage is that she
described it as brief and disastrous. She did a lot
of interviews. She was interviewed for Woman magazine when the
film A Night to Remember was released in nineteen fifty eight,
and her home was filled with mementos of her time
(27:55):
at sea. Yeah, and you don't really think of the
world looking for a ship attendance. I don't want to
use stewarts. We said that was a bad one on
the top, but I guess at the time that was
what they were called. You don't really think of stewardesses
in these days writing very noteworthy memoirs. But if you
think about it, Um she had a complete insiders perspective
(28:16):
on the Titanic and everything that took place. In fact,
some people think that the character of Lucy in the
John Cameron Titanic film was based on on jessup Um.
She also had just I mean, you know that being
in that position on all of these different ships is
pretty interesting from a historical perspective, just to talk about
(28:37):
the way things happened, not to mention some pretty significant
maritime disasters. So she wrote a memoir Um very soon
after retiring at the age of sixty three, and she
wrote quite well by all accounts, um it was very
articulate and was able to really give a look at
life at sea from that vantage point and saw a
(28:59):
lot out of things that the average passenger or the
captain wouldn't see, because a cabin attendant moves through all
the hierarchies of the ship and is familiar with everything
before the curtain and behind it. So we get a
little bit of a of a downton abbey vibe, you know,
where they have the downstairs people in the upstairs people.
(29:22):
And here our tail draws to a close. Is Violet
just up the only person to survive multiple shipwrecks? Absolutely not.
Is she one of the most well known people to
survive multiple shipwrecks? Absolutely But this made us think off
air about other strange, you know, close brushes with death,
(29:44):
like the people, Uh I think, Casey, you may have
mentioned earlier people getting struck by lightning multiple times. That happens. Yeah,
there's been a few, uh well known cases I guess
of that happening. And no, contrary to what uh certain
films may have you believe, it does not give you superpowers.
I'm also thinking what would be the weirdest vehicle to
(30:05):
wrect Maybe a blimp nowadays, that'd be a weird one
to wreck. Well, yeah, I mean we've got the Hindenburg.
That's so it's been done. It's been done. Maybe. Yeah,
I've already got the bird scooter thing on. Yeah, you've
got that one hot air balloon maybe, But I feel
like those sort of wreck anyway. Do you guys remember
(30:26):
balloon boy? Whose balloon Boy? It was a fake story,
but it was reported as real for a while that
there's some kid who like got into a hot air
balloon and it took off without his parents, and so
they were like, we gotta get the kid down. And
you know, there's like news cameras following this hot air
balloon just floating around, and uh turns out the family
was in on it. The kid was hiding at home,
(30:47):
and uh they just did it for like reality show
publicity kind of stuff. Wow, terrible parents. Uh okay, well,
let let us know what what vehicle we should try
to be involved. I don't that sounds weird when I
say it that way. Oh, A Chrono blonds, you know
about those? They're these weird half boat half plane things.
(31:08):
E k R A n O plan. Look it up
when you have time. Folks. It's it's very strange. I've
always wanted to to be in one, and if I
were driving or piloting, I would probably wreck it. But
this concludes our story. We know that everybody has had
these close brushes with disaster and it can it can
(31:30):
fundamentally alter your worldview. But how would you feel after
shipwrecked number one? How would you feel about shipwrecked number two? Great?
About either? Right? Right? And I think, uh, here in
the studio, at least the three of us are pretty
unanimous that at least after shipwrecked number two, we would
give some serious consideration to staying on land. But you know,
(31:54):
three people, that's a small sample size. Give us your thoughts.
We would love to hear from you. You can finds
on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook, you can
find us on Twitter. We especially love to recommend our
community page Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. Yeah, how you do
have have to invoke one or both or uh the
three of our names and you're in like Flynn, or
(32:15):
just say something, make make any of us laugh, or
just make a make a silly reference to a topic
on this show, just to let us know that You're
not Russian Bach. You can also find us in our
poisonal lives on on the internet. I am at Ben
Bullen on Instagram and I'm at Ben Bullin hs W
on Twitter. You can find me exclusively on Instagram at
(32:36):
how Now Noel Brown. Huge thanks to our super producer
Casey Pegram, Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Research associate
Extraordinary Gabe Big, Big thanks of course to Christopher Hasiotis.
