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Jul 08, 2023

Artifact Unveiling Today at Titanic Museum Attraction

Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 6:58 AM

Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 6:58 AM

By Scott McCaulley @smcckc

A very special piece of history will be put on display for the first time today at Branson's Titanic Museum Attraction.

A pair of shoes worn by Louise Gretchen Kink, who was just four years old when she boarded Titanic in 1912, will be added to the Children's Display. Louise's daughter, Joan Marie Pope Randall, will be on hand for a special unveiling of the display this morning from 10:00 until 12:00 along with some other family members.

More information on the display and the Year of the Children Event at Titanic can be found with the full release below:

The Titanic Museum Attraction welcomes Joan Marie Pope Randall, one of only a handful of remaining direct descendants of survivors of the RMS Titanic. (This means that Ms. Randall is the first generation of one of the Titanic's 712 survivors. There are many grandchildren and great-grandchildren who can trace their ancestry to those survivors, but only a few living children of survivors.) Ms. Randall, who hails from Wisconsin but now lives in Sacramento, California, is the youngest of four children of a Titanic survivor. She will be in Branson to watch as her mother's shoes – worn on the night of April 14 and 15, 1912 – are put on display as part of a special tribute to the 135 children who were aboard the Titanic for its fateful sailing. Randall's son and grandson will also be present for the event. Louise (also spelled "Luise") Gretchen Kink was just 4 years old when she boarded the ship, a Third Class passenger who accompanied her parents, Anton and Louise Kink, and Anton's brother, Vincenz, and sister, Maria. Though Anton was Austrian and Louise was German, the extended Kink family had been living in Zurich, Switzerland, and was finally making its way to the United States in pursuit of a new life. Little Louise and her parents survived, but Vincenz and Maria perished … making the Kinks the embodiment of the story of the Titanic: A ship filled with families searching for a better existence, risking everything, enduring one of the most dramatic travel experiences in history, and suffering incredible loss as a result. Louise, her mother and her Aunt Maria were housed in the women's section in the stern; her father and Uncle Vincenz were in the men's section in the bow. When the alarms sounded, the women dressed and tied Louise's shoes securely to her feet. They also had the foresight to wrap young Louise in a blanket that was blazoned with the White Star Line logo. The men made their way from the bow to the stern to connect with the women, and Louise's father pushed her mother up through the ship and onto the boat deck. Louise and her parents made it to Lifeboat 2, but in the chaos they were separated from Vincenz and Maria. Louise didn't remember the events of that night, but she kept the shoes and blanket in a cedar chest that stood in the corner of her dining room until she passed away in 1992. Now those artifacts are part of a collection of treasures that share the stories of the 135 passengers and crew members who were age 15 or younger when the Titanic set sail. These and dozens of other artifacts are on display during this special "Year of the Titanic Children," as a way of sharing very personal stories that demonstrate the lengths families went to in their attempts to protect their next generation. Of the 135 young passengers, the ultimate outcome was evenly split: 67 survived, 68 perished.

An especially compelling story is represented by a simple thermos flask, which Edwy Arthur West retrieved from his family's flooded cabin and shimmied down a rope to hand off to his wife, Ada, who was already aboard a lifeboat. He wanted to be sure their baby, Barbara, had warm milk that night. And then he pulled himself back up that rope, adhering to the crew's orders that he leave spots in the lifeboat for women and children. Ada, Barbara and Barbara's sister Constance survived, but that was the last they ever saw of Edwy. Upon arrival in the United States, Ada took her daughters straight back to England, where they tried to escape the horror they had endured and where that thermos remained prominently displayed on their fireplace mantel … forever a reminder of the sacrifice Edwy made for his girls.

This is the largest display of Titanic children's artifacts ever assembled, with a similar exhibition of separate artifacts relating to other stories about children also currently on display at the Titanic Museum Attraction's sister property in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. When guests arrive at either location, they’ll be issued a "boarding pass" with the name of one of the children who was aboard the Titanic. At the end of their museum journey, they’ll learn the fate of "their" assigned child, ensuring that the stories of all 135 young passengers and crew members are remembered.

Honoring the memories of all those aboard is at the core of what museum President and Co-owner Mary Kellogg and her husband, John Joslyn, envisioned when they opened the Branson attraction in 2006. Joslyn had produced a major network television special about the Titanic expedition, where he and his team did 33 dives to the wreck site, and he was compelled to share the stories of the passengers and crew, not just the ship. That human focus is what makes the Titanic Museum Attraction one of the most visited sites in both Branson and Pigeon Forge, and rotating exhibits such as this are among the reasons visitors return again and again.

In honor of this special exhibit, the Titanic Museum Attraction has forged a partnership with Samaritan's Feet International, a humanitarian organization that gifts shoes to people in need around the world. The museum's crew members are working with Boys & Girls Clubs across the country to provide shoes to children in need, as a reminder that caring for the next generation can help pave the path to incredible futures.