Episode Transcript
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0:02
You're listening to American Shadows,
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a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm
0:06
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Marie
0:25
and Charles welcomed their son Aunton
0:27
Joseph in eighteen fourteen, but
0:29
they called him Adolph. Marie
0:32
cared for the home and the children, while Charles
0:34
worked as a carpenter. His gift
0:36
for woodworking made him highly sought after
0:38
among wealthy Belgian clients. Oh
0:40
William the First, the reigning monarch of the Netherlands,
0:43
commissioned to Charles to make musical instruments
0:45
for the military. His father's work that
0:47
Adolph spent plenty of time around music.
0:50
He watched his father carefully shaped the
0:52
wood into fine instruments. Adolph's
0:55
love of this art and craft led
0:57
him to learn to play the clarinet and the flute.
1:00
As a teen, Adolph helped his father make improvements
1:02
to wind instruments. When he wasn't
1:04
studying music or watching his father, Adolf
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spent his youth doing one more thing, keeping
1:10
himself alive. The only thing
1:12
that overshadowed young Adolph's musical
1:14
talent was his ability to skirt
1:16
death. In his mother's words,
1:18
her son was condemned to misfortune.
1:21
When Adolf was just three, he tumbled
1:23
down three flights of stairs before his head
1:25
smartly met the stone floor. Reports
1:28
of his recovery vary from a week's bed rest
1:30
to a temporary coma. As many
1:33
a parent might commisserate. Toddlers
1:35
and young children sometimes eat things
1:37
that they shouldn't, and Adolf was no exception,
1:40
and not long after his fall, he swallowed
1:42
a large needle. Fortunately
1:45
it passed without incident. Miraculously,
1:48
he also survived after drinking a combination
1:50
of arsenic white, lead, and copper oxide.
1:53
All of this would be enough to age any parent,
1:55
but Adolph was just getting started. He
1:58
suffered from severe burns after falling
2:00
onto a hot stove. Although the
2:02
incident left him with scars on his side, he
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avoided infection. At ten, he
2:07
fell into a nearby river. A stranger
2:09
passing the mill saw him floating face down
2:11
and rescued him. On another occasion,
2:14
he was enjoying a walk down the street when
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a chunk of slate broke loose from a rooftop
2:18
and struck him in the head. He made a full
2:20
recovery. Adolf had one more
2:22
brush with debt. He happened to be in
2:25
his father's workshop when a container of gunpowder
2:27
ignited from a nearby flame. Though
2:29
the blast threw him across the workshop, Adolf
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survived. The fact that he lived to see
2:34
adulthood surprised everyone. He
2:36
followed in his father's footsteps in making musical
2:39
instruments, and Adolf presented nine
2:41
musical inventions for the eighteen forty Belgian
2:43
Exhibition. Due to his age,
2:45
the judges snubbed his submissions. He
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moved to Paris and entered another competition.
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He might have won, but someone destroyed
2:53
his new invention, the saxophone.
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Undaunted, he made another. In
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fact, he made six other variations
3:00
by eighteen forty six, including the sex
3:02
Traumba and in eighteen forty nine the
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sax tuba. If you've never heard of them,
3:06
it's because only the saxophone ever made him
3:09
any money. People either liked the saxophone
3:11
or hated it, and mostly the saxophone
3:14
found a following with the military, but
3:16
it wouldn't be until World War One, when U
3:18
S soldiers and the era of jazz and blues
3:20
made the saxophone famous. Sadly,
3:23
Adolph Sax's luck ran out.
3:26
He died in eighteen seventy decades
3:28
before his invention became popular. If
3:31
history has taught us anything about luck,
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it would be that sometimes it's fickle
3:36
other times, though it has a strange
3:38
sense of humor. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
3:41
Welcome to American Shadows. Nothing
3:52
sums up Timothy Dexter's life more
3:54
than the phrase it's smarter to be lucky
3:57
than it's lucky to be smart, a
3:59
light many others living in Ireland during
4:01
the seventeen hundreds. His parents immigrated
4:04
to the Americas in the hopes of escaping
4:06
British tyranny. England
4:08
had stripped them of their land, religion,
4:10
and culture, among other atrocities.
