You just really can’t make this stuff up. Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was one of the five people who perished in the Titan submersible attempting to tour the Titanic wreckage, is actually the great-great granddaughter of a couple that died on the Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912.
Rush is the direct descendant of Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, both of whom perished along with more than 1,500 other people aboard the Titanic. Straus was the co-owner of the Macy’s department store, and also served as a U.S. congressman from 1894 to 1895.
You might also know of the couple from the 1997 Titanic film, during one of the more devastating sequences of the ship’s final moments. The couple also appears in the 1953 and 1958 films, along with the musical Titanic.
The story goes that Ida refused to get on to one of the lifeboats without her husband, electing to stay on the ship with him, saying, “I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die, together.” Titanic survivor Colonel Archibald Gracie IV was the main witness to these accounts, and did offer to ask officers if Isidor could board a lifeboat as well. Isidor refused, so long as women and children were still on board; the couple was last seen walking the deck arm in arm.
Isidor’s body was eventually recovered, while Ida’s was never found.
The Titan Submersible’s Unfortunate End
After a week of capturing the entire country’s attention, we learned the Titan submersible – which was riddled with design flaws that ultimately sealed its fate (the orcas had nothing to do with this one), not unlike the sunken ship it attempted to visit – likely imploded just hours into the voyage, evidenced by a noise the U.S. Navy picked up but didn’t initially make public (probably to protect its own assets – though Big Jim Cameron tracked the info down!).
Rush was joined by four other people onboard the submersible, including British businessman Hamish Harding, who broke the Guinness world record for the fastest flight around both the Earth’s poles in 2019, and also holds the Guinness world record for the longest duration at a full ocean depth by a crewed vessel and the longest distance traveled along the deepest part of the ocean.
The Titan sub also had onboard Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, along with Paul-Henri Nargeolet, known as “Mr. Titanic” for his vast knowledge of the ship. Nargeolet was also the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic Inc., an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the Titanic, and completed 37 dives to the Titanic shipwreck over the years, recovering 5,000 of its artifacts.
