The news of the tragic ending of the submersible that went to explore the Titanic wreckage and imploded on its way has reached every corner of the world. Five souls were lost to the tragedy and among them was OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush who was piloting the submersible.
Stockton Rush
The 61-year-old CEO of the firm, that conducted the failed expedition, founded OceanGate in 2009. After his death the New York Times has dug out a little unsettling coincidence. As per the archival records the newspaper saw, Rush’s wife, Wendy Rush, is the direct descendant of a couple who died on the Titanic back in 1912.
Wendy Rush’s great-great-grandparents, the famous Titanic couple
Wendy Rush’s great-great-grandparents, retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, were among the wealthiest people on the Titanic. Straus was a co-owner of Macy’s department store.
Titanic survivors recall Straus and Ida as the couple who stayed on board the Titanic by choice. Straus refused to take a seat on a lifeboat while the women and children were still waiting to escape. Ida too refused to leave without her husband. They were later seen standing on Titanic’s deck arm in arm as they sank with the ship.
In the blockbuster hit, 1997’s ‘Titanic’ movie, director James Cameron put in a scene inspired from the couple. The film showed an older rich couple locked in each other’s embrace in their bed as water filled their cabin. While Isidor Straus’ body was found at sea nearly two weeks after the ship sank, Ida Starus’s remains were never recovered, the New York Times reported.
How is Wendy Rush related to the couple?
Rush is a descendant of one of the couple’s daughters, Minnie, who married Dr Richard Weil in 1905 and had a son named Richard Weil Jr. He later served as the Macy’s New York’s President. His son, Dr Richard Weil III is Rush’s father, as per the executive director of the Straus Historical Society Joan Adler.
Isidor and Ida Straus were first-class passengers on the Titanic who were traveling back home to the US from their native place in Germany, as per the UK government’s National Archives. They were travelling with Ida’s “newly-appointed maid” Ellen Bird and Isidor’s “manservant” John Farthing. While Ellen Bird boarded a lifeboat and survived the disaster, Farthing was lost with the ship, records show.