4:13
The Dexters settled in Malden, Massachusetts,
4:15
where Timothy was born in seventeen forty
4:18
seven. While the Irish
4:20
were still not wholly welcome in the colonies.
4:22
The family squeezed out of life as farmers,
4:25
and they considered themselves lucky. Other
4:27
Irish immigrants were forced into indentured
4:29
servitude with little hope of escaping, a
4:31
system that kept them subservient, and
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Dexter and his siblings attended school and
4:35
helped around the farm with the daily chores in the
4:38
house, field and barn. During
4:40
certain growing seasons, crops became more
4:42
important than schooling. The family
4:45
was poor, and to help keep them fed
4:47
and clothed, Dexter left school
4:49
at eight years old to find outside employment.
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He worked as a laborer for larger, more
4:54
profitable farms before eventually finding
4:57
an apprenticeship. Essentially,
4:59
family would send their sons to live with a tradesmen
5:01
who agreed to house, feed, and teach his young
5:04
apprentice say valuable trade in exchange
5:06
for free labor. Other times
5:08
the parents paid a small fee. Poor
5:11
farming children didn't have much schooling.
5:13
They were offered only the most basic education
5:16
in reading, writing, and some math. By
5:19
age nine, their schooling was considered
5:21
complete. College for boys
5:23
like Dexter was mostly limited to Latin
5:25
colleges, requiring them to train
5:27
as ministers of the Christian faith. Alternatively,
5:30
parents could opt to keep their sons at home
5:32
to learn their father's trade or find
5:35
them an apprenticeship. The colonies
5:37
were new and tradesmen and workers
5:39
were in short supply. A Dexter
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began his apprenticeship at a tannery to learn
5:44
how to make leather goods when he turned sixteen.
5:46
The job was far from glamorous. The
5:49
due to the smell of the animal hides. Tanneries
5:51
usually existed on the outskirts of towns.
5:54
The tanners used every type of animal skin,
5:56
from wild to domestic. The colonies
5:59
needed every amount norble leather product,
6:01
including shoes, boots, and hats,
6:03
as well as carriage tops, harnesses and saddles.
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Dexter's apprenticeship lasted for five
6:08
years. In seventeen sixty
6:10
eight, he opened his own shop and dreamed
6:12
of becoming wealthy. But as
6:14
good as his products might be, they would never
6:16
build the wealth he wanted. So he
6:19
did the next best thing. He married into
6:21
money. He met Elizabeth Frothingham,
6:24
a widow ten years his senior. She
6:26
had money, a home, and four children.
6:29
In seventeen sixty nine, he married Elizabeth
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while continuing his business selling gloves
6:34
and moose hide trousers. As
6:36
you might imagine, with his available inventory
6:39
and the British blockade of Boston Harbor,
6:41
Dexter mostly lived off his wife's fortune.
6:44
At first, Dexter hoped that his wife's social
6:46
status meant he would be invited to high
6:48
society functions. He was
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not. Many looked down on him.
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He came across as nothing more than a
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vain, poor, uneducated man
6:57
who had managed to marry his way into
7:00
money. The slights infuriated
7:02
Dexter, and he set out to prove
7:04
his equality and rightful place among
7:06
Boston's and Charles Town's elite.
7:09
Aside from making his own wealth, he
7:11
had two other options. He
7:13
could join the army and work his way through the
7:15
ranks, or run for public office.
7:18
He set his sights on an appointment in the town
7:20
of Malden, and if at
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first he didn't succeed, Dexter tried
7:25
again and again. He applied
7:27
and harassed council members so much
7:30
that at long last they relented.
