Sonny Whitney’s Mom

A sentimental possession, a gold pocket watch recovered from the body of Isidor Straus, a wealthy Titanic passenger, fetched £1.78m at auction this past November. Mr. Straus and his wife Ida were returning from Europe and booked first class passage on the ill-fated White Star Liner.

Isidor and his brother Nathan were pioneering retailers operating the famous New York department stores Abraham & Straus and Macy’s. Isidor Straus also had represented New York State in Congress, where, as a merchant importer, he opposed reactionary tariffs in favor of lower prices for his consumers.

Isidor and Ida Straus were among the more than 1,500 fatalities incurred when the vessel, on its maiden voyage, struck an iceberg that fractured the Titanic’s hull on its way to New York in mid-April 1912.

Some survivors were able to relate the touching events of the open-ocean evacuation, where the 67-year-old Isidor refused a seat in a lifeboat, as women and children remained aboard the doomed liner. Ida Straus and her maid had already been seated. Rather than leave her husband to meet fate alone, Ida handed her fur coat to her maid in the lifeboat and re-boarded Titanic. The maid was rescued with all the other 705 survivors, by RMS Carpathia.

The floating body of Isidor Straus was recovered from the frigid Atlantic Ocean several days after the disaster, and one of the items used to identify his remains was an eighteen carat gold Jules Jurgensen pocket watch, inscribed with his initials and the date of the occasion of his forty-third birthday. This watch, which had been a gift from Ida in 1888, had stopped at 02:20 upon immersion with Titanic beneath the waves.

The watch was returned to the family and passed down until a great-grandson decided to dispossess himself of what might possibly be the most sentimental of any physical objects from Titanic.

Can there be a connection between the Straus timepiece and Saratoga Springs? I believe if you connect certain dots, there are some interesting aspects; enter Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

She was the daughter-in-law of William C. Whitney, a presence in business, politics and the riding community of Long Island, who brought keen sense with him when he purchased the Saratoga Race Course from Gottfried Walbaum.  ‘Dutch Fred’ had nearly ruined the track before selling it to Mr. Whitney in 1900, who along with his partners and competent management, revived racing.

Gertrude’s husband, Harry Payne Whitney, shared his father’s enthusiasm for horse sports, with the Whitney Stables breeding and racing many champions under their Eton blue with brown silks.

Many of Titanic’s victims would have been known to Harry and Gertrude Whitney, from equine competitions on Long Island and the annual August sojourn to Saratoga Springs. The Whitneys purchased a Saratoga residence, Cady Hill, in the geyser district, from the famed architect Samuel Adams Clark, which they had leased during August for several seasons prior.

As well-known as her spouse was a sportsman, Gertrude Whitney was equally recognized in the art world, not only as an artist herself, but also as a philanthropist and patron. She was selected to create the National Titanic Monument. Henry Bacon, the architect who planned the placement of the Spirit of Life sculpture in Congress Park, also designed the pedestal and exedra bench to support Mrs. Whitney’s creation in Washington, D.C.

In viewing the Titanic Monument created by Gertrude Whitney, it is difficult not to imagine James Cameron’s inspiration for his 1997 movie epic.