Big thanks also to Eve's Jeff Coat and Jonathan Strickland,
a k a. The Quister, who shall be returning soon.
(32:56):
I do also want to say is you know the
three of us travel quite frequently, and I'm a person
who travels all the time. I want to say thank
you so much to everyone who works in the travel industry,
whether you are moving goods from one place to another
for people, whether you are working as a flight or
(33:18):
cabin attendant, which I could never do, whether you are
a pilot so on, thank you, thank you very much.
And I do want to say for everybody who is
traveling as a passenger, whether on a plane, train, or
a boat or an automobile, uh please please just behave yourselves.
(33:39):
People get crazy in planes. We should do something about
that at some point, as an episode or as a society. Absolutely, Ben,
have you ever seen the film Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Yeah,
I recently watched it for the first time and which
found it heartwarming, funny and and just an all around delight.
How about you. Oh yeah, that's a that's a great
monologue that we can't quote here. Yeah, there's there's one
(34:01):
scene that makes it an R rated movie. It is
a a very soft PG thirteen prior to this one
scene where uh, Steve Martin um goes ham on a
rental car attendance. Uh. And it's it's one of the
best uses of the F word I have seen in
a film because it actually they earn it, and it's
(34:22):
definitely for shock value because you don't get anything like that.
But he has worked his way up to being this
enraged and it absolutely does feel earned. Also, Steve Martin
is an amazing banjo player, one of the best, one
of the best. It's a true story. You see you
next time, folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(34:49):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. We do hope you enjoyed our previous episode
on the mysterious not so mysterious story of the Mary Celeste.
Why do we hope you enjoyed it because this story
is also about the ocean and ships and unfortunate things
occurring related to those two Hi, I'm betting, Hi'm no. Yeah,
(00:49):
we're continuing in a bit of a nautical theme here.
We're doing themed episodes. Yeah, we're getting it together. It's
definitely gonna happen. We're gonna get to the rest of
those states that we never covered. We might do that
Nixon episode, assuming super producer Casey Pegram lets us. It's
(01:10):
a little tough sell. Can I do a little disclaimer
here at the top of the show, not a disclaimer,
disclaim I don't know whatever exclamation Perhaps I don't know
the order of the twelve days of Christmas. This does
this bother you? It bothers me? Then, Because um, my
name is Noel often mispronounced as Noel. It is a
(01:30):
Christmas e name. I should be a Christmas expert Uh.
And on that episode, I'm gonna blame the noog, the
very strong knog. I kind of sounded like a blithering
idiot when it comes to the chronology of the Twelve
Days of Christmas? Am I really bothered by it? Did
I lose sleep over the holidays? Yes? Absolutely? Okay, well
(01:51):
I thought I did. Think it was weird because you
you said, I'm going to quiz myself and this will
be fun, and I didn't know what Casey and I
were supposed to do, but try to help you. It's
just weird because it was like it was like a
little bit of I think you doing your own thing. Well,
it was a little bit of me trying to flex
my Christmas chops, which apparently are non existent. I was impressive.
(02:12):
You just remembered what the gifts were. The order doesn't
really whatever. The thing that I got so fundamentally wrong
is I claimed that they do not go in chronological order. Uh.
And that is just absolutely false. That there's you know,
the first day is one thing, the second day you
get two things, third day you get three things. So
(02:33):
there's not like five on the third day or something
like that. On the fifth day you get five golden rings. Okay, okay,
Well that that would probably bother me if I made that.
I I made this claim that they were not chronological,
that they they were willy nilly, and that's just not
the case. So now I've got it off my chest.
I feel so much better. So thank you guys for
indulging me in that. I like that we're doing things
(02:53):
out of order again because this comes out second, but
we're talking about the episode that came before. Yeah, but
that's okay. That starts edition. It's it's a new tradition.
It is on the case. Well, well, I'm glad you
feel better, and hopefully you'll also make you feel better
to know that I think you're you're the only one
who was upset about that. I think everybody was fine.