7:32
They created a position just for him
7:35
informer of deer and
7:37
the appointment required him to track the deer
7:39
population in Malden, even though no
7:41
one had seen a deer in the town limits for nearly
7:44
twenty years. Some townsfolk
7:46
thought the position was ridiculous, but
7:48
Dexter was content he had achieved
7:50
his goal of having an official public office
7:52
appointment. Now all he needed
7:54
to gain social status was to make a lot
7:57
of money in the most unusual
7:59
way possible. During
8:08
the Revolutionary War, the British pound
8:10
had value, while the Continental dollar
8:13
was practically worthless. Congress
8:15
printed approximately two hundred and fifty
8:17
million in Continental dollars, but merchants
8:20
were reluctant to accept it with good
8:22
reason. They were worth pennies compared
8:24
to the British pound. Congress printed
8:27
more bills, causing the dollar to depreciate
8:29
even more. The value dropped so
8:31
drastically the colonists took to saying
8:33
that items of low value weren't worth a continental.
8:36
Congress paid the military with Continental dollars,
8:39
leaving most soldiers destitute after the
8:41
war, and John Hancock purchased some
8:43
of the bills from soldiers at full value to
8:45
help drive up the Continental's were the
8:47
good deed raised Hancock's popularity
8:50
inspired Dexter believed that if he purchased
8:52
more dollars than Hancock, kid finally
8:54
be accepted among societies elite. Dexter
8:57
went about it a little differently than Hancock.
9:00
He used his wife's money to buy the bills
9:02
for pennies on the dollar instead of full
9:04
value. A Dexter purchased so
9:07
many bills that he and his wife went bankrupt,
9:09
and townsfolks shook their heads and whispered
9:11
among themselves. The Dexter was an idiot
9:14
and had dragged his respectable wife down
9:16
with him. When the Colonies won
9:18
the war, a few things happened. They
9:20
signed the Constitution and throughout the
9:22
British tax and monetary systems,
9:25
the founding Fathers added a provision promising
9:27
to trade treasury bonds for continental dollars.
9:31
Suddenly Dexter was exceptionally
9:33
wealthy. Neighbors scratched their
9:35
heads. No one could argue that Dexter
9:37
was undoubtedly lucky, and
9:39
while none would ever call him intelligent,
9:42
some thought he might be shrewd, and
9:44
Dexter was delighted. Finally
9:46
his wealk would grant him a place among the powerful
9:49
and elite. It did not. He
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continued with his rude interruptions
9:53
and vulgar comments. Coupled with his
9:55
crude behavior, he remained an outcast,
9:58
feeling they just needed to warm up to him
10:01
a bit. Dexter continued being Dexter.
10:04
All he had to do, in his mind, was
10:06
hold on to the money and not go bankrupt
10:08
again. When things didn't
10:11
improve to his liking, he moved his family
10:13
to Newburyport. The problem wasn't
10:15
him, he insisted, The people in Boston
10:17
were just uptight and stuffy, Newburyport,
10:20
on the other hand, was nearly perfect,
10:22
a rich and poor intermingled. The town
10:25
was smaller than Boston, and Dexter felt
10:27
confident he would stand out. Immediately
10:30
after arriving, he bought ships
10:32
for his next venture, exporting
10:34
food. The residents in Newburyport
10:36
found Dexter as uncouth as those
10:39
in Boston had. The wealthy wondered
10:41
how someone is crude and illiterate. As Dexter
10:43
had become a millionaire, his personality
10:46
and business decisions made them speculate
10:48
about his mental stability. Dexter
10:50
claimed that the other wealthy merchants disliked him
10:52
because he was a rival. Still,
10:55
he wanted to become part of Newburyport's
10:57
upper society, so he took their
10:59
business advice to heart. He didn't realize
11:01
that they wanted to destroy his fortune so
11:03
that he would move out of Newburyport. One
11:06
businessman advised Dexter to get into
11:08
the bed warmer trade. Though the device
11:10
was popular in cold New England winters,
11:12
the businessman suggested Dexter sell it in
11:15
a new market the Caribbean.
