A Season of Giving - Molly Brown Style
In April 1912, the Titanic steamship collided with an iceberg on its maiden voyage, and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Although accounts vary, about 1,492 souls lost their lives in the icy water that night, and about 866 survived.
One of the most famous and colorful personalities to achieve fame from that tragedy was a woman from Colorado, a socialite named Margaret Brown. Much later, she became known to the world as Molly Brown, when her story was adapted into a Broadway theatrical production. A few years later, her tale was made into a popular motion picture. More recently, her character emerged again in the Academy Award-winning dramatic motion picture, Titanic.
The real Margaret Brown was a woman of strong character and stronger opinions. She used the media to her advantage whenever possible. As she so aptly put it, “I don’t care what the newspapers say about me, as long as they say something.”
Regarding the Titanic disaster, she said the following in the Denver Times: “Please don’t say that I am a heroine. I did only the natural thing, and not the heroic. I was the most fortunate woman on the boat. Although I lost all my worldly possessions, I lost no dear ones and I was healthy, strong and self-possessed, so why shouldn’t I have helped those poor, suffering foreigners and victims of man’s greed?” (a reference to the ship’s excessive speed).
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