(03:14):
It was endearing. Reports of my upsetted nous have been
much exaggerated by myself. Okay, I suspected as much. Uh
have you guys ever been in a in a accident
of any sort, like a vehicular accident, I mean not
like a accidental switchero of of of a name or
(03:35):
something like that, but like a car accident that would
be the most common for people in the US, right
or a bicycle accident. Do you have any stories about that? Yeah?
If I once, uh had a bird scooter accident, I
jacked my wrist up pretty bad for quite a few months.
I've been in a couple of fender benders and cars,
but that's about the bird scooter was the most dramatic
(03:55):
by far. Though. The bird scooters are also leaving the city,
thank god, Yeah they are. What about the lift scooters?
I think all of the scooters of that variety. You're kidding,
that's the rumor coup. Well, we'll see, we'll see how
it how it works out, Uh, probably because of some
of the things you've mentioned, you know, and I know
you're a careful scooterist. Casey, what about you? Do you
(04:16):
have any accidents? Nothing too serious? Um, just a few
times like minor finner binner's kind of getting like tapped
in the bumper at a stoplight or something, but thankfully
nothing too U too drastic. Guys. Now, I feel a
little bit awkward because I have been in tons of
accidents and tons of near misses. I was almost in
a plane crash, by which I mean I was in
(04:36):
a plane that almost crashed. I was in a school
bus that almost went careening off a cliff and did
actually get some air on the front right tire. I
have been in numerous car accidents, uh, numerous bike accidents.
I have not yet been in a boating or maritime accident.
(04:59):
And and I think we're talking about here, neither none
of us have been. Right, Casey had my favorite line. Yeah,
I was asking myself, have I been on a ship?
Have I been on a boat? Because I really wasn't sure.
I know, I've been on some ferries, and uh, I've
been on some like small boats like you know, Lake
Lanier scale kind of stuff, just like four or five
(05:20):
people kind of thing. But I don't think I've ever
been on like a big ship, like a cruise ship
kind of thing. But I did have to kind of
ask myself that I didn't really know off end, Wait,
have you ever taken like a tour of a battleship
that was moored, like that was docked. Yeah, I've done that.
I have done that, but I feel like that doesn't
count because it's anchored and stationary and you're not out
on the open water. I could absolutely say that is
(05:41):
the only scenario where I've set foot on a large
scale ship. I think I've walked around a submarine even
in that same capacity, you're a real man of mr.
It's because when I was a kid like that, that
was the kind of stuff my dad would always want
to do when we're on vacation. It's like go see
the boat or whatever, and uh, you know, it didn't
interest me that much. But yeah, I feel like vaguely
(06:01):
that I've I've done some of that stuff. A bit
of a history buff Huh. Yeah, please in the navy.
So there you go. That makes sense that that that
makes sense I've had. I've had similar experiences. I've been
on large boats that haven't wrecked while I was on them.
But even if you have been in uh in a
record unfortunate incident on the high seas, you probably haven't
(06:26):
had the experience of today's protagonist, Violet Jessup, who has
as Gabe likes to call her, a research associate. Gabe
likes to call her the unsinkable Stewardess. Consider this, like,
if the if the four of us or five of us,
you know, the three of us recording you listening, if
(06:46):
we were all on a boat together, Let's say, through
some weird series of circumstances, you ended up on a themed,
ridiculous history cruise, which I have a I have a
tough time saying that with a straight face. But what
if we were on this ridiculous history cruise and the
cruise ship crashed and not everybody got out, but you survived.