11:17
Convinced he would make a tidy profit, Dexter
11:20
sent forty two bed warmers to the
11:22
Caribbean. Unsurprisingly, the
11:24
bedwarmers didn't sell oh
11:26
well, not as their intended use
11:28
anyway. The sugarcane industry
11:31
was huge in the Caribbean. The serrupy
11:33
sugarcane byproduct molasses, was
11:36
also wildly popular. Plantation
11:38
owners found the long handled bedwarmers
11:40
made perfect molasses ladles.
11:43
Soon plantation owners scrambled to
11:45
buy more bedwarmers. Dexter raised
11:48
the price by nearly eight percent and made
11:50
his second fortune. The joke the Newburyport
11:52
businessmen played had backfired,
11:55
but that didn't mean they were about to give up.
11:57
They urged him to expand into the coal
12:00
business, though much needed.
12:02
New England already had plenty of coal, especially
12:04
in the England mining town of Newcastle, and
12:07
still Dexter shipped coal to the town
12:09
as suggested. When his ships arrived
12:12
laden with coal, the miners were on stripe.
12:14
Residents bought the coal for a markup, making
12:17
Dexter even wealthier. The merchants
12:19
put their heads together to come up with something even
12:21
more outlandish. They had to do something
12:24
to run him out of town, and certainly
12:26
Dexter's luck couldn't hold forever.
12:36
While various advisers handed Dexter
12:38
some pretty outrageous business ideas.
12:40
A Dexter himself came up with a few so outlandish
12:43
that the townspeople were sure they would bankrupt
12:46
him. All they had to do was sit back
12:48
and watch. Dexter decided to send
12:50
gloves to Polynesia Again. His
12:52
idea worked. Portuguese traders
12:54
arrived and bought the gloves to sell in China.
12:57
For his next endeavor, Dexter traveled
12:59
back to Austin, where he purchased an
13:01
enormous quantity of whalebone.
13:04
This material isn't actually bone,
13:06
but rather the strong, flexible
13:08
filtering teeth of bailen whales.
13:11
A whalebone was used in corsets, toys,
13:13
and caller stays. He had purchased
13:16
enough that he controlled the market and set his own
13:18
price. Dexter raked in more
13:20
money, thinking wealth alone
13:22
would win over his wealthy neighbors, and
13:24
he bragged about buying bibles at wholesale
13:27
for less than half price. Then sent
13:29
the bibles to port cities. His captains
13:32
carried a poorly written note from Dexter,
13:34
complete with frequent misspellings. The
13:37
note stated that anyone who didn't have at least
13:39
one Bible in the house would go to hell. Of
13:42
course, he had plenty of bibles for sale to
13:44
help save their souls. Dexter
13:46
made another handsome profit, much to
13:48
the town's dismay, and yet
13:50
they swore his next scheme would surely
13:53
be his last. You see, Dexter
13:55
took it upon himself to reduce the town's
13:57
overpopulation of stray cat He
14:01
offered to buy the cats, and
14:03
of course people brought him plenty of strays.
14:05
Unsure what he planned to do with them,
14:08
Dexter sent them to the plantation owners in
14:10
the Caribbean. As it turned out, their
14:12
warehouses had a rodent problem, and they were
14:14
willing to pay a tidy sum for the cats.
14:17
With all his wealth, Dexter purchased a
14:19
mansion alongside some of the town's most
14:21
prominent families. While everyone
14:23
avoided him, they enjoyed the company
14:25
of his wife. This angered
14:27
Dexter. He became so jealous of
14:29
Elizabeth that he treated her poorly. He
14:32
had always been a heavy drinker, which was bad
14:34
enough, and now he started to ignore
14:36
her, calling her a ghost and pretending
14:39
as though she weren't a living, breathing
14:41
human being. He cheated on her more
14:43
than once. It's not clear if
14:45
he had affairs with married women are not but
14:48
at some point someone gave Dexter a serious
14:50
beating. He promptly sold
14:52
the mansion and bought a new home in a different
14:54
part of town. He didn't treat his
14:56
children much better than his wife. In
14:59
turn, his and Samuel became an
15:01
alcoholic as well. His daughter Nancy
15:03
made poor choices in men. She
15:05
married one who took to beating her, and she
15:08
returned home and she also began
15:10
drinking heavily. Still trying
15:12
to impress the town, Dexter furnished
15:15
his home with the largest and gaudiest objects.
