Louise never married, and neither did Simone, both haunted by the memory of their savior, unable to overcome the loss. Louise will not often speak of it, but deep in her soul, she believes that no tenderness will ever equal that of her loving father.
Claude Carrer, the Mayor’s representative, turns toward Louise and highlights in a few simple and touching words the life of this woman, one “that dramatically changed in Cherbourg.” In a short speech, hiding once again behind the collective suffering of her family to avoid talking about her own pain, eighty-six-year-old Louise confides that they’ve all been left with terrible emotional scars. Her mother had the hardest time talking about the tragedy, and the atrocious images of that night remained with her until she died. “For example,” Louise says as she stares at the headstone erected in front of her, “my mother raised us with an obsessive fear of travels.”
This explains why she didn’t attend the reunion organized in Boston by the Titanic Historical Society27. The Society did not take offense at Louise’s absence. Incidentally, the president and founder, historian Edward Kamuda28, is here at the Cherbourg tribute. He’s heading a delegation of twelve members of the Society who, like him, traveled from the United States for the occasion.
For Carrer and for all the other people surrounding Louise, the Cherbourg tribute is important because only eight survivors of the Titanic remain in the world—two of them in France—to bear witness to the catastrophe. In the Laroche family, only Louise is still alive. Her sister, Simone, passed away in 1973. Their mother died in 1980.
The only other French survivor who is still alive is not present on this day. His name is Michel Navratil29. He was three and a half years old at the time of the tragedy, almost the same age as Simone Laroche. He was also traveling in second class with his father and his younger brother Edmond, two years old.
Michel and Edmond Navratil’s father had boarded the Titanic under a false name. He had kidnapped his two sons from their mother, whom he was divorcing. After his death in the sinking, the two brothers became “orphans” in New York because no family came to claim them. The international media was immediately enraptured by the mystery surrounding these children. Who were they? Where were they from? Who were their parents? A daily newspaper in Quebec speculated that they were the children of… Joseph Laroche, going as far as masculinizing the names of the two biracial girls to assign them to the two white boys. On April 22, 1912, La Patrie30 called the boys Louis and Simon. “New York authorities believe that Mr. and Mrs. Laroche might have been French, or maybe Canadian-French,” the reporter wrote, “as they have been unable to gain information from the two boys who do not even know their last name.”
Eventually, Michel and Edmond Navratil’s mother, who lived in Nice, recognized her children from a picture published in the papers. On May 8, 1912, she embarked from Cherbourg to get them and bring them back home.
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The Navratil boys had met the Laroche girls on the Titanic. But Michel and Louise had not seen each other again since the tragedy. He lived in Montpellier, and she lived in Villejuif. It was not until July 2005, six years after the Cherbourg tribute, that they met again in Paris with another survivor, the English nonagenarian Millvina Dean.31
RMS Carpathia carrying rescued Titanic passengers and Titanic’s lifeboats.
RMS Carpathia was a Cunard Line transatlantic passenger steamship built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. On her maiden voyage in 1903, Carpathia traveled from Liverpool to Boston. In April 1912, Carpathia became famous for her role in the rescue efforts following the sinking of the Titanic, a dangerous rescue mission that involved traveling through treacherous ice fields. Carpathia arrived within two hours of the Titanic’s sinking and rescued 705 of its survivors from lifeboats. On July 17, 1918, RMS Carpathia sank off the southern coast of Ireland after being torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-55.
“Icebergs loomed up and fell astern and we never slackened. It was an anxious time with the Titanic’s fateful experience very close in our minds. There were 700 souls on Carpathia and those lives as well as the survivors of the Titanic herself depended on the sudden turn of the wheel.”
—Captain Arthur H. Rostron, Commander of Carpathia
“Then creeping over the edge of the sea we saw a single light and presently a second below it. It seemed almost too good to be true and I think everyone’s eyes were filled with tears, men’s as well as women’s. All around us we heard shouts and cheers.”
—Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivor
Survivors of the Titanic aboard the Carpathia, April 1912. Many were grieving widows mourning their husbands who’d gone down with the ship.
“When day broke, I saw the ice I had steamed through during the night. I shuddered, and could only think that some other hand than mine was on that helm during the night.”
—Captain Arthur H. Rostron, Commander of Carpathia
Survivors of the sinking of the Titanic,
Michel and Edmond Navratil, of Nice (France) sit on their mother’s lap in 1912.
Michel Navratil Jr.
At three-and-a-half years old, Michel Navratil Jr. (1908-2001) was on board the Titanic after he and his brother Edmond were kidnapped by their father. According to Encyclopedia Titanica, on the night of the sinking, when their father brought Michel and Edmond to the deck, Second Officer Charles Lightoller had ordered a locked-arms circle of crew members around Collapsible D (the last and ninth lifeboat lowered on the port side) so that only women and children could get through. Navratil Sr. handed the boys through the ring of men, and reportedly gave Michel Jr. a final message: “My child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us, so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World.” When the boys were rescued, the international media was enraptured by the mystery surrounding them. Finally, their mother, who lived in Nice, recognized them from the papers and embarked from Cherbourg-Octeville to bring them back home. Six years after the Cherbourg tribute, the Navratil boys and Louise Laroche met again in Paris with another survivor, an English nonagenarian named Millvina Dean.
That day, Louise boarded the Nomadic once again. It was still in service, still in good shape. It was anchored at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Under the glare of the cameras and photographers invited for the event, she spent a long time on the ferry that had carried her to the Titanic with her family. All together, the attendees toured the Nomadic, traveling from one deck to another, and everyone took a souvenir shot on the very well-kept lower deck. Louise and Millvina posed together on one of the benches of the Nomadic, and the emotion was almost palpable. Olivier Mendez, who attended the memorial, was filled with emotion as the three children of the Titanic shared their experience. The reporters interviewed Louise for two hours, and Millvina granted them the same time, bringing back memories and high points in her life. Michel and Louise held hands the entire time.
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For a long time, Louise stayed away from tributes and commemorative events, to the point that others humorously nicknamed her “Mrs. Nyet,” borrowing the Russian word for “no,” because she categorically rejected any invitation to an event related to the Titanic. But, over the years, Louise had eventually come to accept her status as the ultimate survivor, and she finally took her role to heart, participating in this ceremony in Cherbourg and the unveiling of this headstone that commemorates Joseph Laroche, her father the hero, among the victims of the sinking.
“It