(07:09):
Wouldn't you consider yourself very lucky? Absolutely? Wouldn't you also
never go on a boat again. I don't think I
would know. And and maybe there's a reason that I
am not a cruise type person, because it seems kind
of like being part of a weird herd that just
goes to like, you know, it's being like in prison,
like on a on the sea, where you have to
(07:30):
go eat at a certain time, go play shuffle board
at a certain time. Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, folks,
if I'm mischaracterizing what is perhaps a very enjoyable experience. Um,
you know, and the Titanic was meant to be a
pleasure cruise. That was the idea. It was very very
high class. Only the best of the best, high society
folks were able to get a ticket and violate. Jessup
(07:54):
was one of the attendants on that voyage, that doomed voyage, right,
Violet called since Jessup enjoyed incredible luck she had. She
had a really stressful existence. She actually survived not one,
but three different shipwrecks. She was born in eighteen seven
(08:15):
in Argentina. Her parents were Irish immigrants, and as a child,
she unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and was officially diagnosed with just
a few months to live. However, obviously she survived. However,
six of her eight siblings died young, and her father
also died when she was relatively young, and the family
(08:39):
returned to Britain. Her mother became a stewardess for the
Royal Male Line while Violet attendant school at a convent,
and then her mother's health declined, so Violet gave up
school to become a stewardess herself. Yeah, she followed in
her mother's footsteps seven, joining the Royal Male Line and
(08:59):
then White Star, the apparent company of the Titanic. But
it wasn't easy. Um. She was twenty one. She didn't
really have much experience experience at all, um, and most
of the folks that were in this industry were seasoned
veterans in their you know, thirties to early forties. Um,
(09:20):
And she was very green and was trying to get
into this industry, following in her mother's footsteps, and she
was rejected quite a bit. Yeah, get a get a
lotat of the sexism here. People who might be her
future employers said that her youth and good looks would
be disadvantageous and they were worried this would cause problems
(09:41):
with the crew and the passengers. And it is true
that over the course of her career, Jessup got at
least three marriage proposals that we know of while she
was working on one ship or another. Uh, and one
was from a very well healed gentleman. So Violet takes
this quote unquote problem into her own hand. She decides
(10:01):
to make herself look frumpy. And in this this description
reminds me of you know, all those rom com movies
where someone is uh supposed to be mousey and they're
a librarian for like the first two thirds of the movie,
but they're clearly a movie star level attractive person. They
(10:21):
just wear different. They wear like a cardigan and classes
or something. Well, we were talking about like the reverse
of that, because the trope is like the very the
secretly attractive person um just doesn't understand her inner beauty
and then you know, when she takes off the glasses
and lets down the nerdy hair bun or all of
a sudden, you know, the hot football guy sees her
(10:43):
for who she truly is beautiful. Exactly what she's doing
here is almost a Mulan style situation where she's trying
to pass for unattractive and old um, which is really
interesting that she would have had to do that, especially
knowing what we know about the other side of the
sexism that would ultimately become like, you know, we're talking
(11:04):
about pan Am and you know the age of the swinging,
you know, sky lounges and attractive stewardesses in many skirts. Stewardesses,
by the way, not an okay term to use. Flight
attendant if you please this or steward the head steward
I believe I think that's probably finding stewardess recalls these
(11:27):
sexist days. I was listening to an interview on NPR
with someone who's the head of that particular union, and
the interviewer asked if that term was okay to use,
and she very much was like no, because it's hearkens
back to these these times and then the future times
where you know that kind of uh attractive dress was encouraged,
if not required, mandatory. It was mandatory, and they also
(11:48):
couldn't be married, and they also had to be below
a certain age. Yeah, I got real nasty, I would say, though,
I'm what I'm arguing here is that the same way
that Romcom troops like resting differently, don't fool the audience.
This also clearly did not fool the real life passengers
with whom she interacted, hence the marriage proposals, but it
(12:10):
did fool the people she interviewed with because she said,
I'm not gonna wear makeup. I'm gonna try to wear old,
out of style, ill fitting clothing and it works. She
gets hired. She has a brief stint on a Royal
mail line steamer the Orinoco, and in she's hired by
the White Star line. She originally did not want to
(12:34):
work for White Star because she didn't like the idea
of the North Atlantic run. She had a problem with
the weather, and she had heard stories about the passengers
they were notorious for being real pills. But she decided
to do it anyway. She worked seventeen hours a day.
She was paid two dollars and ten shillings per month.
(13:01):
So after UM, you know, some some struggles and finding
a situation that she like, she um ultimately found herself
on the RMS Olympic, which was at the time the
largest civilians called passenger liner. Um. She's twenty three at
the time, and that is also when she would have
(13:22):
her very first shipwreck situation. Right in nineteen eleven, the
Olympic collided with the h MS Hawk, and the Hawk
was not a passenger liner. It was a ship that
was designed to sink other ships by ramming them. Both
of the ships had pretty substantial damage. The Olympic had
(13:43):
its whole breach below the waterline, but through some miracle,
it did not actually sink and was able to make
it back to port. Violet survived the shipwreck. She wasn't
even injured. Both ships were later repaired put back into service.