15:18
He called his new home the Princely Chateau.
15:20
Forty statues, each costing two
15:22
thousand dollars, sat in the front yard.
15:25
Alongside statues of people like Washington
15:27
and Jefferson. Stood Dexter's
15:29
own statue at the base. The
15:32
inscription bragg that he was the greatest
15:34
philosopher in the Western world. Dexter
15:37
furnished his home with an impressive library,
15:39
though he never read a single book. He
15:42
collected a gallery of paintings to adorn
15:44
the walls. With the house and gardens
15:46
complete, Dexter awaited his wealthy
15:48
neighbor's lavish praise and attention. None
15:51
of that happened. Still rude
15:54
and obnoxious and unable to see the
15:56
real problem, he had alienated everyone,
15:58
including his wife and shul Drin. Determined
16:01
that his greatness would not be denied, Dexter
16:04
decided he'd find new friends, one's
16:06
equally as strange an outcast
16:09
as himself. One such
16:11
friend, a former teacher named John,
16:13
had come from a respectable family. John's
16:16
undoing had been to open his own school
16:18
to teach students on subjects in which he had
16:20
no formal training. His teachings
16:23
were so bizarre that John's family disowned
16:25
him. A Dexter found another friend
16:27
and Madam Hooper, a wealthy widow
16:30
turned fortune teller. Hooper offered
16:32
dexter astrology advice and took
16:34
her payment in tea. But even
16:36
his new friends couldn't fill Dexter's desire
16:39
to be loved and admired. If
16:41
no one else would give him compliments, he'd
16:43
pay them. Dexter hired
16:45
a twenty year old selling halibut from a wheelbarrow
16:48
to be his poet laureate. In Dexter
16:52
wrote and published A Pickle for the Knowing
16:54
Ones, a nonsensical book in
16:56
which he ranted about his wife, religion,
16:58
and politics. A Dexter could
17:00
barely read much less right. Complaints
17:03
about his spelling and grammar rolled in. To
17:05
solve the issue, Dexter printed an
17:08
extra page of commas in his next edition,
17:10
with a note telling the reader to put commas
17:12
wherever they liked. The book got plenty
17:14
of attention, though maybe not the way he
17:16
intended, since he had to give away
17:18
the copies. Still, Timothy
17:21
Dexter considered the book a success. He
17:23
managed to give away enough copies for eight
17:26
printings. Newberry
17:33
Port took solace the Dexter couldn't
17:35
do anything more ridiculous or absurd,
17:38
and they'd be wrong about that. Aside
17:41
from his bizarre behavior and business
17:43
dealings, Dexter had started to demand
17:45
Newburyport residents address him as
17:48
the Earl of Chester. When the demands
17:50
failed to produce results, Dexter took
17:52
to paying them in a pickle For the knowing
17:54
ones, Dexter wrote that he was the first Lord
17:57
of the United States, a titled bestowed
17:59
upon him by the Blick. He claimed the people
18:01
of America had spoken and he was helpless
18:03
to do anything other than allow them to grant
18:05
him the title. He paid children who called
18:08
him Lord Dexter a quarter. Adults
18:10
were paid with dinner and drinks. His gaudy
18:13
statues brought spectators to look at his
18:15
house. While Dexter might have
18:17
thought they appreciated his fine art, they
18:19
were more likely curious about the tawdry
18:22
outdoor museum in such a fancy
18:24
neighborhood, and Dexter continued to chase
18:26
after younger women. Drinking remained
18:28
a favorite pastime, and he often took
18:31
two walks while drunk, his little dog
18:33
walking beside him. And No one
18:35
lives forever, and Dexter began planning
18:38
for his eventual death. For
18:40
years, he worked at building a magnificent
18:42
tomb. Peep even arranged to the
18:44
funeral. Dexter wrote a will
18:46
making ample provisions for his family
18:48
and friends, though after
18:51
years of neglect and abuse, it took
18:53
bribery to convince his wife and children to
18:55
promise that they would show up at the funeral.
