The following year, she joined the crew of their newest ship, the Titanic. Violet was asleep when Titanic hit the iceberg. She spoke of the chaos as the male passengers and crew were doing everything they could to get women and children on the rescue boats. Violet was handed a baby as she boarded the lifeboat as no one knew who the baby belonged to. After being rescued by the ship Carpathia, the baby was reunited with its mother.
During the First World War, Violet served as a nurse with the British Red Cross. Incredibly, she was aboard the Britannic, which had been converted into a hospital ship, when it struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. As the Britannic was quickly going down, she was forced to jump. “I leapt into the water but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head.” She attributed her survival to her thick auburn hair that padded the blow.
At the war’s end, Violet rejoined the White Star Line and again served aboard the Olympic. This amazing, Christian woman, survived 42 years at sea, three historic shipwrecks, and two world wars. Violet retired in Suffolk, England, where she tended her beloved garden until she died of congestive heart failure at the age of 84. What a tough woman! The U.S. Navy would've loved having someone like Violet serving.