So no harm, no foul. A frightening event for for sure,
(14:04):
but not a fatal one and as as we know,
UM there weren't deaths involved there. There was no fatality crash,
but still for many people that would be more than
enough to put you off of put you off a boat,
to make you a land lubber. For life. This was
not the case with Violet. A few years later, the
(14:28):
White Star Line was looking for a crew to uh
to serve the very important people aboard their premiership, the
jewel in their crown, a ship that they, along with
all the media by the way, called unsinkable, and that
ship was the Titanic. Violet didn't really want to join
(14:50):
the Titanic, but her friends were talking to her and
they were like, you know, Violet, this is gonna be
a wonderful experience. Is one of the kind ship. It's unsinkable.
Bo bo bo bo boo. Her friends spoke with echoes
and the really dramatic parts. Uh So she said, all right,
I'm gonna I'm gonna join up. It was a big deal.
It was an event. You know. It was sort of
(15:12):
like the Boeing Dreamliner or something of the time. You know,
a lot of fuss being made out of this technological marvel.
Everyone who was anyone was going to be on the
maiden voyage. It was absolutely a cultural event. And her
friends are probably like, you gotta be a part of this.
It's a big deal. You're gonna see so many famous people.
It's going to be part of history. You do not
(15:34):
want to pass this up, So she didn't really care.
I don't think it didn't seem like from her history, uh,
to be super drawn to any of this glitz and glamour.
She just wanted to work right. Yeah, And we have
we have a little bit of firsthand reporting from her
via her memoirs, and we know that she was initially happy.
(15:59):
I see, in no small part she was surprised by
the nature of her life on the ship. She loved
that the designer, Thomas Andrews, appeared to have paid attention
to the cruise request for better quarters. She said. Often
during our rounds we came upon our beloved designer going
about unobtrusively with a tired face but satisfied air. He
(16:22):
never failed to stop for a cheerful word, his only
regret being that we were getting further from home. We
all knew the love that he had for that Irish
home of his, and suspected that he loaned to get
back to the piece of its atmosphere for a much
needed rest and to forget ship designing for a while.
And she also, you know, we learned about her day
to day on the on the Titanic Um she claims
(16:45):
to be friends with notable characters who were on the
boat at the same time. We even know some stuff
about her roommate. We know that she found solace in
walking around on deck at night, taking a little I
guess nightcap walk to get some of that fresh air.
(17:05):
And then we know something a little bit I would
say ominous. Her roommate brought along a copy of a
translated Hebrew prayer that she said an elderly Irish woman
had given her, and it was strangely worded as nearest
she in. Her roommate, Elizabeth Leather could tell it was
(17:27):
supposed to protect her against fire and water. We should
mention at this point Violet was a devout Catholic. She
carried rosary in her apron she you know, she was
a person given to praying as as she deemed it necessary.
Which brings us to the night of that fateful collision
April of nineteen twelve, when Violet was kind of dozing
(17:52):
off in her bunk. She claims to have not been
fully asleep, but kind of just in a drowsy state.
Um when that collision and with an iceberg took place. Yeah, yeah,
she is ordered up on deck. She says. Passengers are
strolling out calmly. She and her co workers watch watch
(18:14):
the women and children being put into life boats, and
then a ship's officer orders them into a boat, um first,
just to show some funeral passengers it's safe. And then
as the boat is being lowered, she recalls this officer
in question says, here, miss jessup, look after this baby
and just hands him a baby. I don't want to
(18:35):
be that's a that's a very intense situation to be in. Yeah,
And the quote from her actually describes it even more intense.
It says, and a bundle was dropped onto my lap.
That implies I guess the boat was being lowered down
and somebody just dropped a baby off the edge of
the ship into the lifeboat, which would have been a
little way as beneath. I mean, good thing. He caught it, Violet.