18:58
Dexter was fifty nine when the day he
19:00
had planned for finally came. Nearly
19:03
three thousand people turned up. Guests
19:05
greeted his widow and paid their respects.
19:08
Elizabeth accepted their well wishes politely
19:10
enough and occasionally laughed with a few
19:12
of the guests. Given Dexter's
19:14
treatment of her, none were surprised that
19:16
she never shed a tear. Well, everyone
19:19
except Dexter, who had planned
19:21
and faked the funeral. He
19:24
had wanted to see how everyone would react to
19:26
his death, especially friends who he
19:28
worried had remained at his company for the money.
19:31
Dexter got up from where he had been pretending
19:33
to lie in state. Furious,
19:36
he began to be rate and beat his wife
19:38
in front of the spectators for not properly
19:40
mourning him. His actual death
19:42
occurred shortly after the faith one. He
19:45
passed on October six of eighteen
19:47
o six. This time he
19:49
made provisions to leave his fortune to the poor,
19:52
in addition to the wife and children he had
19:54
treated so poorly. There
19:56
is no record of whether anyone attended
19:58
the second funeral. The mass
20:00
of tomb he had created was declared a hazard,
20:03
and his family laid him in a standard coffin
20:05
and had him buried in a small hillside cemetery.
20:08
No one visited, and no one maintained
20:11
the site. Grass eventually overtook
20:13
his grave. Dexter may
20:15
have been exceptionally lucky in business,
20:18
but was unsuccessful in the areas
20:20
he wanted the most love
20:23
and respect. There's
20:25
more to this story. Stick around after
20:28
this brief sponsored break to hear all about
20:30
it. Everyone
20:41
agreed that little Violet Jessip was
20:44
lucky. During the eighteen hundreds,
20:46
a diagnosis of tuberculosis generally
20:48
meant to death sentence. She was just
20:50
a child when the doctors delivered the news to
20:52
her parents a Violet would probably
20:55
die within a couple of months.
20:57
She surprised them though, beating the
20:59
odds and sir driving this highly
21:01
contagious and often fatal disease.
21:04
However, Violet's luck did not transfer
21:06
to her father. He did die,
21:09
leaving his wife and six remaining children
21:11
in a dire financial situation. The
21:14
family had immigrated from Ireland to Argentina,
21:17
where Joseph Jessup had worked as a sheep
21:19
farmer. Without a way to earn a
21:21
living, Katherine Jessop moved the family
21:23
to England and found employment aboard
21:26
ships as a stewardess. The
21:28
work took Catherine away for extended periods,
21:30
leaving Violet to care for her siblings. When
21:33
Katherine fell ill, Violet needed
21:35
to join the workforce to feed and care
21:37
for the family. She also applied
21:40
for jobs as a ship stewardess. She was
21:42
young and strikingly beautiful, which
21:44
promptly earned her rejection. After rejection,
21:47
employers shied away from hiring young
21:49
girls with extraordinary looks. In
21:51
their opinion, such beauty distracted the
21:54
crew and male passengers. Jobs
21:56
that paid enough for women to support a family were rare.
