April 14 marks the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic sinking, an anniversary University of Alabama graduate Julie Williams has an intimate family knowledge of.
Williams spoke to an assembly of more than forty students and faculty members in Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library on Wednesday about her latest book, “A Rare Titanic Family.” A miraculous tale of survival, “A Rare Titanic Family” tells the story of Williams’ great uncle, Albert Caldwell, who survived the notorious shipwreck.
Only one out of every four families who boarded the Titanic stayed together during the ship’s sinking, a group Caldwell, his first wife Sylvia and their son Alden were very lucky to be a part of.
Thanks to his chance friendship with a group of men who worked in the engine room of the Titanic, Caldwell was able to find refuge on a lifeboat and escape the tragic sinking of the ship without so much as having to touch the frigid waters where so many of his shipmates lost their lives.
“He was such a happy person,” Williams said. “Always so joyous and so jolly. He had a second chance at life when he was 26, and he took it.”
As if surviving the shipwreck with his family still intact wasn’t rare enough, the journey that brought Caldwell and his young family from the heartland of the United States to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean more closely resembles a Hollywood movie than the story of the Titanic itself.
After fleeing Bangkok, Siam from the Presbyterian Church, Caldwell traveled from southeast Asia to central Europe in a desperate attempt to preserve the health of his wife and infant son.
At first, the family intended to sail back to the United States aboard the RMS Carpathia, the same ship that would eventually rescue them after the shipwreck, but when Caldwell found an advertisement for the Titanic, they decided to make the journey home in luxury and style.
The Caldwells traveled through Italy, up into France and, eventually, to Great Britain, where they would board the same ship that a baggage handler famously told Sylvia that not even God could sink.
Williams served as president of the American Journalism Historians Association from 2008 to 2009, has had several of her academic and historical texts published and currently teaches journalism and mass communications on a part-time basis at Samford University in Birmingham.
She will speak again about the story of her great uncle, leading up to the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, including a speaking engagement at the United States National Archive on April 13.
The book is available now in the University Supply Store or online.