Good catch. So they survive. They're only in the boat
(18:59):
for about eight horrifying hours before they and other survivors
are picked up by the Carpathia into Her life was
saved entirely because that officer asked her to get in
a lifeboat. Because there were other passengers who didn't speak
English and couldn't communicate very well, and seeing her get
in the lifeboat would persuade the other people to to
(19:24):
follow her example. So when they were rescued by the Carpathia,
the person that Jessup thought might be the baby's mother
found Violet Jessup and took the baby away, literally grabbed
it out of her arms and ran off. She says,
I was still clutching the baby against my hard cork
(19:45):
life belt I was wearing when a woman leaped at
me and grabbed the baby rushed off with it. It
appeared that she put it down on the deck of
the Titanic while she went off to fetch something. When
she came back, the baby had gone. I was too
frozen and numb to think. It's strange that this woman
had not stopped to say thank you. And we also
don't know if that was really the baby's mother or
if it was just, uh, somebody who had put a
(20:09):
child down earlier and just grabbed a baby because they
thought it was there. Totally, I mean, this would have
been like absolutely, you know mayhem um, so right, she
definitely survived her second pretty catastrophic um ship collision. Yeah,
So again, you would think most other people. I don't
(20:30):
want to pay with the broad brush, but I feel
comfortable saying this. Most other people after Big shipwreck number
two would probably say, I don't know, maybe I'll maybe
I'll get into uh, you know, like gardening, or maybe
I will become an interior designer. One would think, Um,
there's a Gizmoto article about Jessup that has a pretty
(20:51):
interesting almost when you read it makes it seem a
little flippant where she says it was only after a
little while passed after the wreck that she real she
had left her toothbrush on board, and then she was
she was a little upset about that. That's a that's
an odd thing to worry about. I mean, that's how
shock happens. Though, if you if you have ever been
in catastrophic situations or seeing people in shock, it's it's
(21:15):
easy to find one specific thing and worry about just that.
And it doesn't have to even be a traumatic, physically
dangerous situation. You can see people freak out at social
events like weddings, you know, or or or funerals. Um,
it's it's a it's a fascinating thing about psychology. And
(21:36):
although many people lost their lives and Violet Jessup tragically
lost her toothbrush. She found another, and she said, you
know what, maybe the sea got me last time, but
I didn't sink, and I'm not gonna let my career
sink either. So as we're in the lead up to
World War One, she says, I'm going to serve as
a nurse on board the Britannic, which was a sister
(22:00):
of the Titanic, operating the G and C. And the
Britannic was a white star liner that had been converted
to a hospital ship during World War One. It's so
interesting that she would not only continue working on ships,
(22:22):
but work with the same company. Uh. Maybe it was
like not fully realized right away what an absolute catastrophic
failing the sinking of the Titanic was, you know that
it was. I don't know what what was the post
mortem for the Titanic. Wasn't there a flaw in the
design because they had this whole like these compartments that
(22:45):
kept filling up with water. Wasn't there something more to
it than? I mean, like it was. It's also a
lot of human error, human error, that's right. I think
it was more human error than it was the design
was a pretty decent one, but it just failed miserably
because of the extent to which the ship was just
like breached, right, the whole was breached by that very
pointy iceberg. Um. So yeah, she not only did she
(23:06):
stay working for the same company, she goes aboard the
sister ship of the ship that just sank in an
absurdly traumatic fashion. Um. But she seems like a really
good person because she's very much just wants to help.
Like she decides she's going to become a nurse and
put any of these, uh, these fears aside so that
she can, you know, get back to work and help people. Uh.
(23:28):
And that's when in nineteen sixteen, the Britannic hit a
mine that had been planted by one of those infamous
German U boats um that were so tricky with their
kind of covert operations out there in the oceans. Um.
And it was damaged pretty significantly and started to sink
(23:50):
and violate. Uh. This time wasn't quite as lucky as
she was when she was on the Titanic. She didn't
get a spot on one of those lifeboats, did she? No, no,
not at all. We shallso did did we? Did we
mention how long the boat was in action the britic No,
it was less than an hour. It was it was
a hospital ship to World War one for about fifty
(24:12):
five minutes. Uh at least in this in this iteration,
and you're right, Noll. Violet did not get on a lifeboat.