21:59
A viole, it had to get creative. She
22:02
wore clothes that made her look older and
22:04
reapplied, this time without wearing
22:06
makeup. Her creativity paid
22:08
off. Violet found work on the Orinoco
22:11
Royal Mail steamer. In night,
22:14
she found a better job with the White Star
22:16
Line, one of the largest ship companies
22:18
of the time. The ships carried
22:20
cargo and passengers, and Violet's
22:23
job was to cater to the wealthy passengers
22:25
every need. Additionally, she cleaned
22:27
cabins, arranged flowers, and ran errands
22:30
on the ship. The Violet proved
22:32
to be a reliable and hard worker and
22:34
was well liked by passengers and staff.
22:37
Although the White Star Line paid slightly
22:39
better, she earned every pound sterling.
22:42
She worked seventeen hours a day on ships
22:44
that frequently traveled rough seas and bad
22:46
weather to compete with other large
22:48
shipping companies, the White Star Line
22:51
launched three luxury ships, offering
22:53
wealthy passengers and experience and service
22:55
that rivaled the world's finest hotels
22:58
and resorts. A Violet worked on
23:00
all three ships that she had worked
23:02
on the first ship, the Olympic, for a year, and
23:05
everything ran smoothly until September
23:07
of nineteen eleven. As bad
23:09
luck would have it, the ship crossed paths
23:11
with the HMS Hawk, a combat
23:13
ship. Fortunately, the Olympic didn't
23:16
sink and no one was injured. It
23:18
limped back to port, where everyone disembarked.
23:22
The company offered her a job aboard second
23:24
ship, designed to cater to the world's most
23:26
elite. The Violet was hesitant.
23:29
A while American passengers treated her well,
23:31
rich Britons treated her poorly. The
23:34
job would be more prestigious, the company promised,
23:37
and the ship, though it had yet to sail, had
23:39
captured everyone's attention. Without
23:42
better prospects, Violet accepted.
23:44
She kept a journal and made notes on the passengers.
23:47
Some of the world's most wealthy and prominent
23:49
passengers had booked a trip, and many
23:52
were as pretentious and rude to the staff
23:54
as she had anticipated. Violet
23:57
had just returned to her bed when the Titanic
23:59
struck the Iceberg. The captain
24:01
ordered all the staff on deck. She stood
24:04
with the other stewardesses while staff loaded
24:06
children and women passengers onto
24:08
lifeboats. A ship officer ordered
24:10
Violet and a handful of other stewardesses onto
24:12
lifeboat number sixteen to show a
24:14
few of the remaining women that the boats were safe.
24:17
The officer called to Violet and handed her a small
24:19
bundle. Here, miss jessup, look
24:22
after this baby. The lifeboats
24:24
floated away from the sinking ship. They drifted
24:26
for eight hours until the crew aboard the Carpathia
24:29
rescued them. Violet still
24:31
clutched the infant close to her on the deck when
24:34
the mother grabbed the baby and ran off without
24:36
so much as a thank you. A Violet
24:38
returned to work aboard the newly repaired
24:40
Olympic until World War One broke
24:42
out in nineteen fourteen, when she served
24:45
as a nurse above the White Star Lines third
24:47
ship, the Britannic. The ship hit
24:49
a German mine in the Aegean Sea. Violet
24:52
been several shipmates made it to a lifeboat,
24:54
only to realize the sinking ship's propellers
24:56
were as surface level and pulling them
24:59
in. They abandoned the ship and
25:01
tried to swim away. Violet's
25:03
head struck the keel. Luckily,
25:05
someone on another boat pulled her to safety. Though
25:08
she did return to work as a stewardess,
25:11
Violet eventually decided to not press
25:13
her luck any further. She
25:15
found work on land, where she remained
25:18
until she died in at
25:20
the age of eighty four. American
25:27
Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.
25:30
This episode was written by Michelle Muto,
25:33
researched by Ali Steed, and produced
25:35
by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with
25:37
executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex
25:40
Williams, and Matt Frederick. To
25:42
learn more about the show, visit Grim and Mild
25:45
dot com. From more podcasts from
25:47
iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio
25:49
app, Apple Podcasts, or
25:51
wherever you get your podcasts.
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