Aboard Titanic
Lillian, her parents and 4 brothers boarded the Titanic at Southampton, England on April 10, 1912 as third-class passengers. Lillian was five years old at the time and recalled that the Titanic "was very big, and it had just been painted. I remember not liking the smell of fresh paint."
When the Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 pm on the night of April 14, 1912, Lillian's father woke his sleeping family and then put all important papers, including cash, into his pocket. Lillian, her mother and brother, Felix, were loaded into Lifeboat No. 15. Lillian later recalled, "my mother said she would rather stay with him and go down with the ship, but he said the children should not be alone. had Felix on her lap and she had me between her knees. I think she thought she could keep me a little warmer that way." She later described the ship sinking as a big building going down.
Lillian, her mother and brother were rescued by the RMS Carpathia, which had arrived at the scene shortly after four o'clock in the morning. Lillian and her brother were loaded into burlap bags and hoisted to the Carpathia's deck. Once on the Carpathia, Lillian remembered:
A woman took all my clothes off me. My clothes had gotten very dirty and wet in the lifeboat. My mother was trying to find me. She was saying, 'I have a daughter!' Well, she found me. And eventually my clothes were dry, and I put them back on. They took us, the children, to the place where they take people who are sick. Well, not sick, but people who needed a little more attention. The people on the Carpathia were very good to us."
The Carpathia arrived in New York City, New York on April 18 and Lillian's mother took her and her brother to Worcester shortly thereafter. Lillian's father and brothers, Filip, Clarence and Carl, perished on the sinking. Only her father's body was recovered and was later buried in a Worcester cemetery.
In the confusion after the disaster, a Worcester newspaper reported that both Mr. and Mrs. Asplund had been saved, along with Clarence, Lillian and Felix, and that Filip and Carl had drowned. A later report said that Selma and her "two babies" had been taken to a local hospital, and that Mr. Asplund and Clarence were apparently at another location. A final report confirmed that neither Carl, Sr. nor Clarence were among the survivors.
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