She jumped overboard. She almost got sucked into the propellers,
which would spell certain death. They were sticking up out
of the water, they were still running. She hit her
head on the ship's keel, and she probably would have died.
(24:35):
This was one of her most extreme shipwrecks. However, as
luck would have a passengers of a nearby lifeboat saw
her body and were able to pull her in. We
have her own words about this experience. She says, I
leapt into the water, but was sucked under the ship's keel,
which struck my head. I escaped, but years later when
(24:57):
I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches,
he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull.
And and she even kind of joked that the only
reason she survived was because she had a very thick
head of hair, which she characterized as having um kind
of helped soften the blow a bit, but she wouldn't
(25:19):
know for years that she actually fractured her skull hitting
her head there. And there's a Mental Floss article about
the Unsinkable Violet jessup Um that mentions something that she
has said in an interview um where when she um
abandoned the Titanic and she was so concerned about missing
her toothbrush. With this one, she really was a big
(25:40):
stickler for oral hygiene. It would seem because she grabbed
her toothbrush on the rapidly sinking Britannic. Um, I'm assuming
clutching it in her fist. Do you think do you
think she made it? Do you think she do you
think it like I like to think of her pirate
style with it in between her teeth like a like
a knife. But she probably grabbed it or put it
(26:00):
in a pocket or something. But yeah, you know, you
if he can say anything about Violet jessif it's that
she got her priorities straight. And also imagine if you're
a fervently religious person, a devoutly religious person, then this
feels like proof of a higher power. Right, It's the
third shipwreck that you've survived. The odds are against you, right,
(26:24):
And you know, we talked about the top of the show,
this idea of her being really really lucky. You could
say that you could also say that she wasn't particularly lucky.
She was in three shipwrecks. She did survive, but almost
like you know, bad luck kind of followed her and
she luckily was able to kind of dodge the blow.
Um it's it's a glass half full is but this
(26:48):
was finally, um reason enough for her to seek alternate employment,
but still in the ship business. She left the White
Star line. She went to the Red Star Line. She
did she worked as an attendant on cruises. Still seems
to be tempting star right. Well, I guess after your
(27:09):
three shipwreck you decide you're going to change at least
the color. Luckily, she was never involved in a shipwreck
of catastrophic sort again. After World War Two, she worked
as a clerk for a while, but then she went
back to working on Royal male ships for a while,
and then when she retired at the age of sixty one,
she spent her time gardening and raising chickens. Uh. We
(27:33):
do know that she got married once in her late thirties,
but all we know about the marriage is that she
described it as brief and disastrous. She did a lot
of interviews. She was interviewed for Woman magazine when the
film A Night to Remember was released in nineteen fifty eight,
and her home was filled with mementos of her time
(27:55):
at sea. Yeah, and you don't really think of the
world looking for a ship attendance. I don't want to
use stewarts. We said that was a bad one on
the top, but I guess at the time that was
what they were called. You don't really think of stewardesses
in these days writing very noteworthy memoirs. But if you
think about it, Um she had a complete insiders perspective
(28:16):
on the Titanic and everything that took place. In fact,
some people think that the character of Lucy in the
John Cameron Titanic film was based on on jessup Um.
She also had just I mean, you know that being
in that position on all of these different ships is
pretty interesting from a historical perspective, just to talk about
(28:37):
the way things happened, not to mention some pretty significant
maritime disasters. So she wrote a memoir Um very soon
after retiring at the age of sixty three, and she
wrote quite well by all accounts, um it was very
articulate and was able to really give a look at
life at sea from that vantage point and saw a
(28:59):
lot out of things that the average passenger or the
captain wouldn't see, because a cabin attendant moves through all
the hierarchies of the ship and is familiar with everything
before the curtain and behind it. So we get a
little bit of a of a downton abbey vibe, you know,
where they have the downstairs people in the upstairs people.
(29:22):
And here our tail draws to a close. Is Violet
just up the only person to survive multiple shipwrecks? Absolutely not.
Is she one of the most well known people to
survive multiple shipwrecks? Absolutely But this made us think off
air about other strange, you know, close brushes with death,
(29:44):
like the people, Uh I think, Casey, you may have
mentioned earlier people getting struck by lightning multiple times. That happens. Yeah,
there's been a few, uh well known cases I guess
of that happening. And no, contrary to what uh certain
films may have you believe, it does not give you superpowers.
I'm also thinking what would be the weirdest vehicle to
(30:05):
wrect Maybe a blimp nowadays, that'd be a weird one
to wreck. Well, yeah, I mean we've got the Hindenburg.
That's so it's been done. It's been done. Maybe. Yeah,
I've already got the bird scooter thing on. Yeah, you've
got that one hot air balloon maybe, But I feel
like those sort of wreck anyway. Do you guys remember
(30:26):
balloon boy? Whose balloon Boy? It was a fake story,
but it was reported as real for a while that
there's some kid who like got into a hot air
balloon and it took off without his parents, and so
they were like, we gotta get the kid down. And
you know, there's like news cameras following this hot air
balloon just floating around, and uh turns out the family
was in on it. The kid was hiding at home,
(30:47):
and uh they just did it for like reality show
publicity kind of stuff. Wow, terrible parents. Uh okay, well,
let let us know what what vehicle we should try
to be involved. I don't that sounds weird when I
say it that way. Oh, A Chrono blonds, you know
about those? They're these weird half boat half plane things.
(31:08):
E k R A n O plan. Look it up
when you have time. Folks. It's it's very strange. I've
always wanted to to be in one, and if I
were driving or piloting, I would probably wreck it. But
this concludes our story. We know that everybody has had
these close brushes with disaster and it can it can
(31:30):
fundamentally alter your worldview. But how would you feel after
shipwrecked number one? How would you feel about shipwrecked number two? Great?
About either? Right? Right? And I think, uh, here in
the studio, at least the three of us are pretty
unanimous that at least after shipwrecked number two, we would
give some serious consideration to staying on land. But you know,
(31:54):
three people, that's a small sample size. Give us your thoughts.
We would love to hear from you. You can finds
on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook, you can
find us on Twitter. We especially love to recommend our
community page Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. Yeah, how you do
have have to invoke one or both or uh the
three of our names and you're in like Flynn, or
(32:15):
just say something, make make any of us laugh, or
just make a make a silly reference to a topic
on this show, just to let us know that You're
not Russian Bach. You can also find us in our
poisonal lives on on the internet. I am at Ben
Bullen on Instagram and I'm at Ben Bullin hs W
on Twitter. You can find me exclusively on Instagram at
(32:36):
how Now Noel Brown. Huge thanks to our super producer
Casey Pegram, Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Research associate
Extraordinary Gabe Big, Big thanks of course to Christopher Hasiotis.
Big thanks also to Eve's Jeff Coat and Jonathan Strickland,
a k a. The Quister, who shall be returning soon.
(32:56):
I do also want to say is you know the
three of us travel quite frequently, and I'm a person
who travels all the time. I want to say thank
you so much to everyone who works in the travel industry,
whether you are moving goods from one place to another
for people, whether you are working as a flight or
(33:18):
cabin attendant, which I could never do, whether you are
a pilot so on, thank you, thank you very much.
And I do want to say for everybody who is
traveling as a passenger, whether on a plane, train, or
a boat or an automobile, uh please please just behave yourselves.
(33:39):
People get crazy in planes. We should do something about
that at some point, as an episode or as a society. Absolutely, Ben,
have you ever seen the film Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Yeah,
I recently watched it for the first time and which
found it heartwarming, funny and and just an all around delight.
How about you. Oh yeah, that's a that's a great
monologue that we can't quote here. Yeah, there's there's one
(34:01):
scene that makes it an R rated movie. It is
a a very soft PG thirteen prior to this one
scene where uh, Steve Martin um goes ham on a
rental car attendance. Uh. And it's it's one of the
best uses of the F word I have seen in
a film because it actually they earn it, and it's
(34:22):
definitely for shock value because you don't get anything like that.
But he has worked his way up to being this
enraged and it absolutely does feel earned. Also, Steve Martin
is an amazing banjo player, one of the best, one
of the best. It's a true story. You see you
next time, folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
(34:49):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Noel Brown
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